This workshop aims to map and explain the variation in illiberal practices and democratic resilience at national and subnational levels in Europe. It aims to: 1) explore theoretically the sources and forms of illiberal practices and democratic resilience accounting for different models of multilevel governance, 2) identify empirically how illiberal practices and democratic resilience unfold with emphasis on issues such as the rule of law, institutional design and performance, budgetary reforms, oversight or control strategies, or (anti-) pluralist messages and behaviors, and (3) explain variation in these practices across different political settings between and within countries.
This workshop goes beyond the state of the art in the study of illiberal practices and democratic resilience in three ways. First, it adds the subnational arena as a unit of analysis. Much research on these topics focus on the national level, while the subnational dimension remains under-analysed (Pérez Sandoval, 2023). Second, it bridges the scholarship on the conditions under which illiberal actors exert greater pressure on democracy (McCoy et al., 2018; Levitsky & Ziblatt; 2018; Wunsch, 2025) and the literature on democratic resilience and the safeguards that can constrain or mitigate these processes (Lührmann, & Merkel, 2023; Weyland, 2024; Panzano & Tomini, 2026). Third, it extends this research agenda geographically and thematically. So far, much research has paid attention to North or South America as settings in which national democratic regimes coexist with illiberal practices at the subnational level (Eaton & Giraudy, 2026). Much less attention has been devoted to the European context. Moreover, research on illiberalism in Europe has focused predominantly on tensions between illiberal governments and opposition parties examining issues of constraint and control (Begadze, 2022). This workshop goes one step further and seeks to understand illiberal behaviors beyond political parties with focus on other stakeholders and on citizens’ attitudes. The workshop informs about the capacity of democratic institutions, civil society and citizens in new and established democracies or in transition countries to resist illiberal practices at national and subnational levels, and about the strategies used to enhance or prevent democratic erosion.
Begadze, M. (2022) Playbook of Subnational Illiberalism: Autocrats Face the Opposition-led Local Governments. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 14, 309–330
Eaton, K., & Giraudy, A. (2026). What Can Latin America Tell Us about Subnational Democratic Erosion in the United States? Perspectives on Politics, 24(2), 799–809.
Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die. New York: Crown.
Lührmann, A., & Merkel, W. (Eds.). (2023). Resilience of democracy: Responses to illiberal and authoritarian challenges. Routledge.
McCoy, J., Rahman, T., & Somer, M. (2018). Polarization and the global crisis of democracy: Common patterns, dynamics, and pernicious consequences for democratic polities. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(1), 16–42.
Panzano, G., & Tomini, L. (2026). Unity makes strength: Patterns of democratic resistance against autocratization. European Journal of Political Research, 1–26.
Pérez Sandoval, J. (2023). Measuring and assessing subnational electoral democracy: A new dataset for the Americas and India. Democratization, 30(4):715-740.
Weyland K. (2024) Why Democracy Survives Populism, Journal of Democracy, 35 (1):43-58.
Wunsch, N. (2025). Democratic Commitment: Why Citizens Tolerate Democratic Backsliding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1: What drives iliberal practices or democratic resilience at national and subnational levels?
2: Why do political and societal actors promote resilience or engage in illiberal practices?
3: How do different illiberal practices erode the quality of democracy and how can their development be prevented?
4: How can we measure the intensity and forms of illiberal practices and their effects in multilevel political arenas?
5: How do perceptions and responses to illiberalism and resilience differ across national and subnational levels?
1: Theoretical perspectives on illiberal practices or on democratic resilience
2: Analytical approaches to institutional, political and societal factors shaping democratic erosion
3: Methodologies that assess the consequences of illiberal practices and democratic resilience
4: Empirical evidence about the links between citizens’ attitudes and iliberal practices.
5: Investigations of why or how people engage in actions leading to democratic resilience
6: Analyses about politicians’ approaches to governance and democracy
7: Comparisons of illiberal practices and democratic resilience in local, regional or national government
8: Explanations of variation in the extent and forms of democratic erosion and/or resilience
