Filip Milačić is senior researcher for democracy and society at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Democracy of the Future office and a research affiliate at the Central European University's Democracy Institute. He is the author of Stateness and Democratic Consolidation: Lessons from Former Yugoslavia (2022).
When ordinary voters are given a choice between democracy and partisan loyalty, who will put democracy first? Frighteningly, Europe harbors a deep reservoir of authoritarian potential.