The illiberal challenge in the European Union

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Co-author with Dominique Reynié of a chapter of the “Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism“, untitled “The illiberal challenge in the European Union”.

Edited by András Sajó, Renáta Uitz and Stephen Holmes in December 2022, the Routledge Handbook of IIliberalism is the first authoritative reference work dedicated to illiberalism as a complex social, political, cultural, legal, and mental phenomenon.

Our chapter discusses how the European Union offers a favorable political configuration for illiberalism, particularly given its transformative impact on national sovereignty and democracy. It explains how illiberalism developed specific features within the EU political framework that combines electoral democracy with the rule of law, while describing the rise of right-wing populist parties in Europe following the continent’s migration crisis.

This chapter highlights that although Europeans may have progressively lost faith in institutions, political parties and governments, they remain attached to the ideals of liberal democracy, to the EU, and even more so to the euro. It describes the rise of illiberalism in the broader context of the European crisis of liberal democracy and underlines the impact of an emerging European public space on its extension.

Furthermore, this chapter explains how Europeans have tried to mobilize a series of resources and tools in order to tackle this challenge of illiberalism in the EU over the last 20 years, based on a “learning by doing process” combining moral, institutional and financial reactions and judicial, diplomatic, partisan pressures and sanctions.