Dr Etienne Hanelt
About me
I’m a policy expert with an interdisciplinary political science and socio-legal profile, a doctorate from the University of Oxford, and years of experience in academia and in civil society/think tanks. I’m now working in public administration.
Currently, I’m a Policy Officer for state reform and modern policymaking in the State Chancellery of Thuringia. Before, I worked on democratic backsliding and resilience, European politics and courts. At first glance, this may look like a significant shift: from a focus on the rule of law to the modernisation of public administration. However, there is also strong continuity.
Authoritarian movements threaten democracy and the rule of law across the globe. In democratic systems, however, they come to power through elections. There is no single explanation for why so many people vote for populist authoritarians — but one factor stands out: the demand for a state that works.
Too often, citizens experience the opposite. Taxes are high, while public services are perceived as slow, overly bureaucratic, or even unresponsive. When governments fail to deliver, trust in democratic institutions erodes. Showing that the state can be effective, fair, and capable of solving real problems is necessary to strengthen trust in democracy.
Before, I have worked on the Judicial Resilience Project of Verfassungsblog and have contributed to the award-winning Thuringia Project. I was a re:constitution fellow 2024/25 and pursued my project ‘Castles of Illiberal Thought and Mercenary Thinkers: Academic Legitimation of Authoritarian Politics in Hungary’. I have published on this subject here. I also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Judicial Studies Institute at Masaryk University on the ERC-funded NET-ROL project (Networks and the Rule of Law: Uncovering Socio-Economic Outcomes). Before, from September 2021 to January 2025, I worked there as a pre-doctoral researcher on the INFINITY project (Informal Judicial Institutions: Invisible Determinants of Democratic Decay).
I have finished a DPhil at the University of Oxford with a thesis titled ‘Supranational Tug of War: Overcoming the European Union’s Authoritarian Equilibrium’. At the University of Oxford, I was one of the founders and convenors of a graduate discussion group (OxonCourts) that served as an interdisciplinary forum for researchers working on judicial institutions across the University. I represented for 3 years non-tenured researchers and graduate students at Wolfson College. This involved me in virtually all aspects of College governance and strategy. In 2019, I was elected as the Chair of the General Meeting – the Common Room President – and participated in this capacity in many committees dealing with issues as diverse as academic affairs, communications, the College premises, equality and welfare as well as social and cultural matters. I was also twice elected to the Governing Body (2019–21) and served for two years on the General Purposes Committee (2018–20).
I hold degrees in Political Science from Friedrich Schiller University Jena (M.A., B.A.) and have studied as a graduate exchange student in Michigan and South Korea. My master’s thesis was awarded the Jena Political Science Department’s best thesis award in 2016. Before joining Oxford, I taught classes in political science at Jena.
Publications
Thesis
2025. E Hanelt. ‘Supranational Tug of War: Overcoming the European Union’s Authoritarian Equilibrium’. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford. [Supervisors: Professor Fernanda Pirie (CSLS, Oxford) and Professor Ezequiel González Ocantos (DPIR, Oxford); examiners: Dr Agnieszka Kubal (CSLS, Oxford) and Professor Natasha Wunsch (Fribourg)]
Journal Articles (## peer-reviewed)
2025. E Hanelt. ‘Getting Article 7 Done: Coalition-Building against Hungary in the European Parliament’. Journal of European Integration 47 (8), 1175–1196. Open access.##
2024. E Hanelt, A Vincze. ‘Managing Courts in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes: Co-Optation, Repression and Resistance in Hungary’. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 18(3), 381–400. (= Part of the Special Issue: Rule of law and Rechtsstaat under pressure, ed. by Hans-Joachim Lauth, Marta Bucholc, and Nicolas Hayoz). Open access.##
2024. HK Beck, E Hanelt, V Wintermantel. ‘Was wäre, wenn…? Zur Verwundbarkeit der Demokratie in Thüringen’. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 2024(33–35), 29–34. Open access.
Book Chapters
2026. ‘Castles of Illiberal Thought: The Rise and Role of Government-Organised Non-Governmental Organisations in Academic Contexts’. In: V Kosta, M Müller-Elmau Mapping Article 13: Academic and Scientific Freedom under the EU Charter. Berlin: Verfassungsbooks, 65–75.
2025. E Hanelt, F Zillessen. ‘Die qualitative Szenarioanalyse im Justiz-Projekt’. In: Das Justiz-Projekt: Verwundbarkeit und Resilienz der dritten Gewalt. Ed. by F Zillessen, AM Brandau, L Laude. Berlin: Verfassungsbooks, 33–64.
2025. J Schramm, E Hanelt. ‘Beurteilung und Beförderung’. In: Das Justiz-Projekt: Verwundbarkeit und Resilienz der dritten Gewalt. Ed. by F Zillessen, AM Brandau, L Laude. Berlin: Verfassungsbooks, 177–202.
Book Reviews
2023. E Hanelt. ‘Review of: From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia (Dan Slater and Joseph Wong)’. Democratization 30(3), 543–545.
2021. E Hanelt. ‘Commissioned Book Review: Benjamin Bricker, Visions of Judicial Review: A Comparative Examination of Courts and Policy in Democracies’. Political Studies Review 19(3), NP21–NP22. [open access]
2020. E Hanelt. ‘Commissioned Book Review: Wojciech Sadurski, Poland’s Constitutional Breakdown (Oxford Comparative Constitutionalism)’. Political Studies Review 18(4), NP11–NP12.
Blog Posts
2025. E Hanelt. ‘Castles of Illiberal Thought: The Rise and Role of Government-Organised Non-Governmental Organisations in Academic Contexts’. Verfassungsblog – On Matters Constitutional. (Also published on Trafo Blog for Transregional Research in English and Hungarian).
