Introduction: the decline of democracy and rise of populism in Europe and their effect on democracy promotion

Abstract

International democracy promotion has been facing various challenges for a while. Among those are the decline of democracy and the rise of populism in donor countries. To date, however, there is little knowledge about their impact on democracy promotion. This article introduces a Special Issue that explores these challenges. After a general overview of the topic and consideration of the thematic focus of most contributions to the Special Issue, the introductory article elaborates in more detail on the relationship between populism and democracy promotion. Based on reviews of the debates about populism and democracy on the one hand and populism and foreign policy on the other hand, the article outlines three pathways through which populists may influence democracy promotion: (1) individual states, (2) international organizations and (3) civil society. In addition, the article summarizes the main findings of the contributions to the Special Issue and draws some general conclusions and perspectives for further research.

European countries, international organisations (IOs) and civil society organisations have a long history as major democracy promoters around the world (Calingaert et al. 2014; OECD-DAC 2020). Democracy promotion here refers to deliberate ‘activities engaged in by external actors to encourage the development of democracy within a given country’ (Stewart 2009, 647). However, democracy promotion is currently facing several challenges. First, democracy promoters are increasingly experiencing a pushback across the globe. Former recipient governments have passed laws or established practical hurdles that impede external support for democracy and non-governmental organisations (Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014; Dupuy and Prakash 2020). One of the latest examples is the closing of both Russia’s oldest human rights group Memorial and a related Human Rights Centre in December 2021. They were accused, among others, of having broken the foreign agent law by not labelling all their publications with the respective label indicating foreign funding (Osborn and Antonov 2021; Osborn and Kiselyova 2021). Second, the very model of liberal democracy has also lost attractiveness for citizens (Bridoux, Hobson, and Kurki 2012; Poppe, Richter, and Wolff 2018, 2). In democracies even more than in autocracies, people doubt that their voices are heard and governments act in their interest (Rasmussen Global 2018). Finally, democracy promotion ‘is simultaneously undermined by serious problems on the side of key democracy promoters’ (Poppe, Richter, and Wolff 2018, 1). One of those is the decreasing material leverage. As one of the most important democracy promoters worldwide, the European Union (EU) has lost relative economic power (Godfrey and Youngs 2019). Between 2009 and 2020, the EU’s share of world trade in goods and services declined from 18.1 per cent¹ to 16.8 per cent, while China’s share increased from 9.6 per cent to 14.7 per cent (European Commission 2021, 21). Another problem runs even deeper and concerns the ‘phenomenon of democratic contestation and erosion “at home”’ (Poppe, Richter, and Wolff 2018, 2). This global phenomenon has been described as a ‘long democratic recession’, which has been ongoing for 15 years (Repucci and Slipowitz 2021, 1). The European continent is no exception. As Smolka’s (2021) analysis of democratic decline in the European Union and decreases in democratic quality shows, both old and new member states are affected by the two phenomena. 20 EU member states² faced at least one period of democratic decline between 2004 and 2016. While Smolka does not identify a systematic third wave of democratic decline in the EU, she calls the observations ‘gloomy’ (2021, 101).

In many cases, this challenge of domestic democratic contestation and erosion is directly – if not exclusively – related to the rise of populism (International IDEA 2020; Kyle and Mounk 2018). Out of 22 countries in which Lührmann and her co-authors determine a downturn of liberal democracy between 2008 and 2018, 14 were governed by a populist government or president (Lührmann et al. 2019, 906).³ Hungary and Poland – democratic forerunners after the end of the Cold War and later advocates of democracy with a unique transition experience – have become the most prominent examples of this development (Stanley 2017). However, populist parties have achieved significant electoral successes in Western Europe too, and formed part of the government in various countries such as Austria, Greece, Italy and Switzerland (Taggart 2017, 248). As Copelovitch and Pevehouse point out, ‘[t]his rising populism/nationalism has been most prevalent in the very countries that founded and have been at the core of global leadership: the United States and Western Europe’ (2019, 170). At the same time, populism’s relationship with democracy itself continues to be debated. Overall, while populism has been identified as a potential challenge to both democracy and democracy promotion, we do not know much about its actual impact. That is, while we observe a rise in populism in Western democratic states, we know very little about the impact of this rise on states’ and their organisations’ policy-making and the consequences thereof.

This Special Issue therefore focuses on the democratic decline in Europe more generally and the rise of populism as one driving factor in particular. It addresses the following question: (How) Do the decline of democracy and the rise of populism in Europe affect states’, IOs’ and civil society’s democracy promotion efforts? This Special Issue will facilitate our understanding of the complex relationships between newly emerging populism, democratic decline and traditions of democracy promotion. It will further enrich our knowledge of European politics in the face of populist actors, democracy promotion, democratisation through European integration, foreign aid spending as well as comparative political economy more broadly.

