Do citizens reward democratic norm enforcement? Experimental evidence on EU backsliding disputes

Conflicts between international organisations committed to democratic norms and member states experiencing democratic backsliding have become increasingly prominent in contemporary politics. Yet little is known about how citizens evaluate these disputes, and whether democratic norm enforcement is rewarded or penalised. Focussing on the European Union (EU), we field two survey experiments in Germany (n = 2700) and Hungary (n = 1600) that simulate realistic sequences of conflict between the EU and a backsliding government. Across both contexts, we find little evidence that citizens reward the EU for imposing or maintaining sanctions. By contrast, the EU incurs clear reputational costs when it retreats from previously announced enforcement under political pressure. These findings suggest that public opinion creates pressure towards institutions less through demand for democratic enforcement than through punishment of visible inconsistency in disputes over democratic norms.