2025. AM Brandau, E Bruhn, E Hanelt, L Laude, J Talg, J Weickert, F Zillessen. ‘We Are Launching the Judicial Resilience Project. How Vulnerable Is the German Judiciary?’ Verfassungsblog – On Matters Constitutional.
2024. HK Beck, E Hanelt, J Richter ‘Many Right(-wing) Choices’. Verfassungsblog – On Matters Constitutional.
2020. E Hanelt. ‘In the Orbit of Democracy: Satellite Parties in South Korea’s 2020 Parliamentary Election’. Oxford University Politics Blog.
Miscellaneous
2025. L Laude, E. Hanelt. ‘Wie verwundbar der deutsche Rechtsstaat schon jetzt ist – zum Justiz-Projekt des Verfassungsblogs’. Anwaltsblatt 2025(3). Forthcoming.
2024. E Hanelt. ‘Herausforderungen für die Demokratie: Die autoritär-populistische Welle in Thüringen’. Dialog: Deutsch-Polnisches Magazin 147, 68–72. [also in Polish]
2018. E Hanelt, J McLoughlin. ‘United States of America’. Religious Exemptions for the Solemnisation of Same Sex Unions, ed. by R Sahgal, G Pillai, and K Sheridan. Oxford Pro Bono Publico: 45–52.
Presentations
2025. ‘Scenario Analysis for Resilience-Building: Lessons from Verfassungsblog’s Judicial Resilience Project’ (with Friedrich Zillessen). re:constitution European Rule of Law Conference (WZB, Berlin, 09/2025).
2025. ‘Studying international courts in critical times’. Moderation of a panel discussion with Mikael Rask Madsen, Mikkel Jarle Christensen and Ezgi Özlü (University of Copenhagen, 06/2025).
2025. ‘Castles of Illiberal Thought and Mercenary Thinkers: Academic Legitimation of Authoritarian Politics in Hungary’. Research Seminar of the Institute for Legal Studies (HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest, 05/2025) [Invited talk].
2025. ‘Castles of Illiberal Thought and Mercenary Thinkers: Academic Legitimation of Authoritarian Politics in Hungary’. re:constitution fellow’s talk (Online, 05/2025).
2024. ‘Resilienz gegen die Machtübernahmebestrebungen autoritär-populistischer Parteien’. Guest lecture as part of a series on comparative party systems (TU Chemnitz, 12/2024).
2024. ‘The Supranational Tug of War: EU Entscheidungsprozesse in der Rechtsstaatskrise’. DVPW Kongress 2024: Politik in der Polykrise (Georg-August-University Göttingen, 09/2024).
2024. ‘How much of an autocrat do you need to be for the EU to notice? Enforcing compliance through informality’. ECPR General Conference (University College Dublin, 08/2024).
2024. ‘How much of an autocrat do you need to be for the EU to notice? Enforcing compliance through informality’. IVR World Congress 2024: The Rule of Law, Justice, and the Future of Democracy (Soongsil University Seoul 07/2024).
2024. ‘Getting Article 7 Done: Coalition-Building against Hungary in the European Parliament’. ECPR SGEU (NOVA University Lisbon, 06/2024).
2023. ‘A Hybrid Judiciary in a Hybrid Regime: A Case Study on Hungary’. Workshop ‘Rule of Law and Rechtsstaat under Pressure’ Special Issue ZfVP (University of Warsaw, 09/2023).
2023. ‘A Hybrid Judiciary in a Hybrid Regime: A Case Study on Hungary’. ECPR General Conference (Charles University, Prague, 09/2023).
2023. ‘Getting Article 7 Done: Coalition-Building against Hungary in the European Parliament’. ECPR General Conference (Charles University, Prague, 09/2023).
2023. ‘A Hybrid Judiciary in a Hybrid Regime: A Case Study on Hungary’. Nuffield Early Career Workshop in Socio-Legal Studies (Nuffield College, Oxford, 06/2023).
2023. ‘Backsliding, European Union, and War’. Roundtable: Unpacking Constitutional Democracy: Concepts and Misinterpretations at the Law in Societies Cluster (Wolfson College, Oxford, 06/2023).
2022. ‘Court-packing, Judicial Resistance Strategies and Democratic Decay’. Roundtable at the Law & Society Association’s (LSA) Global Meeting (Lisbon, 07/2022).
2021. ‘Mapping Attacks on Courts and the European Union’s Protection of the Rule of Law in Hungary and Poland’. ECPR GC (virtual, 09/2021).
2021. ‘Public Diplomacy in Backsliding Regimes? Hungary and Poland’. ECPR SGEU (virtual, 06/2021).
2021. ‘Public Diplomacy in a Hybrid Regime: A Case Study on Hungary’. Research Seminar of the Judicial Studies Institute (Masaryk University, virtual, 05/2021) [Invited talk].
2021. ‘The Rule of Law and Public Diplomacy: A Case Study on Hungary’. Workshop: Courts and Regulation in Action: From Activism to Innovation? (University of Oxford, virtual, 03/2021).
2019. ‘Conceptualizing Political Interference with Courts’. ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops. Judicial Authority Under Pressure: Politicisation and Backlash against Courts in the Age of Populism (UCLouvain Mons, 04/2019).
2018. ‘Insurance, Backlash, and the Unsustainability of Judicial Authority’. Workshop: Dialogues on Law and Politics (University of Oxford, 10/2018).
2013. ‘Dan Quayle (1989–1993) – the Vice President as a burden on the presidency’. Workshop: The Vice President of the United States (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, 07/2013).