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Abstract This article examines the effectiveness of E uropean U nion post‐accession leverage to contain democratic backsliding in the M ember S tates by employing as a case study the EU 's intervention concerning the impeachment of the R omanian P resident B ăsescu in J uly 2012. It is argued that a set of domestic factors, such as political miscalculations, tensions within the ruling coalition and opportunistic actions, facilitated the success of EU material leverage to halt democratic deterioration in R omania. The comparison drawn with the anti‐democratic turn in H ungary demonstrates that facilitating domestic conditions, available in the R omanian case but lacking in the Hungarian one, can affect the exercise of EU post‐accession leverage to contain democratic regression in the M ember S tates.
Ingi Iusmen (Sun,) studied this question.