Defending democracy

1
Defending democracy beyond the state

• Towards a Europeanization of national militant
  restrictions dealing with extremism?
• Nefeli Lefkopoulou

2
Defending democracy

• Concept of militant democracy introduced by
  Karl Loewenstein
• Repressive stance with inclusionist strategies
  Giovanni Capoccia
• Repressive legislation very broad ground of
  measures

3
National state approach on defending democracy

• Viability opportunity of national institutional
  frameworks
• Cross national variation in legal restrictions

4
An approach leaving out

• possible interstate interactions
• dialogue between national and European
  defensiveness

5
The EU and the challenge of extremism
6
European community of values

• Values common to the MS
• An established basis of agreement
• Common and thus shared ?

7
Functional challenge factors of national order

• Partisan loyalties
• Pre electoral contexts
• Cultural differences

8
Towards a Europeanization of defending democracy
(1) ?

• Two way process uploading and downloading
  mechanisms
• Codification mission convergence between
  national militant restrictions

9
Towards a Europeanization of defending democracy
(2) ?

• Bottom up approach
• How can different national defending
  democracies affect the policy of the EU in
  intervening for combating extremism ?

10
Towards a Europeanization of defending democracy
(3) ?

• Up down approach
• How does the depth of EU integration matter for
  MS to commit to EU democratic values ?

11
Logical assumptions

• the stronger the adherence of a Member State to
  the EU democratic values, the higher the
  probability of adequate defending mechanisms at
  the national level
• the higher the danger of extremism at a national
  level (crisis moments) and the more shocking to
  the public the extreme right parties activity,
  the higher the probability for the EU to develop
  stricter defending mechanisms at the EU level

12
Hypotheses

• Principal The level of Europeanized defensive
  mechanisms dealing with extremism is increasing
  over time and the anti-extremist institutional
  design is becoming more sophisticated
• Subsidiary The national governments policy
  plays a more influential role in the process of
  downloading and uploading defensive mechanisms

13
Possible case studies (1)

• Weaknesses of autonomous national responses
  NPD (Germany), Golden Dawn (Greece)

14
Possible case studies (2)

• Limitations of an autonomous EU intervention
  Haider affair as a precedent, Hungary
  (Constitution changes)

15
Methodology

• Dependent variable the level of existing
  defensiveness at the national level
• Independent variables the depth of the EU
  integration of each MS, the level of adherence to
  the EU community of values, the occurrence of
  crisis moments, the public opinions reaction,
  the EUs degree of interference

16
Empirical tools

• Euro barometers
• Qualitative surveys
• Reports by HR Commissioners
• ?Identifying barriers
• Interviews
• Fact-finding meetings

17
Transferability

• Successful defending mechanisms from one MS to
  another

18
Learning from the US model?

• US system as a tool in the attempt to verify how
  Europeanization could be operationalized
• Relegation of laws to state and federal
  legislatures

19
Limitations of exporting a US model

• Primordial difference in the legal nature of the
  two systems
• Cultural discrepancies on restrictions on freedom
  of speech