Democratic backsliding in the European Union: the role of the Hungarian-Polish coalition

Abstract

Combining the insights of EU-specific research on backsliding and coalitions with the literature on the international collaboration of autocrats, we argue that right-wing political leadership in Hungary and Poland have coalesced to advance their respective projects of democratic backsliding. We identify three distinct but intertwined uses of the coalition: (1) mutual protection afforded within the supranational arena aimed at limiting the EU's sanctioning capacities; (2) learning in the form of transfer of democratic backsliding policies; and (3) domestic legitimation. Three factors have driven coalescence patterns: intersecting interests, ideological proximity, and the EU’s decision rules regarding sanctions.