Abstract
My thesis analyzes the role of globalization in democratization and democratic consolidation in the member states of the European Union and European Economic Area, with a focus on the democratic trajectories of Hungary and Slovakia. While both countries experienced rapid globalization facilitated by integration into European Union institutions in the 1990s and early 2000s, Hungary has undergone significant democratic backsliding, whereas Slovakia has remained relatively stable. I aim to understand the interaction between globalization and democracy through both quantitative and qualitative analysis of Hungary and Slovakia. I argue that globalization does not play a direct role in democratic growth or backsliding but rather creates conditions which influence the incentives political elites have for maintaining democracy. When these incentives are high, democracy can be maintained, but when they are low, then the negative impacts of globalization foster nationalist populist actors. In my thesis, I use an empirical analysis to show the lack of a relationship between globalization and democracy in Europe and then evaluate competing theoretical perspectives, including Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s theory of linkage and leverage and Dani Rodrik’s theory of the political trilemma. I show that globalization created both challenges and opportunities for anti-democratic actors in Hungary and Slovakia and explain how the trajectory of democracy in each country is contingent on how its domestic environment and institutions are able to respond to the impacts of globalization.