Rebuilding European Democracy

In recent years serious concerns emerged over the state of European democracy. Many democracy indices are reporting a year-on-year drift towards less liberal politics in the countries of the European Union. Polls regularly suggest that the voters are coming to question democratic norms more seriously than for many decades. Here, Richard Youngs assesses these risks as many analysts, journalists and politicians stressed the danger of Europe descending into an era of conflict, driven by xenophobic nationalism and nativist authoritarians slowly dismantling liberal democratic rights. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has intensified these fears. There is another side of the democratic equation, however. Youngs argues that governments, EU institutions, political parties, citizens and civil society organisations have gradually begun to push back in defence of democracy. With each chapter, Youngs shows how many governmental, political and social actors have developed responses to Europe’s democratic malaise at multiple levels. Europe’s democracy problems have been grave and far-reaching. Yet, a spirit of democratic resistance has slowly taken shape.This book argues that the pro-democratic fightback may be belated, but it is real and has assumed significant traction with various types of democratic reform underway, including citizen initiatives, political-party changes, digital activism and EU-level responses.

A lot of great works have been devoted to democratic backsliding, the surge of populism and the rule of law crisis in Europe. The great strength of this book is that it looks at how we can fight back and gives an insightful overview of innovative forces that are reinvigorating politics and resisting autocratization, on both the national and European Union levels. A great read for analysts interested in the resilience of our democracies, and also for us practitioners, so that we can inspire each other in our quest to rebuild European democracy., There is immense concern today about the troubles facing democracy in Europe. While most scholars and commentators have focused on analyzing the causes of the troubles, Rebuilding European Democracy examines the resistance to democratic decay and budding attempts to renew democracy from within. Revitalizing democracy in Europe and across the globe requires understanding the reasons for democratic dissatisfaction as well as coming up with effective responses to it. Rebuilding European Democracy is an important contribution to this latter effort.

Richard Youngs is Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Europe think-tank in Brussels and also a professor of International Relations at Warwick University, UK.