Natasha Wunsch
Prof. Dr.
natasha.wunsch@unifr.ch
+41 26 300 7762
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8715-1335
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Ordentliche_r Professor_in,
Departement für Europastudien und Slavistik
PER 21 bu. D429
Bd de Pérolles 90
1700 Fribourg
European Integration; EU enlargement; Euroscepticism
Democratisation; democracy promotion; democratic backsliding
Biografie
Natasha Wunsch joined the University of Fribourg in 2023 as Professor of European Studies as well as co-director of the Centre for European Studies and head of the MA in European Studies. Previously, she was Assistant Professor of Political Science/European Integration at Sciences Po Paris, Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich and Visiting Fellow at Harvard University and the University of Oxford. She is currently Chair of the ECPR Standing Group on the European Union.
Natasha Wunsch received her PhD from University College London in 2016 and defended her habilitation at ETH Zurich in 2023. Previously, she completed a dual Master’s degree in European Studies and Political Science at Sciences Po Paris and the Free University of Berlin. In addition to her academic activities, she sits on the Academic Advisory Committee of the German Council on Foreign Relations and on the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for European Politics. She is also a member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group.
Her research interests lie at the interface between European and comparative politics. She studies processes of democracy promotion as well as democratic regression primarily in the post-communist space and is interested in the implications of current challenges to liberal democracy for European cooperation and the process of European integration. Her research has been published in the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies and Democratization, among others. In a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Ambizione), she is currently investigating the role of citizens’ democratic attitudes in processes of democratic erosion.
Forschung und Publikationen
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Veröffentlichungen
17 Publikationen
A new regime divide? Democratic backsliding, attitudes towards democracy and affective polarization
THERESA GESSLER, NATASHA WUNSCH, European Journal of Political Research (2025) | ArtikelA geopolitical turning point? Enlargement discourse after the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Tom Hunter, Natasha Wunsch, Marie-Eve Bélanger, European Union Politics (2025) | ArtikelThe Demand Side of Democratic Backsliding: How Divergent Understandings of Democracy Shape Political Choice
Natasha Wunsch, Marc S. Jacob, Laurenz Derksen, British Journal of Political Science (2025) | ArtikelRadicalisation and discursive accommodation: responses to rising Euroscepticism in the European Parliament
Natasha Wunsch, Marie-Eve Bélanger, West European Politics (2024) | ArtikelWho tolerates democratic backsliding? A mosaic approach to voters’ responses to authoritarian leadership in Hungary
Natasha Wunsch, Theresa Gessler, Democratization (2023) | ArtikelPatterns of democratic backsliding in third-wave democracies: a sequence analysis perspective
Natasha Wunsch, Philippe Blanchard, Democratization (2023) | ArtikelDemocratic backsliding as a catalyst for polity-based contestation? Populist radical right cooperation in the European Parliament
Mihail Chiru, Natasha Wunsch, Journal of European Public Policy (2023) | ArtikelFrom projection to introspection: enlargement discourses since the ‘big bang’ accession
Natasha Wunsch, Nicole Olszewska, Journal of European Integration (2022) | ArtikelFrom Cohesion to Contagion? Populist Radical Right Contestation of EU Enlargement
Marie-Ève Bélanger and Natasha Wunsch, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies (2022) | ArtikelMoney, power, glory: the linkages between EU conditionality and state capture in the Western Balkans
Solveig Richter and Natasha Wunsch, Journal of European Public Policy (2020) | Artikel -
Forschungsprojekte
10005358 - Liberal Democratic Commitment in Europe: Mass Attitudes, Political Identity, and Behavioural Consequences
Status: LaufendBeginn 01.10.2025 Ende 30.09.2029 Finanzierung SNF Projektblatt öffnen Liberal democracy is under pressure worldwide. Illiberal actors are gaining support for a platform that directly challenges some of the core principles of liberal democracy. Where such actors gain access to government, they frequently engage in the deliberate dismantling of constraints on executive power that leads to the erosion of democratic quality. That citizens are failing to counter the simultaneous rise of illiberalism and democratic backsliding by upholding liberal democratic principles at the ballot box challenges longstanding beliefs about widespread mass support for democracy. Existing studies focus on partisan polarisation as well as economic and cultural factors to explain citizens’ openness to illiberal or even outright undemocratic ideas and actors. However, their emphasis on democratic trade-offs tends to rest on the flawed assumption that citizens’ generic support for democracy is equivalent to a deeper commitment to liberal democratic principles which they weigh against alternative considerations. Building on insights from my previous research on democratic backsliding in the post-communist region, I propose to revisit the relevance and heterogeneity of mass attitudes towards democracy as a fundamental factor explaining citizens’ responses to emerging threats to liberal democracy. I plan to theorize and empirically explore variation in liberal democratic commitment as a way to resolve the apparent paradox between mass support for democracy and citizens’ differential willingness to tolerate or even openly endorse political actors who challenge core principles of liberal democracy. The project’s overarching research question asks: To what extent does variation in liberal democratic commitment interact with citizens’ political identities and shape their political behaviour? Its main objectives are organised into three work packages (WPs): - Measuring and mapping liberal democratic commitment (WP1): How can we measure the shape and heterogeneity of citizens’ liberal democratic commitment? Which types of democrats can be distinguished and what are their main characteristics? How are these types distributed across different European countries? - Democratic commitment as political identity (WP2): How does variation in citizens’ democratic commitment relate to their political identities? And to what extent do elections affect the salience of democratic attitudes for citizens’ group identification? - Behavioural consequences of democratic commitment (WP3): To what extent do varying levels of liberal democratic commitment shape citizens’ political behaviour? The project’s main contribution lies in conceptualizing and empirically probing liberal democratic commitment as a source of political identity and a driver of political behaviour in eight European democracies (France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden). The project’s comparative, mixed-methods design combines focus groups and original survey data, including panel and experimental approaches, to develop a more nuanced measure of mass support for democracy and assess its political consequences. In the current context of democratic fragility, the project’s findings will speak to the literatures on political culture, democratic backsliding, and electoral behaviour. Finally, the project’s insights stands to inform real-world efforts to boost democratic resilience and can help refine responses to the rise of illiberalism and democratic backsliding by national-level political actors, civil society, and international organisations alike. Democratic Commitment: Why Citizens Tolerate Democratic Backsliding
Status: LaufendBeginn 01.05.2025 Ende 31.10.2025 Finanzierung SNF Projektblatt öffnen Why do citizens often fail to resist democratic backsliding? This book claims that political culture is key to explaining the electoral success and enduring public support for authoritarian-leaning leaders despite their open violations of democratic standards. It posits that heterogeneous understandings of democracy and a lack of liberal democratic commitment leaves important parts of the electorate vulnerable to buy-outs and illiberal appeals by political elites. Leveraging a mixed-methods design, the book presents extensive empirical analyses that combines focus groups, discourse analysis, and original survey data including two conjoint experiments in Hungary and Poland. Its findings show how, despite widespread generic support for democracy as a regime form, divergent understandings of democracy persist among citizens in both countries. Establishing the linkages between political culture and political behaviour, this monograph demonstrates the crucial role citizens’ democratic attitudes play in enabling the deepening and entrenchment of democratic backsliding. Its findings hold important implications for practical efforts to bolster democratic resilience and boost mass support for liberal democracy.