Dr Etienne Hanelt 🇺🇦

As all our Verfassungsbooks, "Mapping Article 13: Academic and Scientific Freedom under the EU Charter" is Open Access! 🔓📖

Featuring contributions inter alia by @olgaceran.bsky.social, @ehanelt.bsky.social, @raffaela.bsky.social and @krobertslyer.bsky.social!

Managing courts in competitive authoritarian regimes - Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft More than a decade of democratic backsliding has turned Hungary into a competitive authoritarian state. The government has initiated many judicial reforms to exert control over the judiciary, yet need...

And if you prefer reading over listening: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Together with Attila Vincze, I spoke about the state of the judiciary in Hungary's competitive authoritarian state, based on research we published previously in the German Journal of Comparative Politics.

Ich bin sehr stolz auf dieses Buch!

Zusammen mit @fzillessen.bsky.social habe ich das Methodenkapitel über die qualitative Szenarioanalyse geschrieben.

Jonathan Schramm und ich haben außerdem das Szenario zu Beförderung und Abordnung von Richtern untersucht – ein Schlüsselszenario, wie ich finde.

Ep. 1 in our mini-series on #Hungary 🇭🇺 is out!

Too often we ask what's feasible, rather than what's right, when it comes #RoL enforcement in the #EU. Tune in for a 🎙️ w/ @ascherz.bsky.social about what “doing the right thing” could look like.

🔗 Listen here: open.spotify.com/show/2lyLtQi...

Bald erscheint unsere Studie mit Szenarioanalysen zu Verwundbarkeit und Resilienz der Justiz in Deutschland! ⬇️

This probably sounds weird and technical, but it is crucial that EU member states use Article 259 TFEU to challenge democratic and rule of law backsliding in other member states, as I argue in my book.

Another excellent post on the destruction of academic freedom in Orban's 🇭🇺 focusing on the use of the fake "Matthias Corvinus Collegium", a key part of Orban's propaganda apparatus which recently pushed a Soviet-style "report" attacking individual professors in past or present receipt of EU funding

Thank you, Laurent!

Castles of Illiberal Thought

I contributed a short piece on illiberal GONGOs (Government-Organised Non-Governmental Organisations) to a symposium of @verfassungsblog.de. This is the first output of my re:constitution fellowship. Check it out: ⬇️

verfassungsblog.de/castles-of-i...

“For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” said Hegseth. The picture beneath the text shows an audience of generals and admirals. All men. Most white.

Text and image together - pure gold! 😂

EU moves to advance Ukraine’s accession by sidestepping Hungary Brussels advises Kyiv to advance technical work despite Budapest holding up talks

This means: the EU 🇪🇺 is betting on a post-Orbán future of Hungary 🇭🇺 next year.

EU moves to advance Ukraine’s accession by sidestepping Hungary - on.ft.com/4gNoWa7 via @FT

Exciting news: Patrick Leisure is a re:constitution Fellow 2025/26! 🎉 His project explores states’ positive obligations under the ECHR & schools, inspired by Amy Guttman’s Democratic Education. He follows colleagues @katarinasipulova.bsky.social & @ehanelt.bsky.social from last year. See link below👇

Yesterday @ehanelt.bsky.social & @fzillessen.bsky.social (Verfassungsblog’s Judicial Resilience Project) brought a paper "Analysing Democratic Backsliding Before It Happens: Studying Judicial Resilience in Germany Through Scenario Analysis" 🔗Follow the project on: verfassungsblog.de/justiz-proje...

We draw on interviews with🧑‍⚖️ judges and judicial system experts to show how informal mechanisms are used to undermine judicial independence in Hungary 🇭🇺.

I'm grateful to our interviewees who made this research possible.

Managing courts in competitive authoritarian regimes - Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft More than a decade of democratic backsliding has turned Hungary into a competitive authoritarian state. The government has initiated many judicial reforms to exert control over the judiciary, yet need...

