5  Conclusion

This analysis examined whether democracy is in retreat across Europe and what factors might be driving this erosion. Democratic backsliding in Europe is real but uneven. The sharpest declines are concentrated in post-communist countries—Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia. Yet established western democracies are not immune: democracy scores sit materially below their peaks everywhere, and polarization and political hate speech have intensified across the board. The causes appear multiple and context-dependent. Income inequality alone does not predict backsliding within the EU; the more equal post-communist democracies have experienced the sharpest declines. Wealth may be the missing variable: poorer countries with lower inequality have proven more vulnerable than wealthier, more unequal ones. Polarization shows a clearer association, with the worst-performing democracies also exhibiting the most intense political divisions. The mechanisms of erosion vary. Factors such as election fairness, journalist harassment, and other related measures serve as proxies for executive aggrandizement and show a consistent relationship with democratic health, whereas dimensions like judicial compliance, constitutional respect, and opposition oversight display a more mixed pattern. Executive aggrandizement does not follow a single template. Limitations apply: V-Dem relies on expert assessments, which can be subjective. Furthermore, democracy indices depend on factor selection and weighting criteria that can be biased. Future directions: democratic backsliding is a subject of debate in the political sciences and many analyses and interpretations have been proposed. This analysis barely scratches the surface of a very complex and multi-faceted phenomenon. It would be interesting to further investigate the nature and role of polarization in connection with institutional change and democratic erosion.