Multiple democracies: political cultures and democratic variety in post-enlargement Europe

Blokker, Paul

doi:10.1080/13569770802180244

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(9 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In fact, world-systems analysis can be seen as following the dictum laid down by C. Wright Mills, who talked about the sociological imagination as being one that is able to locate the personal in the broader structural context in which it is located: biography is always world-systems analysis has sought to develop this specific theme as evidenced in the writings of Derluguian, Wilkin and McQuade (Derluguian 2005;McQuade 2015, Wilkin 2010. As Blokker notes in his work on ECE, there is always more than one political culture, there are multiple and overlapping political cultures that can and do transcend nation-state boundaries (Blokker 2008;. The post-communist emergence of far-right social and political networks across the region and across the European Union (EU) illustrates this (Goettig and Lowe 2014;Virchow 2013;Marche 2012).…”

Section: Part One: From Liberalism To Illiberalism -The Contested Natmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

Wilkin

2018

JWSR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the rise of the political right and far-right in Hungarian political culture. It highlights the contribution that world-systems analysis can bring to an historical sociological understanding of the concept of political culture, with a particular focus on contemporary Hungary. Many commentators are asking: how it can be that 30 years of democratic transition has led to the dominance in Hungary of a politics of intolerance, illiberalism and ethno-Nationalism, as manifested in both the current government, Fidesz, and the neo-fascist party, Jobbik. This paper argues that the correct way to frame the question is to ask: why, given the legacy of authoritarian social and political movements that have shaped Hungary’s modern history, should a stable, liberal, political culture emerge after communism? Instead what the paper shows is that the goals of classical liberalism and a liberal political culture have long been destroyed by three factors: capitalism; the nation-state; and the persistence of traditional and sometimes irrational forms of social hierarchy, prejudice and authority. Hungary’s current Orbánisation reflects an on-going tension between liberal and illiberal tendencies, the latter being part of the foundations of the modern world-system. Rather than viewing Hungary as a dangerous exception to be quarantined by the European Union, it should be recognised that the political right in Hungary is linked to broader trends across the world-system that foster intolerance and other anti-enlightenment and socially divisive tendencies. Political cultures polarised by decades of neoliberal reforms and in which there is no meaningful socialist alternative have reduced Hungary’s elite political debates to the choice of either neoliberalism or ethnonationalism, neither of which is likely to generate socially progressive solutions to its current problems.

show abstract

Section: Part One: From Liberalism To Illiberalism -The Contested Natmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

Wilkin

2018

JWSR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This difference could be due to a certain parochialism, or alternatively to a self-understanding that considers US democracy as a very particular one, having little to learn from others. While both of this is true to a certain extent, the authors’ closer look reveals that a pluralistic view of possible varieties of democracy (Blokker, 2008) is far from the US lawmakers’ mind. Rather, in a somewhat paradoxical fashion, they tend to see their own polity as embodying universal principles, claiming ownership of those principles, and thus having in their own polity the yardstick with which to measure whether those principles are realized.…”

Section: Varieties and Transformations Of Democracymentioning

confidence: 96%

The political condition of our time

Wagner

Jaclin

2018

Social Science Information

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Faculté des sciences sociales, Canada Do we live today in a particularly difficult or turbulent political period? This question is more and more often raised in both scholarly and public debates, and the starting assumption is that it will be answered affirmatively. More specifically, it is assumed that we experience a crisis of democracy, or at least a transformation of democracy. Like its predecessors, 'post-industrial society' during the 1960s and 'post-modernity' during the 1980s, the term 'post-democracy' diffused very quickly and widely after it was coined at the very beginning of this century. Often regardless of-in many cases, presumably, in ignorance of-the analysis proposed by Colin Crouch (2004), it seemed easy to accept that many current societies had de-democratized, that their core democratic self-understanding had been profoundly undermined in actual political practices. Receding tides? The Spanish novelist and essayist Javier Marías (2018) recently reflected in his regular column in the periodical El País Semanal about the ways in which the world has been transformed since the beginning of this century. He agreed with the widespread opinion that those transformations are highly worrying, but then took a step back. If we move from observations about this recent past to the beginnings of the 19th and 20th centuries then our current experience pales in comparison. Between 1800 and 1818, the world had gone from revolution to reaction, passing through major warfare. Between 1900 and 1918, the proud march of industrial progress, celebrated in World Fairs, had led to the mass slaughtering of the First World War. While Marías ominously concluded by wishing that the years 2039-45 may not resemble the related period of the preceding century, his reflections overall demand to carefully look at longer-term historical developments before rushing to strong conclusions about the present. The aftermath of the First World War can be seen as witnessing the apparent breakthrough of modern democracy, at least in formal terms. While democracy had been on 822467S SI0010.

show abstract

“…Unsurprisingly, the empirical studies on the cultures of political violence have shown that the cultures do not emerge in their pure form, but they are the complex combinations of the parochial, subject, and participant patterns (Blokker 2008). In fact, this is of an asymptotic nature of the ideal types which create Almond and Verba's model.…”

Section: Political Culture: Between the Parochial And Subject Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theorizing Cultures of Political Violence in Times of Austerity

Rak¹

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Why did some protest movements turn to force when others did not in times of austerity? How has it influenced political structures of the Eurozone states? In this empirically rich, methodologically advanced, and theoretically innovative book, Joanna Rak open-mindedly addresses important research problems of the sources and consequences of differences and similarities across cultures of political violence formed by the post-2008 anti-austerity movements in Europe. Not only does Rak's study contribute to our understanding of what happened in austerity-driven societies, but it also makes an important contribution to the Social Sciences by creating and applying a compelling non-traditional research design that allows a researcher to verify methodological correctness and analytical effectiveness of theoretical frameworks. Those who are interested in how to analyze contentious politics now have an excellent work to read!' Roman Bäcker, The former President of Polish Political Science Association 'Joanna Rak has written an admirably clear, rigorously designed and conducted comparative study of European anti-austerity movements. This book does more than challenge the students of contention to think critically about conceptual and explanatory frameworks of cultures of political violence. By formulating and testing new analytical tools, the study pushes us to reconsider a traditional research process and the use of theoretical categories in comparative politics and social movement studies.' Adam Wielomski, The President of Political and Legal Theory Association 'This timely and innovative research allows us to understand how broad civil historical contexts shaped placid, hector-led, and militant cultures of political violence in austerity-driven Europe. Drawing upon the pieces of data in 14 languages and a comprehensive literature review, Joanna Rak creates entirely new databases for anti-austerity movements. In skillfully combining qualitative and quantitative comparative techniques, she achieves both theory-verification and theory-generation aims. The analysis makes significant methodological and theoretical advances as Rak devises a gradable theoretical category of a culture of political violence. Her original theoretical framework introduces a refreshingly new way to bring together accomplishments in the study of contentious politics and history. Rak paves the way for further research and discussion about a nature of contemporary cultures of political violence.'

show abstract

Multiple democracies: political cultures and democratic variety in post-enlargement Europe

Cited by 9 publications

References 27 publications

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

The political condition of our time

Theorizing Cultures of Political Violence in Times of Austerity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About