Factors and sustainability of autocratization within the EU: perspectives from comparative politics

The study examines the structural and procedural steps of autocratization in a quasi-federal system such as the EU. This is particularly significant given that the EU is, in principle, a union based on cooperation where accession and effective membership are conditional not only on a market economy, but also on democracy and the rule of law. However, the past decade and a half has shown that EU membership does not automatically provide protection against autocratization processes: autocratization that have begun and stalled or been reversed (Romania, Poland) or completed (Hungary) demonstrate the opposite. This study therefore examines the mechanisms that contribute to the dismantling of democracy and the rule of law in Member States. The theoretical background for this is provided by the characteristics of electoral autocracies on the one hand and the field of subnational authoritarianism research on the other. The comparative study therefore examines the following questions in the Romanian, Polish, and Hungarian cases 1. What factors played a role in the success or failure of the establishment of autocracy (Schedler 2013, Seeberg 2018)? 2. what impact or influence the EU had or could have had on these factors, and to what extent it was able to hinder or even assist autocratization (Gibson 2010, Giraudy 2014, Kelemen 2017) 3. How were these structural and procedural aspects overshadowed by the ideological dimension, the member states' "counter-politics" to the EU's fundamental values (Ziegler 2020, Ziegler – Unger 2025)? The study contributes to our current knowledge with new research findings in two respects: Firstly, by examining autocratization and its continued functioning not from the perspective of possible shortcomings in the EU institutional system, but from the perspective of the characteristics of the authoritarian system itself, thereby pointing out where the EU could be strengthened in order to act more effectively against such processes. On the other, it moves beyond the now extremely and overused and overstreched concept of populism, showing how an ideology that goes beyond populism and contains post-fascist elements undermines the fundamental values of the EU, thereby contributing to the success of autocratization in Member States. References: Gibson, Edward L. (2010), Politics of the Periphery: An Introduction to Subnational Authoritarianism and Democratization in Latin America. Journal of Politics in Latin America, 2(2): 3-12. Giraudy, Agustina (2014): Democrats and Autocrats: Pathways of Subnational Undemocratic Regime Continuity within Democratic Countries. Oxford University Press. Kelemen, R. D. (2017). Europe’s other democratic deficit: National authoritarianism inEurope’s Democratic Union. Government and Opposition, 52(2): 211–238. Schedler, Andreas (2013) The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting Electoral Authoritarianism, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Seeberg, Merete Bech (2018) State Capacity, Economic Control, and Authoritarian Elections, Routledge, London and New York. Ziegler, Dezső Tamás (2020): EU disintegration as cultural insurrection of the anti-Enlightenment tradition. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 28(4): 434-448. Ziegler, Dezső Tamás – Unger, Anna (2025): The One Swallow That Makes a Summer?: The Rise of Post-Fascism in Hungary. Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, 14(1): 110-142.