ABSTRACT
Democracy and the rule of law are fundamental community norms of the European Union (EU). However, so far, the EU has been unable to prevent several of its Member States from democratic backsliding. In this chapter, we investigate whether and, if so, how such norm violations affect public support for solidarity and co-operation in the EU. Building on insights from behavioural economics, we argue that European citizens value reciprocal norm compliance and are willing to sanction norm-violating Member States in order to sustain the norms of the political community and ensure compliance with the “rules of the game”. Synthesising survey and survey experimental evidence from two recent research projects, we show that a majority of citizens are willing to exclude norm-violating states from participating in common EU policies and from reaping membership benefits. Our chapter concludes by cautioning that, in the long run, democratic backsliding might undermine support for the European integration project, more generally.
