Nationalist persuasion, legacies of the transition and democratic backsliding in Europe

Organised by

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• EGPP: European Governance and Politics Programme

Join Prof. Christina Zuber as she presents her co-authored research in a seminar jointly organised by the EU Studies and Political Economy working groups

Democratic backsliding results from the actions of democratic insiders—namely elected governments. This points to a puzzle: How do illiberal elites continue to generate electoral support, even as they undermine the very institutions that sustain democracy? This paper hypothesises that illiberal elites maintain electoral support thanks to nationalist appeal. Nationalism prioritises the self-determination of the nation over the self-determination of free and equal individuals. It thereby replaces a liberal–constitutional with a majoritarian idea of democracy. This way illiberal elites can attract not just authoritarian, but also pro-democratic voters. However, nationalism is unlikely to resonate equally well across contexts: where democratisation once overcame nationalist fascism, citizens have likely remained more sceptical of nationalism. Conversely, where democratisation overcame an anti-nationalist, communist regime, nationalism might attract even pro-democratic voters today. Our empirical analysis tests these expectations with data from the V-Dem project, regressing the electoral success of illiberal parties, as well as parties involved in backsliding governments on the content of their electoral platform for all European post-fascist and post-communist democracies between 1992 and 2019 (The paper is co-authored with David Alexander Knoll).