Do Citizens in Backsliding Democracies Support International Courts’ Judicial Power? Evidence from Hungary

Abstract

International courts are increasingly serving as bulwarks of democracy. These courts, however, often depend on the cooperation of the very governments they seek to hold accountable, exposing them to potential retaliation for attempting to constrain their behavior. As governments’ response to adverse decision-making is often conditional on public support, we explore whether citizens actually support international courts’ judicial power over questions of democracy. We argue that citizens’ support for this form of judicial power depends on their democratic values and their desire for institutional checks and balances against the executive. Furthermore, we contest that this support is conditional on partisanship, with this relationship holding for opposition partisans while government partisans are generally opposed to international courts’ judicial power. We support our expectations using original survey data collected from Hungary before their 2022 national legislative elections, and examining citizens’ support for judicial power for the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Full text

ARTICLE
Do Citizens in Backsliding Democracies Support
International Courts’Judicial Power?Evidence
from Hungary
Sivaram Cheruvu
1
and Jay N. Krehbiel
2
1
School of Economics, Political, and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA and
2
Department of Political Science, University at Buffalo (SUNY), Buffalo, NY, USA
Corresponding author: Sivaram Cheruvu; Email: sivaram.cheruvu@utdallas.edu
(Received 29 June 2024; Revised 23 October 2024; Accepted 11 November 2024)
Abstract
International courts are increasingly serving as bulwarks of democracy. Thesecourts, however,
often depend on the cooperation of the very governments they seek to hold accountable,
exposing them to potential retaliation for attempting to constrain their behavior. As govern-
ments’response to adversedecision-making is often conditional on public support, we explore
whether citizens actually support international courts’judicial power over questions of
democracy. We argue that citizens’support for this form of judicial power depends on their
democratic values and their desire for institutional checks and balances against the executive.
Furthermore, we contest that this support is conditional on partisanship, with this relationship
holding for opposition partisans while government partisans are generally opposed to inter-
national courts’judicial power. We support our expectations using original survey data
collectedfrom Hungary before their 2022 national legislative elections, and examiningcitizens’
support for judicial power for the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Keywords: Judicial Power; European Court of Justice; Democratic Backsliding; Hungary
Introduction
On July 26, 2023, Niger’s military ousted the president, Mohamed Bazoun, in a coup.
With the military junta keeping him under house arrest and threatening prosecution,
President Bazoun sought legal recourse not from his country’s domestic courts, but
rather from an international court, the ECOWAS Court of Justice.
1
The Court, in
concert with widespread regional and international condemnation of the coup –
including from the political leadership of ECOWAS (Yabi 2023)–obliged, by ruling in
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Law and Courts Organized Section of the
American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and
reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
1
ECOWAS stands for the Economic Community of West African States.
Journal of Law and Courts (2025), 1–18
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December 2023 that the junta unlawfully detained Bazounand ordering that he return
to office (Mednick 2023). The junta responded by withdrawing the country from
ECOWAS, and, thus, the Court’s jurisdiction (Wong 2024), which rendered this
international legal remedy for a direct assault on democracy impotent.
2
The case of Niger illustrates a significant development in the role of international
courts. Whereas international courts have had the task of addressing issues such as war
crimes prosecutions (e.g., Simmons and Danner 2010), economic regulation (e.g.,
Burley and Mattli 1993), and maritime law, among others (e.g., Abbott et al. 2000),
they are increasingly adjudicating disputes over fundamental democratic norms and
the very nature of democracy itself. From the rule of law crisis in the European Union
(e.g., Kelemen 2017; Jakli and Stenberg 2021; Cheruvu, Krehbiel and Mussell 2024)to
the protection of democratic rights by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
(e.g., Follesdal and Ulfstein 2018), international courts are finding themselves a critical
line of defense against democratic backsliding and autocratization. Yet with such
newfound, potentially powerful roles, come significant challenges to international
courts’power, like obtaining compliance and the risk of political backlash, as the
ECOWAS Court found.
While these difficulties are present for essentially any court, domestic or interna-
tional (e.g., Staton and Moore 2011; Vanberg 2015; Carrubba and Gabel 2017), they
may be particularly acute for international courts seeking to redress attacks on
democracy. Sustaining domestic democratic politics is often beyond international
courts’original purview, many of which –including the high courts of ECOWAS and
the EU –primarily resolve disputes over economic issues (e.g., Alter and Helfer 2010;
Carrubba and Gabel 2015). For such courts, taking on cases involving democratic
backsliding may represent an expansion of judicial authority that invites resistance
(e.g., Alter, Hafner-Burton, and Helfer 2019). Even for those international courts that
have a longer linkage with democracy-related concerns, such as those that emphasize
human rights, assessing the democratic quality of a country’s domestic political system
touches on a sensitive subject, as backlashes against courts like the European Court of
Human Rights demonstrates (e.g., Hillebrecht 2014; Voeten 2020). This backlash can
ultimately leave international courts in a vulnerable position when called upon to
uphold democracy.
In this paper, we consider a critical determinant of international courts’ability to
overcome such challenges and confront democratic backsliding: public support in
backsliding democracies for judicial power to protect democracy. Applying insights
from the expansive and robust literature on citizens’attitudes toward courts (e.g.,
Gibson and Nelson 2014; Bartels, Horowitz, and Kramon 2023; Cheruvu 2023)tothe
context of international courts’jurisdiction over democratic standards (e.g., Madsen,
Cebulak, and Wiebusch 2018; Cheruvu, Krehbiel, and Mussell 2024), we posit that
support for an international court’s judicial power in backsliding democracies is a
function of one’s democratic values. We go on to argue, however, that the influence of
democratic values on support for judicial power is powerfully conditioned by parti-
sanship. To demonstrate these dynamics, we present a series of analyses using novel
survey data collected in a particularly salient case of democratic backsliding, Hungary
(e.g., Bánkuti, Halmai, and Scheppele 2012; Kelemen 2017; Jakli and Stenberg 2021).
2
In June 2024, the State Court in Niger, which the military government established as the country’s new
high court, ruled that Bazoun no longer had legal immunity and could be tried by the government for alleged
crimes (Al Jazeera 2024).
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These analyses, which examine the Hungarian public’s support for the judicial power
of the European Union’s Court of Justice (CJEU),
3
reveal that while opponents of the
Fidesz government tended to exhibit greater support for the CJEU’s judicial power of
questions related to democracy, the strength of opposition supporters’attachment to
democratic values increased the magnitude of this difference. Taken together, these
findings indicate that while the judicial power of international courts such as the CJEU
may rely on political opposition forces when it comes to democracy-related issues, this
foundation of support is itself perhaps not as iron-clad as it first appears, but rather is
dependent on the ideological and attitudinal makeup of citizens’attitudes. As such,
where the political opposition includes substantial numbers with weak attachment to
democratic values, international courts may be on weaker ground than partisanship
alone might suggest.
This paper is organized as follows. The next section briefly reviews the existing
literature on public support for judicial power, after which we develop a theoretical
account of citizens’attitudes toward international courts’authority to resolve chal-
lenges involving democratic norms and standards. We then discuss our research
design, and present our empirical results. We conclude with a discussion of the study’s
potential implications for the efficacy of international courts and their role regarding
the prospects of liberal democracy.
Values, partisanship, and support for international courts’judicial power
Scholars of judicial politics have long recognized the importance of public support for
courts to serve as effective democratic guardrails. Unable to directly implement their
decisions, courts are reliant on the cooperation of governments to transform their
rulings from words on paper into action (e.g., Ferejohn and Weingast 1992; Rogers
2001; Ramseyer and Rasmusen 2003). When such compliance is contrary to the
government’s interest, such as when a court seeks to stymie a government’s under-
mining of democratic checks on its authority, this dynamic leaves courts in need of
political muscle to compel elected officials’acquiescence (e.g., Rosenberg 1991).
It is at this juncture that citizens’backing of judicial institutions becomes critical.
Were a sufficient portion of the public to demand that officials follow a court’s orders,
the subsequent political backlash for failing to do so –whether it be at the ballot box or
in the streets –has the potential to shift a government’s calculus (e.g., Gibson and
Caldeira 1998; Stephenson 2004). Recognizing the power of this relationship, scholars
have regularly characterized courts’efficacy in terms of their ability to marshal public
support for the implementation of their decisions (e.g., Vanberg 2005; Carrubba 2009;
Staton 2010; Krehbiel 2016; Krehbiel and Cheruvu 2022).
While scholars have long emphasized the significance of judicial legitimacy for a
court’s capacity to enforce constitutional order (e.g., Bartels and Johnston 2013;
Gibson and Nelson 2014), recent scholarship specifies a more pointed concept,
judicial power, which Bartels, Horowitz, and Kramon (2023, 791) define as “a court’s
independence and ability to achieve compliance with its rulings”(e.g., Gibson and
Caldeira 1998; Vanberg 2005; Carrubba 2009; Staton 2010). This distinction centers
on the judiciary’s capacity to demand or prohibit a government’s action, whereas
judicial legitimacy encompasses a broader attitude regarding citizens’loyalty to a
3
The CJEU consists of the General Court and the Court of Justice. All references in this paper are to the
Court of Justice unless otherwise stated.
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court as an institution (Gibson and Caldeira 1992). Just as both concepts are
immensely useful for theorizing and evaluating courts’efficacy, judicial power most
closely links public opinion with the ability of courts to incur politically meaningful
effects through their decisions, as it directly engages with the fundamental compli-
ance challenge faced by all courts, including international courts (Staton and
Moore 2011).
Given the significance of judicial power for courts’ability to effectively serve as
guardians of democracy, a considerable literature identifies the determinants of
citizens’support for –or opposition to –a court that can compel or prohibit
government actions (e.g., Carrubba 2009). From this scholarship, two key determi-
nants of support for judicial power particularly stand out. First, a lengthy stream of
research links citizens’commitment to democratic values with their support for
judicial institutions (e.g., Murphy and Tanenhaus 1968; Gibson and Caldeira 2009).
By such accounts, factors such as one’s education and socialization into democratic
society (e.g., Caldeira 1977;Cheruvu2023) foster a strong attachment to democratic
values like the rule of law, judicial independence, and, ultimately, judicial legitimacy
and power (Gibson and Nelson 2015). As a result of this tight linkage between support
for judicial power and a broader basket of attitudes related to democratic norms and
ideals, the conventional wisdom holds that the foundation of a court’s public support
lies with the presence of a citizenry deeply bound to the fundamental tenets of
democracy itself.
The relationship between democratic values and support for judicial power may be
particularly salient for international courts dealing with questions of democracy. As
citizens’commitment to democratic values increases, they may similarly prefer that
their institutions –international or domestic –take actions to protect them. In
backsliding democracies, however, incumbents may have effectively neutralized
domestic courts (e.g., Ginsburg and Huq 2018) that are conventionally responsible
for safeguarding liberal democracy (e.g., Staton, Reenock, and Holsinger 2022).
Citizens that support democracy, thus, may turn to their international courts as a
safeguard and a meaningful check against their backsliding government’s agenda (e.g.,
Ginsburg 2019). Indeed, scholars provide evidence that activists and interest groups
often turn to international courts as a means to achieve policy victories that are
unattainable domestically (e.g., Alter 2001; Simmons 2009). With international courts
serving as a potential avenue to secure democratic rights and liberties, those that
highly value such protections should similarly support an international courts’judicial
power over them. This logic leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1 Support for international courts’judicial power over questions of
democracy increases with support for democratic values.
Recent research, however, calls into question the extent to which democratic
values insulate public support for judicial power from partisan considerations (e.g.,
Nelson and Gibson 2019; Graham and Svolik 2020; Bartels, Horowitz, and Kramon
2023) By these accounts, the congruence of a court’s decisions with citizens’partisan
preferences, not values, serves as the foundation of judicial power. That is, citizens
afford their support for judicial power only to courts seen as favorable to one’s
political party (e.g., Nicholson and Hansford 2014; Christenson and Glick 2015). As
such, one’s support for judicial power may not necessarily be reflective of a broader
commitment to the institutions of liberal democracy (e.g., Easton 1975), but rather
may be conditional on the outcome. This correlation of support for judicial power
4 Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel
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with partisan gains and loses, thus, implies that support for judicial power is
instrumental (e.g., Carrubba 2009) and potentially subject to fluctuation over time.
We might suspect that partisanship similarly comes into play for citizens’evalu-
ating an international court’s judicial power over the protection of democracy. For
opposition supporters witnessing an incumbent sidelining their political party, this
form of judicial power provides a clear instrumental benefit, namely the preservation
of a democratic system that allows for their continued participation and contestation
for political power. That is, judicial power over questions of democracy provides
opposition supporters a potential lifeline for their political party’s ability to effectively
participate in governance. Importantly, such a dynamic does not necessarily imply
that opposition supporters are staunchly committed to democratic values –while that
may well be the case –it could alternatively be that they simply do not want to be
marginalized by an autocratizing political system and, thus, for instrumental reasons,
find themselves supporting pro-democracy positions (e.g., Bartels, Horowitz and
Kramon 2023). When an incumbent government captures the judiciary, opposition
supporters may become particularly keen on an international court’sjudicial power,
as domestic institutions no longer offer sufficient recourse. If international courts
potentially offer more favorable outcomes in the protection of democratic values
relative to domestic courts, we should expect opposition supporters to be supportive
of their rulings (e.g., Madsen et al. 2022), and therefore, supportive of their judicial
power over questions of democracy. Our second hypothesis follows:
Hypothesis 2 Support for international courts’judicial power over questions of
democracy is stronger among opposition supporters.
While the preceding discussion suggests that opposition supporters should, on
average, report higher levels of support for judicial power than government sup-
porters, the magnitude of this difference may vary. In particular, returning to the
influence of democratic values on support for judicial power directs us to consider
how partisan considerations might interact with values-based concerns. For those
citizens who have both partisan and values-based incentives to support judicial power
–that is, those opposition supporters with a strong attachment to democratic values.
–we should expect particularly robust support for judicial power over democracy-
related issues in contrast to those opposition supporters whose backing of judicial
power is predicated on their partisan interest alone due to a weaker commitment to
democratic values. Put differently, opposition supporters that have less value for
democracy derive less utility from an international court’s defense of democracy and
are, thus, less likely to support judicial power over such cases.
4
Taken together,
we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 3 Among opposition supporters, support for international courts’
judicial power over questions of democracy increases with support for democratic
values.
4
This dynamic, we note, is likely in contrast to government supporters, for whom we might expect that
partisan interests promote opposition to judicial power irrespective of their connection to democratic values.
Alternatively, government supporters may see democracy as properly functioning within the domestic
system and, therefore, see no need for an international court’s involvement.
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Data and methods
To empirically test our theoretical framework, we conducted a survey of 2,000
Hungarian respondents in partnership with YouGov from March 17–31, 2022.
Hungary is an ideal context, as it is a prominent instance of democratic backsliding
(e.g., Bermeo 2016; Haggard and Kaufman 2021) in which international courts –the
CJEU and the European Court of Human Rights in particular –have adjudicated cases
(e.g., Blauberger and Kelemen 2017). Since the Fidesz government under Prime
Minister Viktor Orban came into power in 2010, it has engaged in electoral
gerrymandering to insulate its supermajority (e.g., O’Dwyer and Stenberg 2022),
reduced the judiciary’s ability to serve as a check against the executive by packing
the courts with judges that are partisan loyalists (e.g., Epperly 2019), and systemat-
ically altered the media landscape to suppress dissent (e.g., Bátorfy and Urbán 2020).
In response, the CJEU has made rulings against Hungary –such as on the Rule of Law
Conditionality Mechanism, in which the Commission suspended COVID-19 recov-
ery funds from Hungary for its violation of the EU’s democratic standards (e.g.,
Cheruvu, Krehbiel, and Mussell 2024)–on questions of democratic backsliding.
Furthermore, we fielded this survey in March 2022, in advance of the Hungarian
election on April 3, 2022. The election’s most salient issue was the state of Hungarian
democracy, as all of the major opposition parties formed the United Opposition
5
to run
against Fidesz in the election (Bayer 2022). This de facto two party system, thus, allows
us to easily distinguish government supporters from opposition supporters in the
survey. Descriptively, one-third of survey respondents selected “Democracy and the
Rule of Law”as the most significant issue in the election, ahead of the 22% that selected
“Foreign Policy and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”(which occurred on February 24)
and the 25% that selected the “Economy and Taxes.”Taken together, Hungary is both
substantively and empirically valuable as a case to test our hypotheses regarding
international courts’judicial power over questions of democracy.
Following Bartels, Horowitz, and Kramon (2023), we aim to measure support
specifically for CJEU interventions on questions of democracy. We asked survey
respondents if, “[the CJEU] should have the final say on whether a Hungarian law
violates democratic standards.”Respondents had five possible answer choices rang-
ing from “Disagree Strongly,”to “Neither agree nor disagree,”to “Agree Strongly.”
We scale the resulting measure CJEU Judicial Power from 0 to 1, with higher values
indicating greater support for judicial power, to serve as our dependent variable for
our analysis. While questions about citizens’support for judicial power more broadly
are substantively relevant in their own right (e.g., Bartels and Kramon 2020), we may
expect that citizens may support the CJEU’s judicial power in some policy areas
instead of others. As such, a more general judicial power question may not properly
measure attitudes toward the CJEU’s jurisdiction over questions of democracy. Thus,
the question specifically asks about the CJEU’s power over a Hungarian law’s
violation of democratic standards.
To test our first hypothesis, we require a variable for respondents’democratic
values. Given the multifaceted nature of the concept (Teorell et al. 2019), we follow
Cheruvu, Krehbiel, and Mussell (2024) to tap into multiple dimensions of democracy
by asking our respondents which of the following statements was closest to their view
5
Formally, the party’s name was United for Hungary.
6 Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel
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(the resulting variable name is bolded), with the second statement for each being
more supportive of democratic values:
1. Strong Leader: “We need a strong leader who does not have to be elected by the
vote of the people.”vs. “Although things may not always work, electoral
democracy, or the popular vote, is always best.”
2. Democracy Preferable: “Ordered society is preferable, even if that means
limiting democracy.”vs. “Democracy is preferable, even if it is sometimes
unstable.”
3. Rule of Law Support: “In some cases the government should be able to ignore
the law in order to solve important social or economic problems.”vs. “The
government should always follow the law, even if it causes some harm to
society.”
4. Accountability: “It is more important to have a government that can get things
done, even if we have no influence over what it does.”vs. “It is more important
for citizens to be able to hold government accountable, even if that means it
makes decisions more slowly.”
We then assign a value of 1 for each question if a respondent chose the (second)
option more supportive of democracy, and 0 if they chose the first option for each
statement. Additionally, we create a variable, D V, that takes the
average of all four statements for each respondent, with higher values indicating
greater support for democracy. To demonstrate robustness, we include model
specifications with D V and each of its constituent components
individually.
Given that our second and third hypotheses concern partisanship, we asked
respondents whether they would vote for Fidesz, the United Opposition, or would
not vote. We remove the non-voters from these data and create the variable U
O S, taking the value of 1 if the respondent indicates they
would vote for the United Opposition. Although Hungary is conventionally a multi-
party parliamentary system, during the run up 2022 election, major opposition
parties formed an electoral coalition to increase their chances of defeating Fidesz.
Our analysis is aided by this effective two-party system and allows us to make direct
comparisons between supporters of each party. Figure 1 plots the distribution for
supporters of both parties across each of the independent variable democratic values
questions, the D V average, and for our dependent variable CJEU
J P.
To account for potential confounding, we include a number of control variables.
First, we asked respondents questions regarding other political attitudes that may also
influence their view of CJEU J P. Among these political views is their
general satisfaction with democracy, which scholars use as a measure of “specific
support”(e.g., Easton 1975) for democracy (e.g., Canache, Mondak, and Seligson
2001; Claassen 2020). The question read, “In general, how satisfied are you with the
way that democracy works in Hungary?”These responses range on a four point scale
from “Very satisfied”to “Very dissatisfied,”with our resulting variable D
S coded from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater satisfaction
with democracy. Additionally, we account for respondents’ideology on a 10-point
scale, with the corresponding variable I rescaled from 0 to 1, with higher
values indicating that the respondent is more right wing. Given ideology often
correlates with partisanship as well as attitudes towards the CJEU more broadly
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(e.g., Cheruvu and Krehbiel 2024), it is possible that respondents’ideology is the
primary driver of their attitudes toward the court’s decisions over democracy.
Furthermore, as in this Hungarian electoral context the United Opposition included
political parties across the ideological spectrum (e.g., Bayer 2022), stronger reason
exists to believe that respondents view the court’s decision-making through an
ideological rather than a partisan framework. Scholars also provide reason to believe
that one’s perception of their identity as Hungarian or European may affect their
attitudes toward the actions of EU-level institutions (e.g., Hooghe and Marks 2005).
We thus ask respondents the following question: “Which option best characterizes
how you identify yourself?”The answer choices were “Hungarian only,”“Hungarian
and European,”“European and Hungarian,”“European only,”or “Neither Hungar-
ian nor European.”For our variable N I, we code those that
responded “Hungarian only”as 1 and all other respondents with 0.
To supplement the aforementioned control variables, we also ask respondents
about their attitudes about the CJEU. In particular, we first ask about respondents’
awareness of the CJEU, and create the variable CJEU A, taking into
account whether respondents said they were “very aware,”“somewhat aware,”“not
very aware,”or had “never heard of the CJEU.”Scholars provide substantial evidence
that support toward a court’s decisions is very frequently correlated with one’s
awareness of it (e.g., Gibson and Caldeira 1995; Gibson, Caldeira and Baird 1998).
Furthermore, support for a court’s judicial power should be also correlated with
general confidence in a court’s decision-making. As such, we include the variable
CJEU C, which is based on respondents’stating that they either have “A
great deal of confidence,”“Only some confidence,”or “Hardly any confidence”in the
CJEU Judicial Power
Democratic Values Average
Accountability
Rule of Law Support
Democracy Preferable
Strong Leader
0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00
Fidesz Supporters United Opposition Supporters
Figure 1. This Plot Provides the Density for the Primary Independent Variables as well as the Dependent
Variable CJEU JUDICIAL POWER Separately for Fidesz Supporters and United Opposition Supporters.
8 Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel
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CJEU. We rescale both variables between 0 and 1, with higher values indicating
greater awareness and greater confidence respectively.
Our final set of controls accounts for demographic characteristics of our respon-
dents, specifically age, gender, and education. Our A variable categorizes respon-
dents into 18–29 years, 30–44 years, 45–64 years, and 65 and older. We rescale this
variable between 0 to 1, with higher values indicating that the respondent is older.
G is a dichotomous variable with female taking the value of 1. Lastly,
E takes the value of 1 if the respondent is college-educated, and takes
the value of 0 otherwise. Table 1 provides descriptive statistics of all variables used in
our model specifications by partisanship.
Formally, we estimate ordinary least squares regressions for each individual i of
the following form with the equation number corresponding to the hypothesis
number:
Yi=β0þβ1DEMOCRATICVALUES þδXiþϵi(1)
Yi=β0þβ1UNITEDOPPOSITIONSUPPORTER þδXiþϵi(2)
Yi=β0þβ1DEMOCRATICVALUES þβ2UNITEDOPPOSITIONSUPPORTERþ
β3DEMOCRATICVALUES UNITEDOPPOSITIONSUPPORTER þδXiþϵi
(3)
with δXict a vector of the aforementioned control variables, and ϵiheteroskedasticity-
robust standard errors. For equations 1 and 2, a positive and statistically significant β1
would be evidence supporting our hypotheses. For equation 3, a positive and
statistically significant average marginal effect for U O
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics by Partisanship
Fidesz Supporters
(N = 782)
United Opposition
Supporters (N = 804)
Mean Std. dev. Mean Std. dev. Diff. in means Std. error
CJEU judicial power 0.4162 0.2537 0.7379 0.2306 0.3216 0.0122
Accountability 0.5610 0.4966 0.8941 0.3078 0.3332 0.0208
Strong leader 0.7769 0.4166 0.9214 0.2692 0.1445 0.0177
Democracy preferable 0.4615 0.4988 0.7950 0.4040 0.3335 0.0229
Rule of law 0.4609 0.4988 0.7332 0.4426 0.2722 0.0237
Democratic values 0.5651 0.2710 0.8354 0.2256 0.2703 0.0126
CJEU confidence 0.3694 0.3384 0.6937 0.3259 0.3243 0.0177
CJEU awareness 0.5060 0.2138 0.5734 0.2091 0.0674 0.0106
Ideology 0.7055 0.2535 0.3642 0.2298 0.3413 0.0122
National identity 0.4066 0.4915 0.1853 0.3888 0.2213 0.0223
Democratic
satisfaction
0.5827 0.2366 0.1733 0.2228 0.4094 0.0115
Gender 0.5460 0.4982 0.4353 0.4961 0.1107 0.0250
Age 0.4484 0.2957 0.4876 0.3372 0.0391 0.0159
Education 0.2174 0.4127 0.2525 0.4347 0.0351 0.0213
Journal of Law and Courts 9
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S conditional on Democratic Values Average would provide evidence
favoring hypothesis 3.
6
Results
Wefirst present inFigure2 theraw dataacrosseach ofthe componentsofthe D
V average. It provides the mean and 95% confidence intervals for CJEU
J P for both Fidesz and United Opposition supporters across the range
of possible values for each independent variable. Without imposing a functional
form on these data, across all of our democratic values measures, we find a stronger
positive correlation with CJEU J P for United Opposition supporters
relative to Fidesz supporters, as a respondent’s values become more pro-democracy.
Figure 3 plots the results for hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2, which are based on
Table A.1 in the appendix. For hypothesis 1, we expect a positive coefficient for each
of our measures of democratic values. Across our bivariate specifications, we find a
strong and statistically significant relationship across all of our independent vari-
ables. When controls are included, the coefficient for S L remains
Rule of Law Support Strong Leader
Accountability Democracy Preferable Democratic Values Average
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
CJEU Judicial Power
Fidesz Supporters
United Opposition Supporters
Figure 2. This Plot Provides the Mean and 95% Confidence Intervals of These Data for CJEU JUDICIAL POWER
Separately for Fidesz Supporters and United Opposition Supporters for the Range of Possible Values for
Each Independent Variable. Each Facet Denotes an Independent Variable, With the Dashed Line Illustrating
the Slope in the Outcome for Fidesz and United Opposition.
6
Although we did not preregister our hypotheses, we provide evidence in the appendix that our results are
robust to alternative specifications. In Tables A.3 and A.4, we remove the Democratic Satisfaction control. In
Figure A.1, we demonstrate that the marginal effects for alternative independent variables that are also
correlated with partisanship provide similar results.
10 Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlc.2024.25 Published online by Cambridge University Press

positive, but is not statistically significant, and the coefficient for A
remains statistically significant at the 90% level (p = 0.91). These results demonstrate
that across various measures individually, as well as aggregated, a strong correlation
exists between CJEU J P and democratic values. Similarly for hypoth-
esis 2, we expect a positive correlation between U O S and
CJEU J P. In our bivariate specification, we find strong support for this
expectation (β= 0.32, p < 0.01). Furthermore, our result is robust to the inclusion of
control variables (β= 0.16, p < 0.01).
We now turn to our third hypothesis, which predicts that among opposition
supporters CJEU J P will increase with support for democratic values.
The results for this analysis can be found in Table A.2 in the appendix, with Figure 4
providing the marginal effect of U O S across each of our
measures of democratic values. Across all democratic values measures and specifi-
cations with and without control variables, we find that a positive and statistically
significant marginal effect of U O S on CJEU J
P. In fact it is only when D V is 0 –meaning that all the
constituent components of the average are also 0 –that the difference between United
Opposition and Fidesz supporters in the models including controls is statistically
indistinguishable from 0. This result is unsurprising, given only nine United Oppo-
sition Supporters have a value of 0 for D V.
