Publications

Here you can find all my academic publications. If some of these are not accessible, contact me so I can send you a copy.

2026

1. DPES

   Steun voor (en zorgen over) democratie

   Joep van Lit and Carmen van Alebeek

   In Veelstemmig: De Tweede Kamerverkiezingen van 2025, 2026

   PDF
2. Book chapter

   De Rechtsstatelijke Rit van het Kabinet-Schoof

   Joep van Lit

   In Het Experiment Schoof, 2026

   HTML
3. JEPP

   Credible resistance or political ploy? How government status and consistency shape citizen perceptions of parliamentarians’ democratic defence

   Joep van Lit, Maurits J. Meijers, and Carolien van Ham

   Journal of European Public Policy, 2026

   Abs DOI Code

   Parliamentarians play a primary role in defending democracy against incumbent-led democratic recession. They can resist autocratization in the political arena by standing up against the incumbent government when they show signs of becoming a would-be autocrat. Doing so, parliamentarians can help citizens mobilize against democratic recession. However, parliamentarians are not always credible as democratic defenders to citizens as their defence might be perceived as politically motivated. Building on the argument that a credible elite democratic defence is a prerequisite for successful democratic defence, in this paper, we study how parliamentarians’ incumbency and consistency affect citizen perceptions of parliamentary democratic defence, employing a factorial vignette experiment (n = 4.785). We find that government and opposition parliamentarians are differently credible, depending on whether they are perceived as being credibly committed to democracy or playing a political game. In addition, we find that when parliamentarians consistently defend democracy, they are most credible to citizens.

4. EJPR

   Administrative democratic defence: Under what circumstances do civil servants counter autocratisation?

   Joep van Lit

   European Journal of Political Research, 2026

   Abs DOI

   When democracy is eroded by democratically elected incumbents, it is up to others to defend democracy and sustain the democratic institutions. An emerging body of research looks at the roles, challenges, and tactics of these democratic defenders, yet there is no research that explores under what circumstances civil servants move from bystanders to democratic defenders. I argue that civil servants are prime candidates to defend democracy against incumbent-led autocratisation, which I conceptualise as administrative democratic defence. Based on in-depth, semi-structured elite interviews in the Netherlands, I argue that administrative democratic defence only occurs when three dilemmas are successfully navigated: civil servants need to perceive they have the capability to recognise autocratisation, they need to perceive they have access to legitimate instruments to halt it, and they need to be willing to use those instruments. In addition, I show how a resilient democracy requires continued awareness and action on its part, even in a highly democratic and liberal context.

5. Democratization

   When Elites Defend Democracy, Do Citizens Listen? How Elites Alert Citizens to Democratic Recession

   Joep van Lit, Maurits J. Meijers, and Carolien van Ham

   Democratization, 2026

   Abs DOI Code

   In response to global trends of democratic recession, scholarship has increased its attention to defenders of democracy and actors who resist autocratization. In many cases, democratic defence is initiated by political elites. However, as of yet, it remains unclear whether all elites can effectively alert citizens that democracy is in danger, and whether some elites are better positioned than others. In this article, we argue that elite democratic defenders’ effectiveness in alerting citizens about democratic recession depends on their independence from the political process (political impartiality) and knowledge about the democratic system and what actions are likely to undermine it (embedded knowledge). Using a within-subject factorial survey-experiment, fielded in the United Kingdom (n = 3.986), we test the effectiveness of different elite actors in alerting citizens to democratic recession. We find strong support for our hypotheses, showing that elite democratic defenders are effective if they are perceived to be politically impartial and perceived to have embedded knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of elite credibility and also show important avenues for elites to bolster and strengthen their effectiveness in countering autocratization.

6. EPSR

   The Would-be Autocrats’ Toolkit: What Do Incumbents Do When They Undermine Democracy?

   Joep van Lit and Carolien van Ham

   European Political Science Review, 2026

   Abs DOI

   Since the 1990s, incumbent-led autocratization in democracies is increasingly common. However, there is surprisingly little systematic and comparative research into the actions would-be autocrats actually take when they undermine democracy. We analyse the wealth of in-depth case studies of all cases of incumbent-led autocratization in democracies from 1990 until 2023 to develop such an overview of autocratic actions inductively. This empirically based would-be autocrats’ toolkit encompasses over 400 unique autocratic actions which we classify into seven overarching modes of autocratization: evasion, manipulation, infiltration, duplication, restriction, prohibition, and delegitimation. Would-be autocrats selectively use these different modes in varying arenas of democracy to gradually erode democracy. The toolkit provides a starting point to more systematically study autocratization within and across different cases, enabling the identification of sequencing and diffusion patterns, and helping generate better understanding of when autocratization is successful.

