Learning to Flip the Authoritarian Playbook

Monday, October 6, 2025, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Our Senior Researcher for Democracy and Society Dr. Filip Milačić presents his research on how to flip the Authoritarian Playbook in the 53rd session of the De- and Re-Democratization (DRD) Workgroup's Rooftop Seminar. If you would like to attend, please register here.

The paper is available upon request from the author.

Abstract:

The success of democratic backsliding is often attributed to two novel challenges for pro-democracy forces: the challenge of uncertainty about who the enemies of democracy are and the challenge of ambiguity about the attacks on democracy. By focusing on three formerly liberal democracies (Hungary, Poland, and Israel) that witnessed incumbents’ attacks on the independent judiciary, I demonstrate that one type of diffusion (‘learning’) was critical for a more successful resistance in Poland and Israel. Drawing on interviews with involved actors from civil society and politics, I demonstrate that the diffusion of information about negative cases (Fidesz’s judicial “reform” for Poland and both Fidesz’s and PiS’s judicial “reforms” for Israel) was important: in, firstly, raising awareness about the true nature of the incumbents’ actions and, secondly, in naming the threats to democracy in plausible terms. This helped mobilize citizens to protest. The paper advances our understanding of the resistance playbook.

Speaker:

Filip Milacic studied political sciences and history of Eastern Europe at the University of Heidelberg and obtained the PhD at the Humboldt University, Berlin. Currently, he is senior researcher at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) and visiting faculty at CEU in Vienna. Previously, he worked for the Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and at the University of Montenegro. He also held visiting scholar position at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna and at MacMillan Center, Yale University. He is author of two books: Nationalstaatsbildung, Krieg und Konsolidierung der Demokratie: Kroatien, Serbien, und Montenegro (Springer 2017) and Stateness and Democratic Consolidation: Lessons from Former Yugoslavia (Springer 2022). His work was published in many academic journals such as Journal of Democracy, Ethnopolitics, Nationalities Papers, Nations and Nationalism, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Political Science Quarterly etc. 

Discussant:

Marta Pardavi is co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a leading human rights NGO based in Budapest, Hungary. She has recently been focusing on the threats to the rule of law and civil society space in Hungary and the EU. She also co-leads the Recharging Advocacy for Rights in Europe (RARE) program, which equips human rights defenders to build stronger organizations and alliances for joint action on civic space and the rule of law in the EU. Marta holds a law degree from ELTE Faculty of Law in Budapest and an Executive Master’s in Public Administration from the Hertie School in Berlin. She serves on the boards of PILnet and the International Partnership for Human Rights, the advisory board of the re:constitution programme and the Council of Europe’s Expert Council on NGO Law.

Chair:

Andreas Schedler is a Senior Research Fellow at the CEU Democracy Institute. He is the Lead Researcher of the De- and Re-Democratization Working Group and a Visiting Professor at CEU Vienna. He earned his PhD from the University of Vienna. Before joining the CEU, he was a professor of political science at the Center for Economic Teaching and Research (cide) in Mexico City. A leading comparative scholar of democracy, democratization, and authoritarianism, he has conducted research on democratic consolidation and transition, authoritarian elections, anti-political-establishment parties, political accountability, and organized violence. He is also known for his methodological work on concept analysis and cross-national measurement. His current research focuses on political polarization and the destruction of basic democratic trust.