This introductory article elaborates on the relationship between populism and democracy promotion in more detail. It first defines how populism is understood. After a brief overview of the rise of populism in Europe, it reviews the debates about populism and democracy and populism’s impact on the substance of foreign policy. Based on these reviews, the article outlines three pathways of how populists can influence democracy promotion and formulates expectations. The subsequent part summarises the contributions to the Special Issue and their main findings. At the end of the article, general conclusions and perspectives for further research are presented.

What is populism?

Populism is a contested concept in the literature. There is not only controversy about the meaning of the term but even about the very existence of the phenomenon. Scholars have suggested various approaches to populism, focusing among others on mass movements, economic policy, leadership style, and mass mobilisation (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 2-5). One of the most broadly shared understandings of populism refers to the antagonism of the common people and the elite (Acemoglu, Egorov, and Sonin 2013, 771-772; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 5; Rovira Kaltwasser and Taggart 2016, 203-204). However, even scholars who agree on this essence of populism, present different perspectives of its character. Bonikowski understands populism as a rhetorical strategy or discursive frame. As such, it is a ‘strategic tool’ that actors select in specific contexts (Bonikowski 2016, 13-14). In his often cited definition, Mudde (2004, 543), in turn, goes beyond this notion of populism as a ‘speech-level phenomenon’ (Bonikowski 2016, 14) that actors deliberately turn on and off. He defines populism as ‘an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people’ (Mudde 2004, 543, emphasis adapted). This ideology, that is, a ‘view of how the world is and should be’ is ‘thin-centred’ (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 6), which implies that it can be attached to other ideologies such as communism, ecologism, nationalism or socialism (Mudde 2004, 544).

A similar view is taken by Canovan who argues that populism is not so much defined by ‘policy content’ as by its structural feature, that is, its ‘appeal to “the people” against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society’ (Canovan 1999, 3). As a consequence, populism can take various shapes in practice (Canovan 1999, 4). In Latin America, the third wave of populism, which started in the late 1990s, is characterised by a combination of populist and socialist ideas. In contrast to this, the populism gaining ground at the same time in Europe was mainly tied to authoritarianism and nativism, that is, an emphasis on law and order and the nation, respectively (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 31-34). Depending on these additional ideological elements, populist actors follow very different meanings of the people. In most cases, however, the people is understood as sovereign, as the common people, or as the nation (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 9-11). Based on the different ideological attachments, Europe and Latin America saw the emergence of different subtypes of populism: an exclusionary variant in the former and an inclusionary variant in the latter case (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2013).

The elite, in turn, is morally distinguished from the people in populist ideology. This allows populists to delimit themselves from the elite even if they are in power (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 11-12). In addition to this moral distinction, populists use secondary criteria to define who belongs to the elite. The most common defining criterion is power. The elite thus includes people holding leading positions within politics, the economy, the media, and culture (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 12). It comprises ‘political actors – either elected representatives or civil servants – but also journalists, academics, and business leaders’ (Bonikowski 2016, 10). Jones (2019, 10) points out that various authors such as John Judis, Jan-Werner Müller, Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart present similar accounts of populism without referring explicitly to Mudde’s original definition. This article follows Mudde’s (2004, 543) ideational understanding of populism.

The rise of contemporary populism in Europe

Populism has been rising in Europe since the 1990s (Mendoza 2022; Rovira Kaltwasser 2012, 184). However, the origins reach back to the early 1970s (Taggart 2017, 248). According to Mudde, it has so much become a ‘regular feature of politics in western democracies’ that he identified a ‘populist Zeitgeist’ (2004, 551). In a global comparison, Europe is today one of regions where populism is most prevalent (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 21).

The rise of populism in Europe is closely connected to the emergence and electoral success of right-wing populist parties, with the French Front National, founded in 1972, being one of the earliest examples (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 34). However, populist parties have also emerged from the mainstream, in the form of neoliberal populist parties, such as Forza Italia and from the left, mainly in the wake of the financial and economic crisis, with examples being Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 35-37). Central and Eastern Europe has been the birthplace of the ideologically more moderate ‘centrist populism’ (Stanley 2017, 157). Overall, populism in Europe is characterised by its diversity (Taggart and Pirro 2021). In the meantime, it has reached the centres of political power: in 2019, over one third of European populist parties were part of a national government (Taggart and Pirro 2021, 289). But even where they were not, their electoral success is likely to have shaped policies of the mainstream parties (Bayerlein 2021). In addition to the national level, populism has also taken root at the European level: in the European Parliament (McDonnell and Werner 2020), the European Council and the Commission, the rise of populism presents a challenge for the EU’s political system and decision-making (Ripoll Servent 2019, 340; see also Ruzza, Berti, and Cossarini 2021).

