CAN INTERNATIONAL ACTORS CONSTRAIN & REVERSE NATIONAL-LEVEL AUTOCRATIZATION?

Can international actors help halt democratic erosion, or even contribute to democratic recovery once autocratization is underway? This panel examines the role of international and transnational actors in constraining, enabling, or reversing national-level autocratization, with particular attention to the role of the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Venice Commission. Bringing together comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, the discussion explores how international courts, regional institutions, legal standards, monitoring mechanisms, funding conditionalities, and diplomatic pressures shape domestic democratic trajectories. The panel considers both the possibilities and limits of external democratic safeguards in a changing geopolitical landscape marked by polarization, democratic backsliding, and growing challenges to liberal internationalism. Under what conditions can international engagement strengthen democratic resilience, support resistance, and contribute to meaningful democratic recovery?
This session is part of the UiB/LawTransform project Autocratization Dynamics: (NFR/ Intpart #322644),
ROUNDTABLE introduction: Eirik Holmøyvik, UiB Faculty of Law and Vice President of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe
Participants: Adam Bodnar, SWPS University, Poland; Alida Steigler, University of Oslo, Norway; Iver Ørstavik, Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, Bergen; Jacob Batinga, Cornell University, USA; András Sajo, Central European University, Austria.