Democracy in Europe: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

After several waves of democratic expansion and consolidation in European states (Huntington, 1991), democratic politics appears to be in retreat throughout the continent. This chapter adopts a perspective that complements the focus on issues concerning the Rule of Law in EU member-states by considering other sources and aspects of ‘democratic malaise’ in the EU. While it has become evident that Eurosceptic/populist governments, particularly in Central-Eastern Europe (CEE), have manifested illiberal tendencies (Kochenov and Bard, 2020), it cannot be omitted that European integration has, in the first place, produced a ‘deficit’ in European democracy (Weiler et al., 1995; Follesdal and Hix, 2006; Mair, 2013). Indeed, current EU politics can be seen as a polarized confrontation between Undemocratic Liberalism, in the form of EU elitism, and Illiberal Democracy, in the form of authoritarian Eurosceptic populism (Mudde, 2021). In fact, in recent years, a growing recurse to (or appetite for) illiberal measures can also be attributed to political actors/institutions that are neither necessarily populist nor Eurosceptic. In a context of polycrises—and the consequent ‘crisification of policy-making’ (Rhinard, 2019)—a series of emergency measures and pressing requests for more dictatorial politics have been adopted and advanced also by ‘mainstream’ voices, casting a gloomy picture on the state and fate of liberal democracy in Europe (Goetz and Martinsen, 2021).