Holesch, Adam, 1977-Kyriazi, Anna2021-12-102022Holesch A, Kyriazi A. Democratic backsliding in the European Union: the role of the Hungarian-Polish coalition. East European Politics. 2022;38(1):1-20. DOI: 10.1080/21599165.2020.18653192159-9165http://hdl.handle.net/10230/49169Combining 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.application/pdfeng© This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in East European Politics on 2022, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21599165.2020.1865319.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2020.1865319Democratic backslidingCoalitionPolandHungaryRule of lawinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess