How backsliding government parties defend democratic backsliding in the European Parliament

How do backsliding government parties defend democratic backsliding in the European Parliament? Analyzing manually and large language model-coded data, I find that the backsliders’ arguments do not strongly reflect their illiberalism. Instead, they rely on alleging bias and misconduct by opponents and the advocacy of sovereignty, complemented by situational arguments about election results, Russia, and other member states, among others. Regression analyses tentatively suggest that increasing conflict between the backsliders and other groups helps explain the choice of arguments. The results raise the possibility of an underappreciated mechanism—pushing backsliders into making detrimental arguments—of European Parliament influence on European Union decisions on backsliding. They also indicate that the choice of arguments by backsliding government parties might be less strategically apt and more reactive than sometimes assumed.