Partisanship, pragmatism, or idealism? Evaluating public support for backlashes against international courts in backsliding democracies

With democratic backsliding spreading globally, international courts increasingly find themselves serving as democratic guardrails. This task poses a challenge, as national governments may attempt to punish international courts for trying to constrain their backsliding agendas. Since a government’s calculus for attacking a court is likely influenced by public opinion, we consider the impact of partisanship on the extent of public support for backlash against international courts in backsliding democracies. We theorise that support for backlash is driven by more than partisanship alone. For government partisans, support for backlash decreases with support for the international organisation to which the court belongs, while for opposition partisans it depends on their commitment to the democratic norms the court’s decision defends. We support our expectations by analysing original survey data collected from Hungary in March 2022, immediately following a major pro-democracy decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union.