Tamar de Waal

Project title

Between vulnerability and resilience: institutional dynamics of autocratisation

Research question

How do interactions among the institutions of the rule of law, academia, and the media both create vulnerabilities that enable autocratic creep and generate constructive dynamics that strengthen constitutional resilience?

Project description

De Waal investigates the global erosion of liberal democracy and the rise of illiberal and/or authoritarian (often called “populist”) leaders, parties, and movements through the lens of historically legitimising institutions, including the judiciary, academia and independent media. Her project aims:

1. To contribute to our collective understanding of the factors that have driven democratic regression and the wider trend of global autocratisation.

2. To develop practical policy solutions that can strengthen liberal-democratic resilience against authoritarian takeover.

In the first phase of the project, Tamar tries to understand institutional vulnerabilities by synthesising findings from various academic disciplines to identify and assess how flaws within sector-specific institutions interact to create conditions that enable autocratic creep. She also examines how these dynamics relate to broader conceptions of citizenship and to the civic responsibilities of professional groups.

Selected publications

• de Waal, T. (2025). Democratic Equality in a Populist Anti-Multicultural Era. Nations and Nationalism.
• de Waal, T., Duyvendak, J. W. (2022). The majority oppressed? On asymmetrical multiculturalism and majority rights. Comparative Migration Studies 10 (1), 42.
• de Waal, T. (2021). Integration Requirements for Immigrants in Europe: A Legal-Philosophical Inquiry. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• de Waal, T. (2020). Conditional belonging: Evaluating integration requirements from a social equality perspective. Journal of Intercultural Studies 41 (2), 231-247.