Regionalized Challenges to Transatlantic Democracy
Florida and Texas versus Poland and Hungary
Democracies have come under severe stress globally. 2020 was the fifteenth consecutive year where the total worldwide aggregate score of freedom has fallen (Freedom House 2021). However, though lamentable in regions not traditionally associated with democracy, the effects of such occurrences within the frameworks of the United States and the European Union (Smolka 2021), the planet’s largest exporters of democratic models for civil society, should worry any advocate of popular representation immensely.
Florida and Texas: On the Precipice
In the United States, the federalist system was designed with the specific intent of shoring the nation against democratic decline. As James Madison noted in Federalist No. 10, the federal split outlined in the US Constitution exists to prevent a faction at the state or federal level from uniformly trampling individual liberties through a system of checks and balances upon one another (Madison 1787). Yet, just as the devolution of power to the state level in a federal system allowed California, Michigan, and New York to rebuff Trump-era federal attempts to police ballot initiatives (Thrush et al., 2020), it similarly now allows large states like Florida and Texas, among other smaller peers, to pass sweeping legislation with the express intent of limiting access for people with disabilities, legalizing the recording of voters by partisan poll watchers, decreasing access to polling stations, and restricting access to mail-in ballots (Florida Senate 2021) (Texas Legislature 2021).
Fueled by a mixture of anti-immigrant rhetoric and electoral skepticism (Newkirk 2018), the functional result of these laws will be the stifling of organized electoral opposition against the majority parties, further widening the ideological disconnect between the average voter in the two states and their increasingly homogenous party representation in their legislatures. (Noe-Bustamante 2020) (University of Texas at Tyler 2021).
Poland and Hungary: Over the Edge
Recent trends in Poland and Hungary bear a remarkable resemblance to Texas and Florida within their wider democratic systems. Like their US counterparts, Poland and Hungary have become the problem children of the European Union in terms of democratic backsliding. The Fidesz party of Hungary has coopted state media and resources for electoral benefit while simultaneously restricting independent freedom of assembly and outlawing criticism of the government in higher education (Serhan 2020), making Hungary the only state in the EU to be downgraded to “partly free” (Freedom House 2021). Poland, for its part, has recently added to its longtime negative trajectory by implementing legislation to oust any judge critical of the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), essentially eliminating the independence of its judiciary (Schmitz 2020). New legislation in both countries has given their governments sweeping powers to enact laws including immigration crackdowns, abortion restrictions, and “anti-LGBTQ+” directives, inhibiting the civil liberties of “EU citizens” and inviting doubt about the EU’s global standing as a democratic leader.
The Purse as a Solution
The EU has attempted to stymy the democratic decline in Hungary and Poland. It recently appears to have perhaps found a key. In a specific conflict with the Polish government on the issue of LGBT rights, the EU was able to reverse the imposition of many “LGBT-Free Zones” in Poland by withdrawing funding from any locality that created such designations. Within days, hundreds of these zones had disappeared. Even PiS backed the initiative in the face of public backlash and a looming snap election (Kość 2021).
Similarly, the US Federal Government has experience with such tactics. The example of the National Minimum Drinking Age in the US, where Federal Authorities coaxed states to raise their drinking ages through leverage of federal highway funds, similarly proves the effectiveness of this soft-power tactic in an American context (Grant 2021). Poland, Hungary, Florida, and Texas all fund economically vital projects, chief among them infrastructure development, through money provided by the EU and US Federal Government respectively (Hoffower 2019) (EUR-Lex 2021). Since neither a partisan judiciary nor a supermajority legislature can avoid the national budget sheet, it would seem institutions like the European Commission and US Congress should consider fiscal warfare to solve their democracy issues.
Civil Society and the Cooperative Preservation of Democracy
Yet, the utilization of economic coercion carries the issue of undermining the democratic nature of these systems themselves. If the EU and US wish to support democracy domestically in a sustainable manner, attention must be turned towards methods that build a perception of civil society’s efficacy, not ones that jeopardize public faith in the impact of voting on policy. To that end, both states would benefit by taking notes from their joint playbook of democratic export. If regional governance deprives civil society of its necessary resources, both the US and EU must support organizations that defend civil liberties not only within themselves but within each other. Initial actions have proven successful, such as US opposition to a bill nationalizing all media in Poland killing the legislation in Poland’s upper house (Gera 2021), but mutual support for democracy stands to benefit from greater direct action. For instance, the EU cannot just condemn abortion restrictions in Texas. If it wishes to make a difference, it must partner with pregnancy clinics and advocates to strengthen grassroots civil opposition.
The European Union and the United States must stand united in their opposition towards any threat to their democracies within either of their systems. Democracy and liberty are built on the backs of real people, American and European. Cooperation, to that end, cannot be flouted if liberal democracy wishes to persist. Democracy does not allow us the liberty to take it for granted. If the EU and the US desire to export democracy globally, they cannot forget to export it to one another.
Photo Credit (in order of appearance): Grzegorz Żukowski; flickr, Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Commons
Works Cited
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Thrush, Glenn, and Nick Corasaniti. “The Fight over Absentee Ballots Intensifies around Drop Boxes.” The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/us/politics/california-drop-boxes-voting-gop.html
Further Reading:
Brussels ups the ante in rule-of-law dispute with Poland
https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-eu-increases-pressure-rule-of-law-dispute-poland/
Hungary’s Illiberal Democracy
https://religionlab.virginia.edu/projects/hungarys-illiberal-democracy/
American Democracy — Stressed out and ‘backsliding’?
https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/11/18/american-democracy-stressed-out-and-backsliding/
Florida Enacts Sweeping Voter Suppression Law
Make no mistake: Poland and Hungary aren’t the only EU states abusing the law
https://www.cer.eu/in-the-press/make-no-mistake-poland-and-hungary-arent-only-eu-states-abusing-law
Europe Tightens Purse Strings to Try to Pressure Poland and Hungary
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/world/europe/hungary-poland-eu.html
