How to reverse autocratization? Positive and Negative Examples from the Visegrád Countries

Description

After the regime change in Central and Eastern Europe, the Visegrád countries were described as successful transformation democracies, and after joining NATO and the EU, as liberal democracies. However, from the early 2000s onwards, but especially after the Great Recession, it became clear that the transformation of these countries cannot be considered as final. Authoritarian and charismatic leaders and their parties came to power and tried to change the democratic set-up. While the Hungarian and Polish states transformed into autocratic plebiscite leader democracies, the Czech and Slovak democracies seem to be more resistant. The aim of this project is to examine how the Czech and Slovak regimes, in contrast to the otherwise similar Hungarian and Polish regimes, were able to reverse autocratization. The project examines not only democratic backsliding, but also the historical embeddedness and importance of political leaders and the role of religious ideas. A qualitative case study approach will be used to collect data from relevant documents, speeches of political leaders and laws after 2010. The key argument is that the autocratic leaders who emerged in Czechia and Slovakia have no historical roots in their countries. Therefore, they could not form a continuum between the socialist and post-socialist periods and play a balancing role as both anti-socialist and anti-Western leaders. Moreover, their politics did not pay attention to use Christianity as a defining identity politics to maintain their charismatic power, because the attachment of Czech and Slovak citizens to Christianity is not as significant as in Hungary or especially in Poland. Therefore, Czech and Slovak leaders were not able to form a stable sense of identity. The lack of successful identity politics prevented them from legitimizing their power in the long term and made it possible to reverse autocratization.

Period	29 Sept 2023
Event title	Resisting the autocratic turn: Can (and should) autocratization be prevented, stopped, and resisted?
Event type	Conference
Location	BelgiumShow on map