Conclusion and discussion
International courts are increasingly adjudicating cases related to democratic back-
sliding. These courts’efficacy insofar as having governments obey their decisions is
United Opposition Supporter
Democratic Values
Accountability
Rule of Law Support
Democracy Preferable
Strong Leader
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3
Estimate
Controls Bivariate
Figure 3. Based on Table A.1in the Appendix. This Plot Providesthe Coefficient Estimateand 95% Confidence
Intervals for the Primary Independent Variables in the Models Testing Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2.
Journal of Law and Courts 11
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dependent on citizens’support for their judicial power over questions of democracy.
In this article, we argue that this support is conditional on democratic values and
partisanship, with commitment to democratic values specifically relevant for oppo-
sition supporters. Leveraging an original survey from Hungary leading up to its 2022
legislative elections, and the de facto two party system that opposition parties created
by forming a unified coalition in advance of the election, we provide supporting
empirical evidence for our claims. Below we detail our study’s implications for
international courts’judicial power and ability to effectively confront democratic
backsliding.
With scholars theoretically distinguishing judicial power from other related
concepts such as judicial legitimacy (e.g., Bartels and Kramon 2020), to our knowl-
edge, we are the first to apply this framework to the study of an international court, as
existing scholarship primarily studies domestic courts (e.g., Staton 2010; Bartels,
Horowitz and Kramon 2023). Exploring questions regarding judicial power over
democracy relative to other policy domains can help further specify in which areas
citizens are willing to accept rulings, and can help delineate which types of rulings
may reach the level of convincing citizens that it is better to leave the jurisdiction of a
court altogether (e.g., Madsen et al. 2022; Cheruvu, Krehbiel, and Mussell 2024).
Citizens, for example, may be willing to tolerate an international courts’decisions on
economic matters (e.g., Cheruvu and Krehbiel 2024), but not on questions of political
asylum (e.g., Strezhnev, Simmons, and Kim 2019). Given the expanding scope of
international law and role of international courts in interpreting and applying that
law, exploring the bounds and dynamics of citizens’acceptance of international
Strong Leader Democratic Values
Accountability Rule of Law Support Democracy Preferable
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
Marginal Effect of United Opposition
Bivariate
Controls
Figure 4. Based on Table A.2 in the Appendix. This Plot Provides the Marginal Effect Of UNITED OPPOSITION
SUPPORTER and 95% Confidence Intervals for the Range of the Primary Independent Variables in the Models
Testing Hypothesis 3.
12 Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlc.2024.25 Published online by Cambridge University Press

courts’judicial power is critical for assessing the likely efficacy and impact of these
increasingly salient institutions.
Our findings further speak to the ongoing debate over the relative influences of
partisanship and democratic values on citizens’attitudes toward judicial institutions.
As we demonstrate in this study, and as other scholars demonstrate with regards to
judicial power more broadly (e.g., Bartels and Kramon 2020), support for judicial
power may be conditional on partisanship. Indeed, our results with respect to
supporters of the governing Fidesz party revealed a consistent lack of support for
judicial power irrespective of commitment to democratic values. While our analyses
do not further explore the dynamics of government supporters’views toward judicial
power, for instance, by examining the extent to which these citizens are satisfied with
the current state of Hungarian democracy or other possible intervening consider-
ations, they do point to the potential power of partisanship when it comes to shaping
public views of international courts. This relationship may be particularly pro-
nounced for lower salience international courts, as a lack of familiarity may lead
citizens to more heavily weight heuristics such as partisan cues when evaluating
judicial power. With the growing politicization of international law (e.g., Strezhnev,
Simmons, and Kim 2019), this dynamic can become more pronounced, leaving the
efficacy of international courts increasingly dependent on citizens’attachments to the
political party that is affected by their decisions.
We also note that, while aspects of our discussion relate to courts in general, some
features of an international court’s judicial power may be theoretically distinct from a
domestic court’s judicial power. First, the international agreement to which an
international court belongs may affect how citizens perceive the international court.
If citizens are receiving benefits from an international court over time, when their
court ventures into the territory of questions regarding democracy, citizens may be
more willing to accept it making rulings on such sensitive issues precisely because
they believe cooperating with the international agreement is beneficial to them in the
long run (e.g., Carrubba 2009). In examining the CJEU, our study features a court that
provides substantial economic benefits to citizens as part of the world’s largest single
market (e.g., Gabel et al. 2012). It is possible that international courts that have
seldom provided citizens tangible benefits would not enjoy such support to intervene
against backsliding incumbents, even among opposition supporters. Future research,
thus, should examine other international courts and international agreements to
determine whether citizens are similarly supportive of their interventions in domestic
affairs (e.g., Ginsburg 2019).
