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Democracy around the world is threatened by autocratic leaders who wants to demolish the fundamental democratic values. In this essay the aim is to get an understanding of how democratic backsliding in Poland and Hungary appears and what differences and similarities there is between the two countries and to see if there is a generalization. The theory is constructed by Bermeo, Haggard and Kaufmans definition and research of democratic backsliding. To be able to specify the research Levitsky and Ziblatts four warnings signs of autocratic tendencies have been used. The time frame is between 2010 – 2022 because it is when the Hungarian party Fidesz was elected. The study is a qualitative comparative study. The result of the research could show that there is a democratic backsliding happening in both countries and there is a lot of similarities between them. Most of the backsliding is due to the changes in legislation and the political system.

The aim of this paper is to examine the Republic of Poland and to what extent the country meets Linz and Stepan´s five arenas of a consolidated democracy which are as follows; Civil society, Political society, Rule of law, State apparatus and Economic society. The application of these five arenas on Poland are due to the political changes that have occurred since the year 2015 when PiS and Andrzej Duda formed a government. By applying the following arenas through a case study, it´s possible to see how these are manifesting in the Republic of Poland. The results of the paper show that all arenas indicate deficiencies with the arena of rule of law being the most vulnerable.

The aim of this essay is to use Linz and Stepan’s theory on their five interactive arenas (Civil Society, Political Society, Rule of Law, State Bureaucracy and Economic Society) of a consolidated democracy, to examine whether the Republic of Poland can be considered a consolidated democracy. I will base my research on facts from the year 2015 to 2021, since I want to see how the political changes that have been implemented since the party Law of Justice (PiS) entered into government, and how that has affected Poland as a consolidated democracy. This research is a case study, and the main results of it is that Poland can no longer be considered a consolidated democracy, since it has deficiencies in all five arenas, but they are strongest within the Rule of Law.

The political parties Law and Justice (PiS) and Fidesz have over the years being on the tabloid for choosing different directions than other countries within the European union. With their Euroscepticism and rhetoric’s often criticizing the union for putting Europeans second before immigrants, the parties have become a well discussed topic around the continent. The rhetoric that has been used by the parties have been associated with nationalism and making different decisions than ruling parties around Europe, as an example preventing immigrants entering their countries during the refugee crisis of 2015. The question however is whether the parties are nationalistic as their critics say, and what other areas besides immigration that tells if the parties are nationalistic. Thus, this essay’s purpose is to analyze whether PiS and Fidesz are nationalistic parties. Using three concepts to analyze from; multiculturalism, citizenship and nation, this essay will show whether you can place PiS and Fidesz within ethnonationalism or cultural nationalism. The essay also contains charts, where the parties are placed within the two chosen nationalistic orientations.