Partisanship, pragmatism, or idealism? Evaluating public support for backlashes against international courts in backsliding democracies
研究民主倒退国家中公众对国际法院反弹的支持，发现政府支持者的支持度受其对国际组织态度影响，而反对派支持者则取决于其对民主规范的承诺。基于2022年3月匈牙利调查数据。
With democratic backsliding spreading globally, international courts increasingly find themselves serving as democratic guardrails. This task poses a challenge, as national governments may attempt to punish international courts for trying to constrain their backsliding agendas. Since a government’s calculus for attacking a court is likely influenced by public opinion, we consider the impact of partisanship on the extent of public support for backlash against international courts in backsliding democracies. We theorise that support for backlash is driven by more than partisanship alone. For government partisans, support for backlash decreases with support for the international organisation to which the court belongs, while for opposition partisans it depends on their commitment to the democratic norms the court’s decision defends. We support our expectations by analysing original survey data collected from Hungary in March 2022, immediately following a major pro-democracy decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union.