Who cares about democracy?: An experimental approach to public pressure and political attitudes towards the EU’s policy on democratic backsliding

The European Union has not been very active and effective when it comes to dealing with democratic backsliding in its member states. Many scholars of the EU would suggest that part of the union’s inaction is simply explainable by the lack of public accountability on anti-backsliding policies. Yet, so far it is unmeasured how EU citizens react to democratic backsliding in the EU, and therefore, if they can have strong-enough attitudes on the matter to create public pressure regarding the EU’s policy choices. We do know, that the EU public does have a broad preference for preserving democracy and the rule of law, but the extent to which these attitudes can create meaningful reactions given the EU’s complicated policy process remains unclear. In this paper, I explore the extent to which public pressure can be exercised by EU citizens about democratic backsliding in an EU policy context. I test important assumptions on the way citizens support the EU’s rule of law measures and see EU-level trade-offs negatively. Using a survey experiment in Germany I aim to see if citizens react to differential scenarios concerning democracy and the rule of law and EU policy trade-offs. I look at the extent to which public pressure about backsliding can be meaningfully exercised by German citizens towards the EU, especially if they need to face trade-offs if their decision-makers compromise with backsliders. The experiment consists of two complementary parts: To what extent are Hungary and Poland perceived as undemocratic actors in the EU already? Does this affect the willingness of citizens to penalise them on the EU level? H1 (country reputation hypothesis): People think that democratically backsliding countries are more likely to implement anti-democratic reforms in the future H2 (reputation bias hypothesis): People are more in favour of penalising countries in EU-level rule of law disputes if they perceive them as backsliding Are people willing to accept EU-level trade-offs on backsliding policy for domestic gain? H1/1 (Audience cost hypothesis): People perceive their government giving in to veto threats in the EU negatively H1/2 (Audience cost hypothesis): People perceive their government giving in to veto threats in the EU positively H2 (relative importance hypothesis): People support penalising backsliding more if they care more about anti-backsliding policies than common EU policies