Democratic backsliding and support for public good provision in the European Union

Abstract

In multi-level systems, the erosion of democracy in one unit risks affecting the quality of democracy in other units and across the levels of the system. The European Union (EU), where democracy and the rule of law constitute fundamental community norms, faces this problem as several member states undergo democratic backsliding. While previous literature has investigated why the EU has so far been unable to prevent backsliding, its consequences for European integration remain unclear. This article investigates whether democratic backsliding in one member state reduces EU policy and regime support among citizens in other member states. Building on insights from behavioural economics, we argue that European citizens value reciprocal norm compliance and are willing to sanction norm-violating member states to ensure compliance with the rules of the game. Drawing on an original survey conducted in Germany, Italy, Poland, and Sweden, we find that citizens strongly support EU measures to fight democratic backsliding and support excluding norm-violating states from redistributive policies. However, information experiments do not provide evidence that democratic backsliding undermines EU policy and regime support. Nevertheless, our findings underline that citizens perceive democratic backsliding to be problematic and provide support for taking measures to counter community norm violations.