Introduction to the Special Section – ECPR 2021 Joint Sessions ‘Militant Democracy: New Challengers and Challenges’ – metamorphoses of a Cold War concept – new challengers intensify challenges for militant democracy – evaluation of the effects and effectiveness of militant democracy – new conceptual and normative approaches broaden concept of militant democracy – risk of ‘concept stretching’ – minimal common recognisable core

EU militant democracy – an approach beyond member states’ democratic backsliding – the EU as a first case of transnational democratic self-defence – the EU’s democratic legitimacy – national and supranational threats to EU democracy – instruments and enforcement of EU militant democracy – comparison to national militant democracy – problems of effectiveness

Democratic defence – Germany’s militant democracy – militant measures against radical-right parties – targeted organisations in militant democracies not passive recipients of militant measures – actions taken by targeted organisations – parties engaging in frontstage moderation to shield the party from militant measures – alternative for Germany shielding the party from militant measures by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution

The unsuccessful petition to ban Slovakia’s extreme right parliamentary party – the value of focusing on judicial craft for studies of militant democracy and courts – statutory frameworks as intervening variables and their overview in Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia – key components of judicial craft endogenous to courts: consistency, legal reasoning skills, problem-solving abilities, creativity – the cases of Workers’ Party (Czechia), Slovak Togetherness–National Party (Slovakia), People’s Party Our Slovakia (Slovakia) and Hungarian Guard (Hungary) – the decisions of the Czech Supreme Administrative Court (2009) and the Slovak Supreme Court (2019) – re-evaluating what counts as ‘success’ with party bans: judicial craft affects the effectiveness of the statutory framework for party bans – a court-centric perspective on militant democracy when courts face illiberal assaults

Political parties are important for the functioning and consolidation of democracy – citizens should defend their rights against parties with agendas that conflict with the principles of liberal democracy – the types of actions that are permissible for citizens depends on the conditions of political legitimacy and the closeness to power of non-liberal-democratic parties – theories of both (un-)civil disobedience and violent self-defence are relevant here

Problems with militant democracy and democratic defence approaches – a new typology of initiatives opposing populist parties: democratic defence as ‘normal politics’ – populist opponents: public authorities, parties and civil society – tolerant and intolerant modes of engagement with populists – intolerant initiatives opposing populist parties – rights restrictions by public authorities – ostracism by political parties – coercive confrontation by civil society actors – tolerant initiatives opposing populist parties – ‘ordinary’ legal controls and pedagogy by public authorities – forbearance by political parties – adversarialism by civil society actors

Impact of electoral system design on democratic self-defence – ‘informal’ (content neutral) militant democracy instrument – the minority to majority effect (assigning majoritarian power to political minorities) increases risk of democratic backsliding – minority to majority goes beyond conventional systemic dichotomies as majoritarianism versus proportionalism: outcome of diverse system features – resources and incentives as explanatory mechanisms – preliminary case studies – the limitations of institutional engineering