Alongside their primary focus on security and power politics, European governments have cast the war on Ukraine as a battle for liberal democratic values. The war has heightened concerns over the need to defend democracy and a belated recognition that stronger commitment is needed to halt an advance of authoritarianism. While many threats to democratic norms deepened in the years before 2022, the war has brought support for democracy and re-ordering more closely together as two sides of the same strategic coin. Part of the geoliberal Europe emerging in the war's shadow lies in the geopolitical importance of liberal democracy. Russia's attack so brutally shows the ills of authoritarianism that it has to some extent revitalized European governments’ support for democracy and the demand for such support from democratic reformers.

There are three circles or layers of this enhanced effort to deepen and protect democratic values: inside the European Union, in the countries of the wider European order, and at the global level. In each of these spheres, European governments and the EU have stepped up important elements of their democracy strategies. Yet, some tensions have also sharpened between the security and democracy components of European policies. A serious challenge is that the postwar drive towards securitization and alliance-building in places cuts across governments’ actions in favour of democracy. These security strands of European re-ordering sit uneasily with the promise of renewed liberal power, and they muddy the clarity of a democratic geoliberalism.

DEMOCRACY AND EUROPEAN ORDER

During the crisis-blighted years of the 2010s, the quality of European democracy suffered. National governments and the EU institutions did a poor job in upholding core democratic values. Rather than steadfastly defending democracy, most governments across the continent chipped away at civic space and independent checks and balances. Governments were slow in recognizing the risk that the digital sphere and tech companies represented to democracy. The EU failed to respond in any effective manner to democratic backsliding, most notably in Hungary and Poland, but in other states too. And it failed to offer much concrete support to activists as these sought new forms of democratic renewal across Europe. Many of the EU crisis measures implemented during the eurozone crisis were imposed with little accountability or popular debate and made the democratic malaise worse. Outside the union, the UK's post-Brexit democracy suffered turmoil and illiberal constriction.