Dr Etienne Hanelt

About me

I study how authoritarian governments demolish democracy and the rule of law and what can be done to stop them. I’m a political scientist interested in democratic backsliding, especially in Central Eastern Europe, European Union politics, and judicial politics. In particular, I study elite decision-making in various contexts, creating academic work with policy relevance.

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’. In April 2024, I joined Verfassungsblog and worked first on the award-winning Thuringia Project and now on the Judicial Resilience Project, studying scenarios of power grabs of authoritarian populist parties. I am a re:constitution fellow 2024/25, pursuing my project ‘Castles of Illiberal Thought and Mercenary Thinkers: Academic Legitimation of Authoritarian Politics in Hungary’. From September 2021 to January 2025, I worked as a researcher at the Judicial Studies Institute (JUSTIN) at Masaryk University on the ERC Consolidator Grant project INFINITY – ‘Informal Judicial Institutions: Invisible Determinants of Democratic Decay’. I remain affiliated with Masaryk University as a Senior JUSTIN Fellow.

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.

Research interests

• democratic backsliding
• European Union politics and policymaking
• judicial and comparative politics

Publications

Journal Articles (## peer-reviewed)

Forthcoming. E Hanelt. ‘Getting Article 7 Done: Coalition-Building against Hungary in the European Parliament’. Journal of European Integration. Open access, online first.##

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. 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 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.

Miscellaneous

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. E Hanelt. ‘Herausforderungen für die Demokratie: Die autoritär-populistische Welle in Thüringen’. Dialog: Deutsch-Polnisches Magazin 147, 68–72. [also in Polish]

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.

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. ‘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).