While we have focused ourdiscussion on the theoretical implications of ourresults,
we can also view them through the lens of the Hungarian political context. Consider,
for example, the makeup of United Opposition supporters. The set of parties that came
together toform this coalition varied substantially in their political ideologyand values,
including some such as Jobbik seen as having weaker attachments to democratic norms.
This diversity of ideologies and viewpoints is borne out in our results, as we repeatedly
see distinctions within the opposition between those with highly-robust support for
democracy and those with weaker support for key norms like the rule of law and
democratic accountability. Our findings suggest this diversity means, at least in part,
that the CJEU, and perhaps other EU institutions like the Commission, may not be able
to rely on the uniform support of United Opposition supporters in confronting the rule
of law crisis in Hungary. That said, the clear relationship between democratic values
and support for CJEU judicial power also points to the potential impact of efforts by
Journal of Law and Courts 13
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both opposition parties and Fidesz to affect citizens’views of these norms and their
application to the Hungarian context. Were, for instance, opposition parties able to
strengthen attachment to democratic norms, particularly among those currently least
inclined to support them, then such efforts might rebound to the benefit of interna-
tional institutions like the CJEU. More generally, the application of our theoretical
framework to the Hungarian context highlights the extent to which the ideological
makeup of a pro-democracy opposition influences the determinants of their support
for an international court’s judicial power. Future research, then, might exploit
variation in this respect toassess the relative influence of factors left unexamined here,
such as polarization or the extent of coordination among opposition parties.
Likewise, our findings with respect to Fidesz supporters raise potential questions
for future research, such as variation in the conceptualization of democracy among
government supporters in backsliding democracies (e.g., Krishnarajan 2023) and its
implications for how these citizens view the proper role of international courts
vis-à-vis their own domestic political structures (e.g., Madsen et al. 2022). If it were
the case that government supporters view themselves as strong supporters of democ-
racy –at least in the form that Fidesz has constructed in the country –yet remain
opposed to the CJEU interjecting itself into questions regarding the country’s
democratic system, then even efforts to increase respect for democratic norms might
fall short of engendering support for the Court. This would suggest, as our findings
revealed, that appealing to Fidesz supporters’attachment to democratic norms is
unlikely to be a particularly successful strategy for the CJEU even among those who
otherwise might view themselves as pro-democracy (Cheruvu, Krehbiel, and Mussell
2024). Taken together, then, one takeaway from our analyses, both in general and in
Hungary specifically, is that the ideological makeup of the United Opposition,
coupled with Fidesz supporters’weak support for democratic norms in forms that
benefit support for CJEU judicial power, represent potentially significant barriers to
the strengthening or growth of the Court’s capacity to effectively exert its power over
rule of law and democracy-focused cases.
Lastly, our research provides insights on how international courts may serve as
bulwarks of democracy. In many backsliding contexts, domestic judicial institutions
are among those that aspiring autocrats choose to manipulate as a means to reduce
constraints on their power (e.g., Ginsburg and Huq 2018). These incumbents often
leverage legislative majorities to rewrite the law in a way that is favorable to them (e.g.,
Helmke, Kroeger, and Paine 2022), thus, adversely affecting the ability of domestic
courts to meaningfully constrain the executive (e.g., Staton, Reenock, and Holsinger
2022). International courts have an advantage in that they are difficult for any one
member state to capture. The CJEU, for example, has one judge appointed separately
from each member state, effectively preventing any individual member state from
packing the court with its own loyalists (e.g., Kelemen 2012). As such, in times where
domestic legal remedies are unavailable, activists can coalesce around international
courts as a means to obtain decisions that protect democracy (e.g., Simmons 2009). If
a domestic public has sufficient support for international court’s judicial power, it can
potentially serve as a valuable mechanism of coordination (e.g., Weingast 1997)to
replace a domestic constitutional order in crisis.
Supplementary material. The supplementary material for this article can be found at http://doi.org/
10.1017/jlc.2024.25.
14 Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlc.2024.25 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Acknowledgments. The authors recognize the generous support from the Jim and Gail Woolwine Political
Science Faculty Travel Fund at WVU for the survey fielded in Hungary. The survey was reviewed and cleared
by the University of Texas at Dallas Institutional Review Board.
Competing interest. The author declares no conflict of interest.
Data availability statement. The data and replication files for this manuscript can be found at the Journal
of Law and Courts dataverse.
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Cite this article: Cheruvu, Sivaram, and Jay N. Krehbiel. 2025. “Do Citizens in Backsliding Democracies
Support International Courts’Judicial Power? Evidence from Hungary.”Journal of Law and Courts,1–18,
doi:10.1017/jlc.2024.25
18 Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlc.2024.25 Published online by Cambridge University Press