Together with @avincze.bsky.social , I have contributed an article titled 'Managing courts in competitive authoritarian regimes: Co-optation, repression and resistance in Hungary'.

You can find it here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft Die Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft publiziert bilinguale, innovative Forschungsergebnisse aus dem Bereich der Vergleichenden ...

🚨 The Special Issue 'Rule of Law and Rechtsstaat under pressure' of the German Journal of Comparative Politics (ZfVP) is finally out! It was edited by Hans-Joachim Lauth, Marta Bucholc and Nicolas Hayoz.

Check it out the contributions here: ⬇️

link.springer.com/journal/1228...

Socialists to support von der Leyen in no-confidence vote after she backs down on EU budget European Commission president expected to easily survive ― but she has made two major concessions.

The Socialists in the EP have leveraged a no-confidence vote put up by the far right to effectively gut a major part of the reform of the EU budget. Stunning development that further imperils the prospect for a major MFF reform. I had hopes that this time would be different. But I was naive.
Thread:

Das ist auch vor dem Hintergrund neuer Diskussionen über "Verfassungstreuechecks" mit Regelanfragen beim Verfassungschutz z.B. bei der Einstellung von Richtern, eine sehr interessante Studie.

Sign the Petition We protest the dismantling of the Hungarian Research Network (HUN-REN)

Now, HUN-REN is under attack and Orbán wants to force parts of it to split off and join ELTE. While the authoritarian government of Orbán is not likely to respond to petitions, it is still important that the international science community shows its solidarity: chng.it/qz9ZQbDLKZ

As part of my re:constitution fellowship I spent time at and worked with the wonderful people of the HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, especially the Institute of Legal Studies, to study academic freedom (and its boundaries) in Hungary.

MCC, one of Orbán's lavishly-funded, regime-loyal 'think tanks' builds a new campus in Budapest – truly an 'illiberal castle'. I went on a walk to Gellert Hill last night to investigate the site. Not much to see yet, but it's going to be BIG.

Sehr cooler Artikel dazu, wie man mit der russischen Schattenflotte umgehen kann, wenn sie Sabotageakte verübt.

Behandelt sie wie Piraten. 🏴‍☠️

Dungeons and Dictators: A Role-Based Simulation of Authoritarian States This article introduces the simulation “Dungeons and Dictators”, a role-playing simulation designed to mimic the logic of authoritarian states. While teaching democracies and international organiza...

Dungeons and Dictators: A Role-Based Simulation of Authoritarian States:
@jpseeditors.bsky.social
Robert Keener

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Stop eavesdropping on me and posting about it! 😉

Selfie in front of a roll-up with the Political Capital logo.

I'm delighted to be starting my 2nd mobility phase today as part of my re:constitution fellowship. I'm visiting Political Capital in Budapest.

Very poetic, so I asked ChatGPT to make it to a Limerick:

When illiberals plot and confound,
They reshape the rules on the ground.
While law takes its time,
They cement the crime—
And declare the new norm as sound.

Beyond Performance: Why Leaders Still Matter | Journal of Democracy Delivery matters, but so do leaders’ actions. Why have so many, in both strong and weak economies, been pushing against democratic constraints on their power, and why have those constraints failed to…

"Voters electing the world leaders who subsequently took their countries down the road of electoral autocracy were in many cases choosing well-known, experienced political figures who were promising to reform democracy, not dismantle it."

www.journalofdemocra...

Das Bild zeigt das Zitat des Autors Philipp Köker: „Daher stellt die strategische Delegitimierung von Gerichten durch autoritäre Populisten selbst dort eine Gefahr dar, wo diese (noch) über keine oder kaum politische Macht verfügen.“

Nach den Beschlüssen des VG Berlin sind die drei beteiligten Richter*innen diffamiert und bedroht worden.

Kein Ausnahmefall, meint PHILIPP KÖKER (@philippkoeker.bsky.social), denn autoritäre Populisten arbeiten systematisch daran, die Justiz zu delegitimieren.

verfassungsblog.de/delegitimier...