Populism, democracy, and foreign policy

With its focus on the impact of populism on external democracy promotion, the Special Issue speaks to the debates on the relationship between populism and democracy on the one hand, and the effect of populism on foreign policy, on the other. The following sections review the state of research regarding both debates in order to formulate some expectations about the impact of populism on democracy promotion.

Populism and democracy

According to Arditi, the serious thinking about the relationship between populism and democracy goes back more than half a century. His claim refers to a piece by Worsley published in 1969, which Arditi calls ‘one of the first intelligent proposals on how to link populism and democracy’ (Arditi 2004, 135). Since then, there has been an ongoing debate about the compatibility of the two concepts as well as populism’s potential virtues for and challenges to democracy (for example Mény and Surel 2002). With regard to the former, Rummens (2017, 563) argues that ‘populism is incompatible with both the liberal and the democratic dimensions of liberal democracy’ and points to their ‘antagonistic relation’ (Rummens 2017, 568). Müller (2016, 173) adds to this perspective by stating that ‘populism and democracy are in fact categorically different’. Other authors, in turn, do not see such a clear-cut opposition. In Canovan’s (1999, 16) view, populism ‘accompanies democracy like a shadow’, and Arditi (2004, 143) characterises it as ‘something of an internal periphery of democratic politics’. Rovira Kaltwasser (2014, 484) agrees with that assessment and concludes that populism is ‘neither democratic nor anti-democratic in itself’ (483).

Various scholars have pointed out that populism can even benefit democracy. On the one hand, it is seen as being conducive to democratisation, especially in the early stages (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 86). On the other hand, it is also supposed to play a corrective role in established democracies by enhancing inclusion and participation, re-politicising politics, increasing accountability and realigning party systems with changed conflict structures (Kriesi 2014, 361-362; Laclau 2005; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 83).

These views are countered by scholars who stress the potential threats of populism for democracy, such as its contribution to extreme majoritarianism, which challenges both political pluralism and party-democracy, the undermining of civil society, and the refusal to recognise opponents’ democratic legitimacy as well as institutional checks and balances (Arato and Cohen 2017; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 83; Rummens 2017, 561-562; Urbinati 2017, 572-573). According to Rovira Kaltwasser, these opposing views on the relationship between populism and democracy can be traced back to different normative stances on the essence of democracy (Rovira Kaltwasser 2012, 185): while those who view democracy from a liberal perspective tend to stress the pathological role of populism, thinkers who take a radical perspective make readers aware of populism’s potentially positive contribution. With regard to democracy promotion, this latter perspective implies that a kind of populist democracy promotion is possible, even if it looks contradictory from a liberal-democratic perspective.

Rovira Kaltwasser (2014, 481, 483) demands that this question should be addressed empirically to further understand the relationship between populism and democracy. This call has been taken up by several scholars. Yet, the results have so far been inconclusive (Juon and Bochsler 2020, 391-392). With a view to democracy promotion, studies that disaggregate democracy into distinct models or components are most relevant. Assessing the impact of populism on different models of democracy, Ruth-Lovell and her co-authors found an erosion of electoral, liberal and deliberative democracy under both left and right-wing populist governments while egalitarian or participatory aspects of democracy did not improve (Ruth-Lovell, Lührmann, and Grahn 2019). A similar argument is made by Kyle and Mounk (2018), who warn against the populist threat from both the left and right spectrum for checks and balances, political rights and civil liberties. Huber and Schimpf (2017), in turn, argue in favour of distinguishing between left and right-wing populism when measuring effects. They found that the latter is negatively associated with liberal democracy and minority rights, while an opposite effect could be detected for centre- and left-wing populists.

When it comes to checks and balances, however, no such difference persisted, as all types of populism were negatively associated with mutual constraints (Huber and Schimpf 2017). In one of the most comprehensive analyses, Juon and Bochsler (2020) have found that populists regardless of their ideological orientation negatively impact on liberal rights and safeguards, in particular the rule of law. However, they also present evidence for populism as a potential corrective to democracy and outline the impact that the attached left- or right-wing ideologies have: while participation and representation improved under left-wing populists, individual liberties increased under centre- and right-wing populism. Populists’ status as government or opposition actors did not lead to a significant difference of their impact (Juon and Bochsler 2020). Also, the authors’ focus on Central and Eastern Europe does not reveal any specific pattern. Cases of decreased political competition and transparency during populist rule are counterweighted by cases where populists did not leave their mark on democratic quality (Bochsler and Juon 2020).

