Varieties of populism in Europe

is the rule of law in danger?

Bojan Bugaric

Alenka Kuhelj

pp. 21-33

in: Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 10 (1), 2018.

Abstract

What the current surge of populism shows is that the rule of law and liberal democracy find themselves in great danger when the breadth of democratic support for their core principles begins to decrease. Both in Hungary and Poland, the populist forces relatively easily undermined the rule of law and democracy, and steered politics in a dangerous authoritarian direction. Ultimately, democratic political parties with credible political ideas and platforms offer the best hope for protection of liberal democracy. As the Western European examples show, as long as there exist credible liberal political platforms, the threat to the rule of law and democracy is not existential. While populists in Western Europe challenge certain liberal values and policies, they lack the capacity to threaten the essence of liberal democracy.