Abstract
How do you face democratic backsliding within an organisation known for its emphasis on democracy? Despite membership criteria of democracy and the rule of law unmatched by any other international organisation, the EU has struggled to cope with democratic backsliding in member states Poland and Hungary over the last decade. This thesis explores the ramifications of the European Union’s reaction to so-called LGBT-free zones that local level authorities in Poland started to adopt in 2019. The year after, the EU began withholding funds from local authorities upholding documents declaring their area to be “free from LGBT-ideology”. Soon after, municipalities started to repeal the homophobic declarations. Using self-collected data on Polish local governments’ revenue and EU funds, I employ logistic regression analysis to test the relationship between EU dependency and repealing LGBT- free zones. The LGBT-free zones are part of a democratic recline going on in Poland since the Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in 2015. The literature on democratic backsliding in the EU revolves around the constraints and effects of the different work tools available to counter backsliding in member states. EU scholars are divided between favouring social pressure as a mean to constrain illiberal practices, and those who consider material sanctions most effective. The findings in the thesis supports the effect of material sanctions as a tool of coercion. I find a robust positive relationship between EU dependency and repealing the homophobic declarations. I also find a positive relationship between EU dependency and adopting the declarations. This indicates no salient link between EU dependency and local LGBT-policies prior to 2019. I do not find evidence that richer local authorities are less likely to repeal the declarations, regardless of EU dependency. This is likely explained by historical factors, religion, political values, and economy. While focusing on the relationship between the EU and its member states’ central governments, democratic backsliding fuelled by local authorities and the dynamics of the EU sanctioning local-level governments have been given little attention. This thesis emphasises the importance of local authorities’ role in democratic backsliding. Moreover, it contributes to the meagre research on the relationship between local authorities and the EU.