2025

1. PhD Thesis

   Beautiful Spark of Democracy: The Conditions for Democratic Defence Against Incumbent-led Democratic Recession

   Joep van Lit

   2025

   Abs DOI

   When democracies are challenged by democratically elected leaders – would-be autocrats – it is up to democratic defenders to sustain democracy. This defence of democracy is, however, neither automatic nor guaranteed, as incumbent-led democratic recession is covert, incremental, and often justified by the would-be autocrat. In this thesis, I investigate under what circumstances the defence of democracy occurs: when do elite actors within the typical democratic institutions stand up against the would-be autocrat, and when are they able to persuade citizens to join the defence of democracy? Employing computational methods, case studies, elite interviews, and survey experiments, I show that the defence of democracy hinges on elites’ self-interest in preventing the autocratic action, repression by the would-be autocrat, the ambiguity surrounding the autocratic action, and elites’ credibility in the eyes of citizens. Even when the defence of democracy appears to be an uphill battle, and even though there are many challenges that democratic defenders face, the defence of democracy against incumbent-led democratic recession is both necessary and possible. When aiming to sustain democracies, this thesis shows we need to look beyond institutions and formal rules towards the people within and outside those institutions – elites and citizens alike – and what they do to make democracies resilient.

2. WEP

   Defending Democracy: Investigating the Efficacy of Elite Democratic Defence in a Competitive Information Environment

   Joep van Lit and Maurits J. Meijers

   West European Politics, 2025

   Abs DOI Code

   When democracies are challenged by democratically elected incumbents, citizens are faced with two competing claims: incumbent justifications for the autocratic proposal versus democratic defenders’ claims that they harm democracy. While citizen involvement in the defence of democracy is paramount, up until now it is unclear under which circumstances citizens give more credence to which claim. This article argues citizens judge the trade-off between incumbent and democratic defender based on the ambiguity surrounding the autocratic action and the credibility of the defenders. A factorial survey experiment in the Netherlands, France, and Germany (n = 9,159) provides strong evidence for this argument. Citizen evaluations of autocratic actions depend largely on the action’s ambiguity and the credibility of democratic defenders. The findings provide avenues for democratic defenders, but also warn of pitfalls and potential backlash against democratic defence.

3. B&M

   Democratie als ge(s)laagd samenspel.

   Marlies Honingh, Joep van Lit, and Carolien van Ham

   Beleid en Maatschappij, 2025

   Abs DOI

   Democratic erosion not only affects new democracies, but also older, more established, consolidated democracies. In this article we build on an in-depth study about democratic erosion in the Netherlands to discuss what democratic erosion is and what the global trends are. To understand democratic erosion it is necessary to pay attention to both the functioning of representative democracy as well as enacted democracy. This stresses the need to focus on democratic institutions, democratic norms and democratic behaviour. Enacting democracy requires forms of participation within social contexts, democratic spaces in neighborhoods, communities, institutions, associations, non-elected government institutions and various (societal) organizations. Bringing in these settings and organizations reveals the interdependency of all actors involved and their rolls and functions in the multi-layered interplay that is democracy. Democracy is and always will be work in progress; and a sustainable democracy thus requires constant maintenance.

2024

1. DPES

   Opvattingen over democratie in Nederland

   Joep van Lit

   In De verkiezingen van 2023: Van onderstroom naar doorbraak: Onvrede en migratie, 2024

   PDF
2. Book chapter

   Populism and Democracy

   Saskia Ruth-Lovell, Rosa Kindt, Joep van Lit, and 1 more author

   In Populism: An Introduction, 2024

   HTML

2023

1. Democratization

   Countering Autocratization: A Roadmap for Democratic Defence

   Joep van Lit, Carolien van Ham, and Maurits J. Meijers

   Democratization, 2023

   Abs DOI

   Many democracies around the world face the challenge of democratic recession and autocratization as democratically elected incumbents increasingly show autocratic tendencies. Existing research has mainly focused on the circumstances under which these autocratizing incumbents erode democracy and on the structural factors explaining the resilience of democratic institutions. Much less is known about the actors within those institutions and when they stand up against the autocratizing incumbent to defend democracy. In this article, we present a novel theoretical framework of democratic defence that focuses on the interaction between the incumbent, institutional elites, and citizens. Developing a two-level model of democratic defence, we show how the democratic defender’s personal interests, repression by the incumbent, the perceived ambiguity of the autocratic action, and the perceived credibility of the democratic defender interact to affect the occurrence of democratic defence. The resulting framework can guide future research on the role of specific actors in defending democracy. We demonstrate the utility of our framework with illustrative case studies of (attempted) democratic defence in Senegal (2011–2012) and Poland (2017–2018). An actor-based approach of democratic defence is crucial to understand what actions domestic and international actors can take to prevent (further) democratic recession.