This brief review of both theoretical and empirical claims regarding the relationship between populism and democracy underlines the necessity to study democracy promotion under populism in depth. Given the mixed account of populist influence on states’ democratic quality, it can be expected that the picture is similarly complex in the field of democracy promotion.

The impact of populism on foreign policy

While the impact of populist parties and leaders has been studied with a view to various domestic phenomena, for example, policy making processes and their outcomes (Afonso and Papadopoulos 2015; Biard 2019; Biard, Bernhard, and Betz 2019; Zaslove 2004) or the adoption of populists’ positions by mainstream parties (Schumacher and van Kersbergen 2016), analysis of their impact on democracy promotion is scarce. We are aware of one case study on Poland, which, however, does not explicitly focus on populism, but examines democracy promotion under the condition of autocratisation after 2015, that is, the year when the populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) party formed the government (Petrova and Pospieszna 2021). There is, however, a growing literature on populism and foreign policy more generally, mainly with a focus on Western countries (for an overview see Chryssogelos 2017). While researchers have studied various aspects of populist foreign policy, including the policy-making process (Plagemann and Destradi 2019), opinions of the electorate and policy efficiency (Kane and McCulloch 2017), our main interest here is its substance.

Chryssogelos (2017, 7) identified ‘a common negative attitude toward the United States and globalization, a skeptical stance toward processes of global governance and military engagements outside of Europe, and a positive view of Russia’s role in European security’ with both left- and right-wing populists. Other authors, however, call for a more differentiated view. Following Mudde’s understanding of populism as a thin-centred ideology that is usually combined with additional ideological elements, Verbeek and Zaslove (2017) argue that there is not one single type of populist foreign policy. While all populist actors assess foreign policy with a view to the people versus the elite opposition, they develop specific positions on issues such as trade, regional integration, or migration, which are informed by the respective added ideology. Consequently, left-wing populism is well compatible with a cosmopolitan attitude towards international relations, whereas right-wing populism matches with isolationism. The latter is supported by Liang (2008, 27-28), who detects ‘globalized nationalism’ as populist radical right parties’ ‘common foreign policy outlook’, which unites them and partly even leads to cooperation. Comparing foreign policy positions of key European populist parties, Balfour et al. (2016, 49) identify different issues on which left-and right-wing populists focus. While the former tend to advance anti-globalisation and anti-austerity positions, the latter are concerned with opposition to European integration and immigration. The authors conclude that such core positions are driven by the parties’ added ideologies whereas positions beyond the parties’ core issues are unpredictable.

Chryssogelos (2021) goes beyond a simple separation between European left- and right-wing populists. He distinguishes the right-wing populists into Atlanticist nationalists vs. Continental nationalists, whereas the left-wing populists are all regarded as Anti-imperialist internationalists. In addition, he points to the diversity of European populists and underlines that it is often their countries’ dominant strategic traditions and national interests rather than ideology that shape their approach to foreign policy. This argument is qualified by Varga and Buzogány (2021), who underline the importance of worldviews for the reorientation of foreign policies under populist governments in Hungary and Poland. Overall, Chryssogelos (2021) argues that populists do not leave significant traces on their countries’ substantive foreign policies, even when in power. This finding is in accordance with a study by Plagemann and Destradi (2019) on populist foreign policy in India.

Few scholars have so far dealt with the impact of populists on development policy. Analysing the influence of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) on European governments’ programmes, Bergmann, Hackenesch, and Stockemer (2021) find that the populists’ vote shares and, to a lesser degree, their seat shares in parliaments impact on governments’ framing of development policy, in particular with a view to limiting migration to Europe. In line with previous research on populist foreign policy, the authors do not find a strong effect of PRRPs’ inclusion into the government. Turning from programmes to development aid disbursements, Hackenesch and her co-authors (Hackenesch et al. 2022) do not find an effect of PRRPs on the volume of aid but on the allocation of money.

Similar to the impact of populists on democracy, populists’ impact on foreign policy seems to be complex. Overall, research indicates that populists’ foreign policy positions are influenced by various factors, including traditions, national interests and (added) ideologies. With a view to the latter, it is advisable to distinguish between populists of different (left- or right wing) orientations. While populists certainly leave their mark on foreign policy, the size of the effect is moderate (so far). This implies that populists may not pressure governments to abolish democracy promotion completely and may not cut respective funds and programmes entirely when in power. They may, however, reduce and/or re-orient the profile of democracy support. The resulting policy is likely to be shaped by populists’ ideological orientation on the one hand, and national interests and traditions of support for democracy on the other.

