How to Distinguish the 'Antidemocratic' from the 'Democratic'? Towards a more fine-tuned Mechanism to Recognizing Antidemocratic Parties

After World War II democracy became such a strong ideal that even evidently non-democratic states, as the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (North Korea), or clearly antidemocratic parties, such as the extreme-right Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD), apparently feel that they - at least in their name - have to pay lip service to the democratic ideal. More importantly, we see right-wing populists taking aim at the "liberal" in "liberal democracy" (cf. Mudde). In Hungary, we see Orbán explicitly arguing against (political) liberalism and for an "illiberal state", contending that such a system can still be democratic, though "illiberal". In line with this thinking Orbán has, among other things, restricted the powers of the constitutional court, installed loyalists in neutral institutions and has redrawn the electoral districts to his (strong) benefit (as documented by several political scientists and legal scholars). In Poland the ruling PiS party leads a similar push. These developments lead to the question when a party actually is antidemocratic - for instance, what concrete measures does a party have to propose to be deemed "antidemocratic"? One can argue, on normative grounds, that a democracy is allowed to ban antidemocratic parties in exceptional circumstances (as others, and myself, have done elsewhere). And one can, consequently, argue what constitutes being "antidemocratic". But how does one actually recognize an antidemocratic party, and how does one do so in time? This paper proposes a more fine-tuned "detection mechanism" in a set of criteria that aims to evade the pitfalls of a to mechanic checklist approach (cf. Scheppele), but that, at the same time, is strict enough to protect against the misuse of party bans.