Multilevel Venue Shopping Amid Democratic Backsliding in New European Union Member States

Open Access Journal | ISSN: 2183-2463

Article | Open Access | Ahead of Print | Last Modified: 15 December 2022

Multilevel Venue Shopping Amid Democratic Backsliding in New European Union Member States


  • Rafael Labanino University of Konstanz
  • Michael Dobbins University of Konstanz


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Abstract:  Recently, various Central and Eastern European countries have experienced a regression of democratic quality, often resulting in the emergence of competitive (semi‐)authoritarian regimes with an illiberal governing ideology. This has often been accompanied by a closing political space for civil society groups. Based on a survey of more than 400 Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and Slovenian interest organizations, we explore, in the context of backsliding, the conditions under which organized interests shift their lobbying activities to alternative, i.e., EU or regional levels. Our statistical analyses indicate that it is rather exclusive policy‐making in general than a lack of individual group access to domestic policy networks that motivate organizations to engage in multilevel lobbying. However, it appears that organizational self‐empowerment and inter‐group cooperation are the “name of the game.” Even under the adverse conditions of democratic backsliding, organizations that are accumulating expertise, professionalizing their operations, and cooperating with other organizations not only can sustain access to (illiberal) national governments but also branch out their operations to the European and regional levels.

Keywords:  Central and Eastern Europe; democratic backsliding; European Union; multilevel lobbying; organized interests; post‐communism

Published:   Ahead of Print

Issue:   Democratic Backsliding and Organized Interests in Central and Eastern Europe (Forthcoming)

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i1.5882


© Rafael Labanino, Michael Dobbins. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.