External democracy promotion and populism

Based on historical precursors that reach back to the French Revolution (Burnell 2000, 34), international democracy promotion has grown into a substantial policy from the late 1980s onwards (Carothers 2015, 77). McFaul (2004, 148) has called it an ‘international norm’ and Whitehead (2015, 13) concluded with hindsight: ‘During the 1990s, ideas about international democracy promotion not only became more assertive and widely endorsed, but also assumed a particular morphology and achieved a hitherto unavailable degree of intellectual and institutional hegemony’.

Democracy promotion usually comprises the activities of three main groups of actors: states, international organisations, and civil society (Beichelt 2012, 2).⁴ These activities are here understood to be deliberate acts, which excludes processes such as emulation (Beichelt 2012, 1). Importantly, it is the intention that qualifies such an activity as democracy promotion, not the result. As research has shown, democracy promotion activities can have unintended consequences that can stabilise or boost authoritarian regimes (Börzel 2015, 526-527; Dandashly and Noutcheva 2019).

In this Special Issue, we present three different pathways through which populists may impact democracy promotion activities – through a state’s bilateral relations, through international organisations and through civil society. Table 1 provides a summary and relates the papers to the respective pathways.

Table 1. Summary of the three pathways and the related papers of the Special Issue

The impact of populism on democracy promotion: three pathways
I. Impact on states’ bilateral democracy promotion direct, by participation in government indirect, by pressuring government through electoral success/seats in parliaments	II. Impact on multilateral democracy promotion by IOs direct, by influencing IO’s policies as delegates or elected representatives (or by pressuring delegates or representatives) indirect, by challenging the rationale of the IO/weakening the IO through withdrawal	III. Impact on democracy promotion by civil society direct, by restricting democracy promoting CSOs indirect, by restricting CSOs in general
Contributions by Shirin Tumenbaeva & Anna-Lena Hönig Aleksandra Monkos Anne Pintsch, Dennis Hammerschmidt & Cosima Meyer	Contribution by Aron Buzogány, Oriol Costa and Magdalena Góra	Contributions by Paulina Pospieszna & Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves Aleksandra Monkos

First, populists can influence states’ bilateral democracy promotion. States have promoted democracy to varying degrees for decades. One of the largest democracy promoters, the United States, started to systematically promote democracy through aid programmes in the 1960s. After a decade of declining interests, the 1980s saw a new US initiative of democracy aid, which accelerated after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 (Carothers 1999).

Democracy is also promoted by European states (EPD 2019). In analogy to foreign policy, populists could influence a state’s democracy promotion either directly, via participation in government, or indirectly, through pressuring governing parties. The latter is likely to be the more successful, the higher the vote share of populists is (the mechanism is elaborated in the contribution by Hammerschmidt, Meyer, and Pintsch (2021)). We expect this mechanism to be applicable in all three pathways. There are two questions that follow: Would populists promote democracy at all, and if so, what would be the substance of such a policy? Regarding the first question, there is reason to expect differences among left- and right-wing populists. In accordance with their added ideology of nativism, right-wing populists favour their own nation (even if this may be difficult to define, see Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 11), which implies that they would only promote democracy if it is in their direct national interest. Even then, there may be limits posed by the notion of Populist Sovereignism (HCSS 2017). We could thus expect that right-wing populists will only rarely promote democracy, because it would contradict the conviction that only the native people should determine their fate. In contrast to this, left-wing populists’ notion of the people as ‘the exploited’ (Verbeek and Zaslove 2017, 393) allows them to think beyond their own nation.

Even though the empirical findings on the impact of populism on democracy are inconclusive, we can formulate some broad expectations about democracy promotion. Given the populist perception of the people as a homogeneous group, it is unlikely that populists will promote pluralism, minority rights, and party democracy. Furthermore, since populists demand that the will of the people should not be restricted (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017, 81), they are unlikely to promote a system of representation and checks and balances. Instead, they could be expected to focus on elements of direct democracy.

