Expert roundtable discussion: "Identity, Partisanship, Polarization – How democratically elected politicians get away with autocratizing their country"

European citizens still believe in democracy

Why do voters continue to support politicians who violate democratic principles? A new study, conducted by the FES Regional Office in Vienna “Democracy of the Future” in partnership with Milan Svolik (Yale University), offers novel insights into this question. Based on a survey and candidate choice experiments with 10.000 respondents, the study explores seven European cases: Estonia, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine.

The results reveal whether citizens are willing to trade off democracy for other partisan and policy interests. On the one hand, European citizens still believe in democracy. On the other hand, they are willing to put their respect for democratic norms to the side once identity policies come into play.

On Thursday, 13 October from 11:00 to 12:30, two of the study's authors, Johanna Lutz, Director at the FES “Democracy of the Future” office, and Elena Avramovska, FES Senior Researcher at the FES “Democracy of the Future” office, will present their research at the FES EU Office in Brussels. Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe, will comment on the findings.

The presentation will be followed by a discussion with the audience chaired by Marco Schwarz, Policy Officer at the FES EU-Office.

A light lunch will be served after the event.

If you are interested in joining the event, please register here. 

You can access the full study here.

Venue address: FES EU Office, Rue du Taciturne 38, 1000 Brussels.

For more information please contact: marco.schwarz(at)fes.de