Dr Etienne Hanelt 🇺🇦

“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...

I love creative legal solutions. 😍

"TUSK BETWEEN NAWROCKI AND A HARD PLACE" 🤣
Well done, @politico.eu, well done!

The Council must do what the Parliament achieved against all odds seven years ago.

It is time.

Getting Article 7 done: coalition-building against Hungary in the European Parliament Following years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, parts of the European Parliament considered the use of Article 7 TEU. The Parliament’s position had evolved considerably over the years, yet it...

That it is possible to extend a rule-of-law coalition is something I have shown in my article 'Getting Article 7 Done: Coalition-building against Hungary in the European Parliament', published in the @jei-publication.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1080/0703...

No majority among EU countries to sanction Hungary over rule of law EU ministers are set to discuss the potential of sanctioning Hungary over its rule of law concerns, but there is no majority for imposing sanctions. #EuropeNews

Today, Ministers meet in the Council of the 🇪🇺 (GAC) to discuss the rule of law in Hungary 🇭🇺 for the eighth time under Article 7(1) TEU. Again, there won't be a majority for finding that Orbán's actions constitute a 'clear risk of a serious breach' of EU values.

www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...

Selfie in front of the title slide.

Yesterday, I spoke at the Institute for Legal Studies of the HUN-REN Centre for Social Science in Budapest & introduced my re:constitution research project 'Castles of Illiberal Thought & Mercenary Thinkers: Academic Legitimation of Authoritarian Politics in 🇭🇺'. I learned a lot from the discussion.

Paper abstract: Are some political preferences more costly to express? In this study, we investigate the extent to which individuals face social exclusion for showing far-right political beliefs. We run a field experiment in Madrid where confederates initiate an interaction with random passers-by. We randomize whether the confederate wears a neutral (white) t-shirt or a t-shirt of different parties. Results show that passers-by are more likely to avoid interacting with confederates wearing the t-shirt of a far-right party (Vox). This finding holds both when we compare this condition against the neutral t-shirt one or the ones where confederates wear a t-shirt of other parties. Analyses of heterogeneity show that this effect is particularly strong in a left-wing neigbourhood. These findings contribute to theories about peer pressure and social punishment, providing evidence of how those processes can extend to the expression of different political views. They provide new insights into the micro-level mechanisms that underpin broader political trends, particularly the rapid and sometimes unexpected electoral growth of far-right parties.

I am very excited to share a new working paper coauthored with @amaliaab.bsky.social.

Using a field experiment, we find that, in the real world, it is more costly to express far-right preferences than other political preferences.

osf.io/preprints/os...

1/8

Title slide of presentation.

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of presenting my project 'Castles of Illiberal Thought and Mercenary Thinkers' at re:constitution in a fellow's talk. Thanks go to @cohelongo.bsky.social, who did an amazing job moderating the session, and @gszd.bsky.social, who gave insightful comments.

For Example: How to Use Examples in Political Science For Example: How to Use Examples in Political Science By John S. Dryzek, University of Canberra. There is a large literature on the use of cases, hardly anything on examples. They are different: cases get analyzed, examples get deployed. Examples can perform clarifying, didactic, persuasive, universalizing, critical, and cogitative functions. These six functions all have their own logic, and a set of guidelines for how to perform each of them well is developed.

For Example: How to Use Examples in Political Science

For Example: How to Use Examples in Political Science By John S. Dryzek, University of Canberra. There is a large literature on the use of cases, hardly anything on examples. They are different: cases get analyzed, examples get deployed.…

Just learned: If you want to become a judge or prosecutor in Saxony, you need to submit a handwritten, narrative resumé. 😂

www.justiz.sachsen.de/content/1032...