The Illiberal Turn or Swerve in Central Europe?

Buštíková, Lenka; Guasti, Petra

doi:10.17645/pag.v5i4.1156

Cited by 172 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Before the COVID-19 pandemic, all V4 countries had been experiencing symptoms of democratic decay, including assaults on an independent judiciary, the colonization of public administration by political proxies, and increased political control over media. 2 Hungary was on the verge of undergoing an "illiberal turn," while the remaining three countries were experiencing illiberal swerving-Poland the most, Slovakia the least, with the Czech Republic in the middle (Bustikova and Guasti 2017). The COVID-19 pandemic represented an opportunity for the populist V4 leaders to undermine liberal democracy further.…”

Section: The Effects Of the Covid-19 Pandemic On Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe

Guasti

2020

Democratic Theory

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The COVID-19 pandemic represents a new and unparalleled stress-test for the already disrupted liberal-representative, democracies. The challenges cluster around three democratic disfigurations: technocracy, populism, and plebiscitarianism—each have the potential to contribute to democratic decay. Still, they can also trigger pushback against illiberalism mobilizing citizens in defense of democracy, toward democratic resilience. This article looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic affects democratic decay and democratic resilience in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It finds varied responses to the COVID-19 crisis by the CEE populist leaders and identifies two patterns: the rise of autocracy and democratic resilience. First, in Hungary and Poland, the populist leaders instrumentalized the state of emergency to increase executive aggrandizement. Second, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, democracy proved resilient. The COVID-19 pandemic alone is not fostering the rise of authoritarianism. However, it does accentuate existing democratic disfigurations.

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Section: The Effects Of the Covid-19 Pandemic On Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe

Guasti

2020

Democratic Theory

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105

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“…Indeed, synthesising the findings of the studies collected here suggests that-rather than the steady one-directional dynamic process of deterioration implied by "backsliding" a relatively stable but low-quality-democracy is the norm for political regimes where checks on progress towards high-quality liberal democracy are already embedded. In some cases, this may imply minimal change; in others, weakly consolidated democracy may swerve or careen (Slater 2013;Buštíková and Guasti 2017) without a lasting shift towards a less democratic regime form. Concretely, this means that the cases of Hungary and Poland, while exhibiting some characteristics shared across the region, serve as a poor guide for wider understanding in CEE.…”

Section: Multiple (Un)democratic Trajectories Across Ceementioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking “democratic backsliding” in Central and Eastern Europe – looking beyond Hungary and Poland

Cianetti

Dawson

Hanley

2018

East European Politics

193

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This essay introduces contributions to a special issue of East European Politics on "Rethinking democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe", which seeks to expand the study of democratic regression in CEE beyond the paradigmatic cases of Hungary and Poland. Reviewing these contributions, we identify several directions for research: 1) the need to critique "democratic backsliding", not simply as a label, but also as an assumed regional trend; 2) a need to better integrate the role of illiberal socio-economic structures such as oligarchical structures or corrupt networks; and 3) a need to (re-)examine the trade-offs between democratic stability and democratic quality. We also note how insights developed researching post-communist regions such as Western Balkans or the post-Soviet space could usefully inform work on CEE backsliding. We conclude by calling for the study of CEE democracy to become more genuinely interdisciplinary, moving beyond some narrowly institutionalist comparative political science assumptions. ARTICLE HISTORYOver the past decade, a scholarly consensus has emerged that that democracy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is deteriorating (Kochenov 2008; Sedelmeier 2014), a trend often subsumed under the label "backsliding". 1 However, this emergent paradigm has focused disproportionately on the two most dramatic cases: Hungary and Poland (Müller 2014; Herman 2016; Kelemen and Orenstein 2016) and on the symptomsexecutive aggrandisement and illiberal nationalismthat are most characteristic of the trajectories of those states. In bringing together contributions in this special issue, we attempt to correct for the empirical and thematic biases of this paradigm by examining democratic trajectories through the prism of cases other than Hungary and Poland in both Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and in nearby postcommunist regions, the West Balkans and the former Soviet Union (FSU). We use the term CEE as a matter of convention, to refer to post-communist states that are EU members, whichpartly in consequence of EU accessionhad been considered to be among the post-communist world's more successful and stable democracies. 2 The CEE sub-region has been one of the main focuses of the "backsliding" agenda, as democratic deterioration was unexpected and is weakly explained by existing

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“…Finalmente, tras un intento fallido, Mariano Rajoy fue investido presidente del Gobierno con la abstención del PSOE. Tras dos años de Gobierno, el 1 de junio de 2018 el PSOE presentó una moción de censura 5 , obteniendo la mayoría absoluta para desalojar al Partido Popular del Gobierno tras obtener los votos favorables de 180 diputados, la abstención de Coalición Canaria y los votos contrarios GRÁFICO 3…”

Section: Fragmentación Volatilidad Y Polarización En La Nueva Españaunclassified

De la crisis económica a la crisis política: cambio en Europa y España

Simón

2019

Revista ICE

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En el presente artículo se discute el impacto que ha tenido la crisis económica en la evolución política de la Unión Europea y España. Sobre el primer aspecto, se trata la brecha entre los países deudores y acreedores, entre los países del este y el oeste, y en la salida de Reino Unido. Sobre España, se aborda la fragmentación política, la volatilidad, la emergencia de nuevos partidos y la dificultad para formar Gobierno a raíz de la crisis económica y política. Finalmente, se discute el impacto de la economía en el auge del apoyo a la independencia en Cataluña.

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The Illiberal Turn or Swerve in Central Europe?

Cited by 172 publications

References 15 publications

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe

Rethinking “democratic backsliding” in Central and Eastern Europe – looking beyond Hungary and Poland

De la crisis económica a la crisis política: cambio en Europa y España

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