A second pathway through which populists could influence democracy promotion is international organisations. The latter have been engaged in democracy promotion for decades. At the global level, the United Nations (UN) developed the UN democracy agenda into a UN concept and practice in the 1990s (Haack and Kille 2012; Joyner 1999). Also, regional organisations such as the African Union have increasingly included instruments of democracy promotion since the 1990s (Börzel, Hüllen, and Lohaus 2013). In Europe, the Council of Europe promotes democracy and human rights among its members and beyond (Brummer 2014). The OSCE has stepped up democracy and human rights promotion after 1997 (Galbreath 2009). The most significant European democracy promoting organisation, however, is the EU (European Parliament 2019).

Regarding populist influence on democracy promotion through international organisations, there could be two mechanisms at play. The first would be the same as above, with populists advancing their positions not only in bilateral relations but also in international fora or pressuring governing parties to adjust their positions in international organisations to the populists’ agenda. The second mechanism is indirect but more fundamental, as it refers to populists’ attitudes towards international organisations more generally. Following the theoretical considerations by Copelovitch and Pevehouse (2019, 177-179), it can be expected that this mechanism applies particularly to right-wing populism. While left-wing populists are likely to contest specific elements of IO’s democracy promotion policies, as outlined above, they are not expected to put into question international cooperation and their country’s membership in and support of international organisations. Right-wing populists, on the other hand, are likely to challenge the very rationale of IOs. They may thus obstruct decision-making processes or even withdraw, or pressure governing parties to do so. All scenarios would eventually weaken these organisations’ democracy promotion efforts. One example for the latter scenario is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union in 2020. The EU (Council of the European Union 2021, 13) has explicitly addressed populists’ obstruction potential, without, however, distinguishing between left- and right-wing populism:

Even if there is no single ‘populist handbook’, the methods populists use to access power and the way that power is then exercised are relatively homogeneous and accentuate the polarisation of societies. They adopt an exclusive approach to politics, dividing the political landscape into friends and enemies. For the EU, this means that the greater the extent of populist parties in Member States’ governments, the more difficult it will be to deliver EU policies.

The third pathway for populists’ impact on democracy promotion relates to civil society. The role of civil society in democracy promotion has been widely acknowledged (Beichelt et al. 2014). Non-governmental organisations (NGO) are regular targets of democracy promotion activities. However, NGOs also act as external democracy promoters themselves, partly backed by governmental funding (Beichelt et al. 2014).

Populism has been named a ‘pathology’ for autonomous civil society (Arato and Cohen 2017, 289), and populist leaders are pushing back on the latter. This relates particularly to civil society organisations (CSO) that work on democracy-related issues (Ruzza and Sanchez Salgado 2021, 2). They use strategies such as framing the funding for CSOs as unjustified and the recipient CSOs as part of the corrupt elite. Restricting regulations limit CSOs’ activities and access to funding. In some cases, repression takes the form of threats and intimidations (Eisen et al. 2019, 49; Ruzza and Sanchez Salgado 2021, 2). For instance, in 2017, Hungary passed a law that requires CSOs receiving specific sums of foreign funding to register as ‘foreign funded’ and to label themselves as such in their public communication. The law also introduces strict reporting obligations and severe non-compliance measures, including high fines and possible dissolution of the respective CSO (Eisen et al. 2019, 48). Similarly, the Polish populist ruling party Law and Justice puts pressure on civil society groups that it perceives as hostile to its values (Bill 2020). Lührmann and Hellmeier (2020, 23-25) have shown that under populist governments, autonomy and freedom for civil society are lower than under non-populist governments.

As already mentioned above, populists’ reference to a homogeneous people involves a hostile stance towards pluralist civil society. This may entail cutting back on support for CSOs, both domestically and abroad. Again, there could be a direct and indirect effect. While populists could specifically and directly target democracy promoting CSOs, it could also be the case that restrictions apply to all CSOs and the curtailing of democracy promotion would be a side effect.

Summary and main findings of the contributions to the special issue

The first article in the Special Issue by Hönig and Tumenbaeva (2022) studies the impact of declining democracy in the EU and its member states on their democracy promotion activities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan between 2000 and 2018. Focusing on official multilateral aid from the EU and bilateral aid from its member states to the Central Asian countries, the authors investigate both the change of the proportion of aid activities allocated to democracy promotion and the choice of the recipient, that is, government institutions or CSOs. Based on rationalist and constructivist theoretical approaches that refer to decision-makers’ strategic perspective and the democratic identity of states and decision-makers, respectively, it is hypothesised that democratic decline on the donors’ side leads to a decrease in foreign democracy-related aid, a prioritisation of governments as recipients, and relatively lower shares of aid to CSOs. In order to test their hypotheses, the authors rely on data from the OECD, the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), the World Bank, and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, and use regression analyses. They find support for their first hypothesis, but only limited evidence for the other two expectations. It is remarkable that even short-term declines in democracy lead to decreases in democracy promotion. The authors also show that Hungary and Poland – the two EU countries with the most severe democratic decline – diverged from the overall trend of decreasing aid activities in the non-democratising Central Asian states. Even though the article does not address populists’ impact on democracy promotion, the latter finding underlines that populist governments do not necessarily reject democracy promotion policies.

