Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backsliding in the EU

Pech, Laurent; Scheppele, Kim Lane

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3009280

Cited by 33 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The EU is supposedly suffering from "illiberalism within" (Pech and Scheppele 2017). The conventional analysis sees Hungary and Poland as the most brazen of offenders.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It also created an evaluation committee to assess Fidesz's compliance. While commentators are rightfully skeptical about the ability of these initiatives to stem the authoritarian tide (Pech and Scheppele 2017;Closa 2019;Hall 2019), they may limit the interpretive wiggle room that politicians have. As definitions, indicators and benchmarks proliferate, fundamental values become less abstract.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ambiguity and interpretive politics in the crisis of European values: evidence from Hungary

Mos

2020

East European Politics

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The European Union, courtesy of Orbán's Fidesz and Kaczyński's Law & Justice, is supposedly experiencing a crisis of values. This article points to two fatal errors in the design of EU values: ambiguity and practical unenforceability. Politicians can exploit these flaws by interpreting ambiguous values in self-serving ways. Based on an analysis of the Hungarian Prime Minister's speeches, it shows that descriptions of Orbán as an unrepentant challenger of EU values miss the mark. Instead, Orbán used the plasticity of EU values to style himself as a pro-European statesman, ready to steer the Union back to its moral roots.

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“…The EU is supposedly suffering from "illiberalism within" (Pech and Scheppele 2017). The conventional analysis sees Hungary and Poland as the most brazen of offenders.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambiguity and interpretive politics in the crisis of European values: evidence from Hungary

Mos

2020

East European Politics

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“…75 Although the general ability of the EU institutions to enforce these values has been far from obvious to commentators as of late, 76 the Commission could in fact do much more than bringing Article 258 TFEU cases against the Romanias of our Union. Unlike in cases of rule of law or democracy backslidingsuch as Hungary and Poland 77 the values at play in the context of same-sex families are not at the fringes of the acquis, but in the text of the Directive itself, which instantly removes plenty of problems faced by the institution in other value-spheres. 78 While nothing has been doneand in this we emphasize the shame of the Commission for not actingthe embarrassment was particularly reinforced by the silence from the Commission on this issue in its regular reports on EU citizenship.…”

Section: Questions About the Commission's Effectiveness And The Failumentioning

confidence: 99%

Same-Sex Spouses in the EU after Coman: More Free Movement, But What About Marriage?

Kochenov

Belavusau

2019

SSRN Journal

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This paper provides a detailed critical analysis of the case of Coman, where the Court of Justice clarified that the meaning of the term 'spouse' in Directive 2004/38 was gender-neutral, opening up the door for same-sex marriage recognition for immigration purposes all around the EU, thus destroying the heteronormative misinterpretations of the clear language of the Directive practiced in a handful of Member States. The state of EU law after Coman is still far from perfect, however: we underline a line of important questions which remain open and which the Court will need to turn to in the near future to ensure that marriage equality in moves beyond mere proclamations in the whole territory of the Union.

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“…This has confounded earlier assumptions that democracy in ECE waslargely due to EU enlargementwell-anchored and secure. The existing literature on ECE backsliding has focused heavily on the actions of illiberal national-conservative governments in the two most problematic cases, Hungary (2010-) and Poland (October 2015-), and been framed in terms of how EU institutions and member states could or should respond to the challenge posed by such backsliding (Pech and Scheppele, 2017;Sedelmeier, 2017).In this article, we argue for a threefold change of emphasis in the debate on backsliding in ECE. First, we suggest, the unexpected seriousness of backsliding in ECE calls for a step back from immediate events to engage with institutional theory and the theoretical assumptions that have underlain accounts of democratic (and undemocratic) change in ECE.…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

Foreground Liberalism, Background Nationalism: A Discursive‐institutionalist Account of EU Leverage and ‘Democratic Backsliding’ in East Central Europe

Dawson

Hanley

2019

J of Common Market Studies

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This article argues for a fresh approach to debates on democratic backsliding and European Union (EU) influence in East Central Europe (ECE), drawing on the discursive institutionalism of Vivien Schmidt. Underlying assumptions about backsliding in CEE largely reflect a set of ideas derived from the rational institutionalist and historical institutionalist schools. Moreover, the same theoretical assumptions were previously deployed to explain the apparent success of democratization and EU leverage in CEE. A discursive institutionalism perspective, stressing the role of actors and their discourses in making and unmaking institutions, suggests that democracy in CEE was always less secure than assumed. It also highlights the key role of liberal mainstream parties in embodying democratic institutions. Case studies of the liberal centre‐right in Bulgaria and social democrats in the Czech Republic highlight the way background ideas of ethnically exclusive titular states have increasingly impinged on foreground ideas of liberal pluralism.

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Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backsliding in the EU

Cited by 33 publications

References 2 publications

Ambiguity and interpretive politics in the crisis of European values: evidence from Hungary

Ambiguity and interpretive politics in the crisis of European values: evidence from Hungary

Same-Sex Spouses in the EU after Coman: More Free Movement, But What About Marriage?

Foreground Liberalism, Background Nationalism: A Discursive‐institutionalist Account of EU Leverage and ‘Democratic Backsliding’ in East Central Europe

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