Looking forward to @eustudies.bsky.social conference this week. I will be presenting a paper on the arguments that backsliding governments use to defend democratic backsliding in European Parliament debates (See abstact below). Panel 7J on Friday for anyone who happens to be around!

Jobs: 1 PhD student, 1 Post-doc to work with me on the project "Parliamentary Accountability and EU Action Against Democratic Backsliding". Both positions are for 3 years, starting 1.4.2025. Happy to answer questions. See below or here: www.hhu.de/die-hhu/kont.... PSJMInfo

Acknowledgments: I received many helpful comments, including by workshop participants at ECPR Joint Sessions, UCSD, APSA, and LMU as well as the RIO reviewers.

I then used news reports to identify the decisions that backsliding governments opposed the most over the last decade, and I analyzed in case studies why they succeeded or failed.

Results: An analysis of position-taking in hundreds of EU negotiations – based on DEU data – suggests that, indeed, backsliders adopt more opposing/Eurosceptic positions in decisions that could threaten their backsliding projects, but not in other decisions.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I suggest several areas of EU decision-making in which decisions could threaten key domestic strategies of backsliding governments. I expect that backsliders will oppose EU decisions in these areas but not in others.
 
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New publication: How backsliding governments keep the European Union hospitable for autocracy: Evidence from intergovernmental negotiations.
 
EUsky PoliSciSky
 
link.springer.com/article/10.1...