Aleksandra Monkos' (2021) contribution on Poland’s democracy aid in Ukraine addresses both populists’ impact on states’ bilateral democracy promotion and their impact on democracy promotion by civil society. The article explores Poland’s efforts to promote democracy through foreign aid in Ukraine between 2007 and 2021. In particular, it asks whether the populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) modified Poland’s democracy aid after it came to power in 2015. Based on the qualitative analysis of both policy documents and more than 800 foreign aid projects, Monkos puts forward two conclusions regarding the outlined pathways. First, while democracy promotion as such continues, its substance has followed Poland’s domestic populist transformation, albeit to a lesser degree. This has included decreased emphasis on democracy, human rights and rule of law in the country’s foreign aid, and the linkage of the mentioned values to a context of Christian morality. Second, the PiS cut funding opportunities for Polish NGOs and thus partially ousted liberal, pro-democratic NGOs from democracy promotion activities in Ukraine. At the same time, NGOs previously not active in democracy promotion, such as Caritas Poland and the Order of Malta Poland, made their first appearance in the field of democracy aid. Monkos’ study illustrates pathways I and III outlined above. At the same time, the article shows that populists’ impact on democracy promotion can be subtle. Rather than implementing massive cuts, the populist government regrouped both the substance of and actors involved in what is still called democracy promotion.

The influence of populists on states’ bilateral foreign aid, which is seen as a means to promote recipient countries’ democratic development, is also studied in the contribution by Hammerschmidt, Meyer, and Pintsch (2021). The authors focus on the official development assistance of OECD countries between 1990 and 2016. Using semi-parametric generalised additive models (GAM), they find a negative effect of the share of radical right populists in the legislature on foreign aid commitments, which is stronger in economically weak countries and in parliaments with a minority government. When populist radical right parties (PRRPs) are part of the cabinet, the negative effect on foreign aid commitments is even stronger and significantly different from the effect of those parties not being part of the government. Again, countries with lower levels of GDP per capita show a particularly strong negative effect. There is also some evidence that a decrease in foreign aid commitments is more likely in countries where the ministry responsible for foreign aid distribution is controlled by a member of a PRRP. The article thus shows that mainstream parties obviously adjust their foreign aid policies towards the positions of PRRPs when these win seats in the legislature and that PRRPs in government directly cut back on foreign aid commitments.

The article by Buzogány, Costa, and Góra (2021) relates to the second pathway and presents both an analytical framework and empirical evidence of populists’ influence on democracy promotion through international organisations. In their study, the authors explore whether and how governing populist parties of various political orientations contest the EU’s external democratisation agenda within the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). They show that the five populist parties included in the study (PiS, Fidesz, Lega, Forza Italia and Movimento Cinque Stelle) have rarely contested the fundamental norm of EU democracy promotion in the European Parliament. However, the populist parties offered competing fundamental norms, particularly stability and security. Regarding the organising principles of external democracy promotion, PiS and Fidesz are found to add conservative interpretations, which resonates with Monkos’ results. Lega’s contestation, in turn, is expressed in concerns about Muslim-majority country’s readiness for democracy and Muslim immigration to the EU. The five parties hardly addressed standardised procedures, an exception being the Five Stars Movement questioning the consistency of EU democracy promotion. Overall, this contribution shows the variety of populists’ contestation of democracy promotion, which can partially be related to the parties’ different political orientations. The authors also point to country-specific regional interests that shape the parties’ positions. Finally, the article suggests that the debates in the European Parliament are not the preferred stage for populist parties to express their contestation.

