The label of illiberal democracy is however only somewhat superficially applicable here, at least when it is meant in the sense introduced by Fareed Zakaria. This is not to deny that some sort of illiberal populism and illiberal governance in the member states became serious political, legal and normative challenges for European integration in recent years, quite to the contrary. On the other hand, European legal mechanisms and political institutions are often interpreted to function as constraints against such tendencies.
The papers examine interactions between the European and the domestic level in illustrative fields like the protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law, the macro-characteristics of the political system or the politics of symbols and cultural spaces.
The panel, consisting of political scientists, EU lawyers, and constitutional lawyers explores to what extent the general interpretation of Europe constraining the illiberal holds true at a closer look, and whether different disciplines, such as law and political science might reach different conclusions in this regard.
These different approaches certainly do not deliver a single and homogeneous diagnosis, let alone panacea for the ailing condition in which Europe is confronted with recent Hungarian developments. However, while reflecting on each other, the papers represent an effort to identify common determining variables, unbridgeable contradictions or complementary trends.
