Recent episodes of democratic backsliding have been accompanied by what observers describe as a “war on cities.” Autocratizing incumbents have targeted opposition-led metropolitan governments through fiscal strangulation, legal harassment, and coercive policing—from U.S. federal pressure on Democratic cities to the arrests and prosecutions of mayors in Turkey and Bulgaria. At the same time, opposition forces increasingly view major cities as critical footholds for democratic recovery, with cases such as Budapest, Bucharest, and Istanbul highlighting the national significance of urban political control.

This project asks whether and how cities can constrain, halt, or reverse autocratization. We examine the role of opposition control in large cities for democratic resilience, focusing on five mechanisms: political participation, protest mobilization, national electoral turnover, rule-of-law conflict, and transnational support. We develop a theory of subnational democratic resistance that treats cities as reservoirs of participation, organization, visibility, and credibility during autocratic waves.

Empirically, we study 28 European and neighboring countries since 1990, combining city-level electoral data, protest events, litigation and prosecutions, public opinion surveys, and EU infringement and advocacy processes. Through medium-N comparative case studies and cross-national data, the project identifies the conditions under which opposition victories in cities catalyze broader democratic reversals—and when they provoke intensified repression instead.

This paper analyses the communication and organisational innovations developed by Hungary’s largest opposition party, the TISZA, since 2024. Political innovation was mainly monopolised by Fidesz for the last 16 years. This monopoly has begun to erode with the establishment of TISZA. The new opposition party has introduced a unique repertoire of mobilisation and communication tools. In a political environment where the ruling party, Fidesz, dominates state resources, controls clientelist networks and almost monopolises traditional media, what can a newly established political party achieve? We map TISZA’s mobilisation toolkit across four domains: (1) large-scale physical mobilisation to counter propaganda and demonstrate commitment, such as mass rallies, long-distance marches and intensive touring of small villages and cities; (2) decentralised grassroots mobilisation, including establishing a nationwide network of Tisza Islands and launching the Talpra Magyarok network; (3) the public selection of MEP candidates in 2024 and the multi-candidate, multi-round selection of parliamentary candidates in 2025; and (4) direct communication with supporters via offline channels, such as volunteer-led print distribution, and online channels, such as live streams and TISZA apps. We also compare this emerging toolkit to earlier Fidesz innovations, highlighting what is new and what is just reinvented. Using process-tracing methodology, we assess how these tools increase reach under asymmetric conditions and the risks they entail.

The mass anti-government protests in Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria in 2025 drew international media attention and briefly but powerfully demonstrated that even in countries synonymous with democratic decline, citizens organise to defend democracy. Although there is an extensive body of research on the causes and types of democratic backsliding, research on countering backsliding remains predominantly occupied with the role of external actors such as the European Union. Few studies have shed light on domestic actors by analysing the mobilization of judges and civil mobilization. However, the less visible practices, processes and tools designed to strengthen democracy by increasing civic participation, boosting accountability, countering disinformation and protecting electoral integrity have received scant academic attention.

The article reimagines the concept of democratic innovation to zoom in on and explore the democratic inventiveness of domestic actors in democracies under strain. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Serbia, the article analyses how domestic actors (citizens, civil society organisations (CSOs), institutions and opposition parties) have individually or collaboratively sought to strengthen and defend democracy and develops a typology of democratic innovations in democracies under strain.

Processes of de-democratisation and democratic resilience challenge linear conceptions of democratic backsliding. Backsliding assumes a clear point of departure or an authoritarian endpoint, obscuring the ways in which resilience can emerge within episodes of democratic weakening. Building on Bustikova and Guasti’s (2017) concept of democratic swerves, we conceptualise de-democratisation as a non-linear process marked by unstable liberal–illiberal electoral cycles in which temporary corrections remain possible. The paper examines “one-off election wonders”—instances in which liberal or pro-democratic coalitions return to power for a single electoral cycle before illiberal actors re-emerge. We analyse recent cases in Bulgaria, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, and Romania. Through comparative analysis, we identify the conditions under which liberals successfully dislodge illiberals and the recurring obstacles they face in office that undermine democratic self-defense. The findings highlight both the possibilities and limits of electoral resilience in contemporary Eastern Europe.