The final article of the Special Issue deals in depth with the third pathway, that is, populists’ influence on democracy promotion through civil society. In their study on the responses of Polish NGOs involved in democracy promotion at home and abroad to the shrinking civic space under the populist PiS government, Pospieszna and Pietrzyk-Reeves (2022) investigate three areas where they expect adaptation strategies: (1) access to policymakers and the wider public; (2) funding opportunities; and (3) networking with non-state actors. Based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from 25 NGOs, the authors report that the majority perceives a worsening political and legal environment for their operations. The named challenges correspond to those mentioned by Monkos (2021), for example, cuts in funding and the granting of privileges to pro-government NGOs. Overall, however, the article offers a slightly optimistic perspective on the adaptation processes the NGOs have initiated. First, NGOs have been at least partially successful in reclaiming or widening access through commenting on draft law, issuing petitions, sustaining links to local authorities, taking better care of their membership base and mobilising the wider public. Second, NGOs have diversified their financial bases, including foreign donors, donations from citizens and donations from private individuals and companies. Third, NGOs have increased their networking activities in Poland and abroad. This includes building coalitions with other organisations but also making links to independent institutions such as the Ombudsman office and local authorities. The article thus shows that populists can considerably restrict civil society actors’ democracy promotion activities. NGOs, however, can at least partially counter that pressure and in some respects become even stronger.

Conclusions

The contributions to this Special Issue indicate that there is no straightforward answer to the question of whether and how the decline of democracy and the rise of populism in Europe affect states’, IOs’ and civil society’s democracy promotion efforts. While the quantitative studies included in the Special Issue demonstrate that both democratic decline and the increasing presence of PRRPs in parliaments and governments lead to a decrease in democracy promotion, the qualitative studies add interesting nuances to the picture. Regarding states’ bilateral democracy promotion, several contributions showed that populist governments do not necessarily (demand to) abandon democracy promotion, and instead shape it according to their worldviews. Direct democracy, however, was not among the promoted substances, in contrast to Christian conservative elements advanced by the PiS and Fidesz parties. The expectation that right-wing populists will only rarely promote democracy has also to be qualified by accounting for additional political considerations, such as national interests. The article on the European Parliament did not provide evidence of right-wing populist parties fundamentally obstructing the deliberation or decision-making processes on democracy promotion. On the contrary, it seems that populists prefer the domestic stage for airing their reservations regarding democracy promotion. Finally, and as expected, we do see strong evidence for populists’ pushback against civil society. However, two qualifications need to be made here. On the one hand, populists do, in some cases, support CSOs, especially those that act according to their ideology, and assign democracy promotion projects to them. On the other hand, CSOs that faced a cut of public support have been successful in developing strategies to cope with the situation and continue their work.

Given these nuanced and partially unexpected findings, we see demand for future research around the following points, among others. Future theorising should specify the mechanisms of populist influence on democracy promotion more precisely. This entails a more detailed distinction between populism and the added ideologies as factors that may shape decisions regarding democracy promotion. Research should also pay more explicit attention to interaction effects, such as the wealth of democracy promoting countries, which seem to matter. One question could be whether a decline in democracy caused by populist parties leads to a more severe decrease of democracy promotion efforts than other causes of democratic decline. Finally, the constraints on populists should receive more attention. Researchers could explore what limiting conditions populists face in their attempts to influence democracy promotion policy.

Acknowledgments

This paper has benefitted from discussions at a workshop sponsored by and conducted at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) in November 2019. The authors would like to thank all participants and the editors for their valuable comments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Pintsch

Anne Pintsch is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and Management and the coordinator of a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the University of Agder, Norway. She holds a PhD from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Her research on international democracy promotion has been published among others by Palgrave Macmillan, in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Democratization, and the Journal of European Public Policy. Email: [email protected]

Dennis Hammerschmidt

Dennis Hammerschmidt works as a data scientist in the retail industry. He holds a PhD from the University of Mannheim, Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences with research stays at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Washington D.C., and the University of Houston, Houston. Amongst others, his research was published in Complex Networks & Their Applications IX (Springer) and Tectum, and Cambridge Review of International Affairs. Email: [email protected]

Cosima Meyer

Cosima Meyer is a data scientist. She holds a PhD from the University of Mannheim and spent research stays abroad at Rice University, SciencesPo Paris, and Uppsala Universitet. Her work appears in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Journal of Regional Security, PS: Political Science and Politics, Springer, and Tectum. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 18.8 per cent including the UK (Godfrey and Youngs 2019). The numbers for 2021 refer to the EU-27, that is, without the UK.

2 Smolka (2021) identified the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, United Kingdom.

3 The authors identify 24 autocratising countries, but do not consider Zanzibar and Palestine (Gaza) in their analysis. The 14 countries with populists in power are Bulgaria, Burundi, the Czech Republic, Haiti, Hungary, India, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Poland, Serbia, Turkey, United States, Venezuela, and Zambia. The other countries are Bahrain, Brazil, Comoros, Honduras, Mali, Thailand, Ukraine and Yemen.

4 Democracy promotion can also be based on the activities of private actors (for example Deutsche Welle 2020). Given the limited scale of such activities, we will not focus on them in this Special Issue.