Professor Milada Vachudova introduces the concept of ethnopolulism and discusses how political party competition in some member states of the European Union has shifted to issues of identity, as a result of and to the benefit of ethno-populist parties defending “the people.” Such polarization, she argues, goes hand in hand with democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland; a somewhat different dynamic, however, is playing out in the Czech Republic, where liberal mobilization brought down the former ethno-populist incumbent. Professor Vachudova concludes by discussing the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the strategies and popularity of ethnopopulists in Europe.
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Professor Milada Vachudova introduces the concept of ethnopolulism and discusses how political party competition in some member states of the European Union has shifted to issues of identity, as a result of and to the benefit of ethno-populist parties defending “the people.” Such polarization, she argues, goes hand in hand with democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland; a somewhat different dynamic, however, is playing out in the Czech Republic, where liberal mobilization brought down the former ethno-populist incumbent. Professor Vachudova concludes by discussing the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the strategies and popularity of ethnopopulists in Europe.
Professor Mitchell Orenstein discusses how Central Europe’s post-communist dependence on foreign capital constrained countries in the region into following (neo)liberal economic policies and how after the global financial crisis, populist parties in the region began to break from the (neo)liberal consensus, “thickening” their populist agenda to include an economic program based on a conservative developmental statism. This particular form of economic nationalism that emphasizes workforce activation, natalism, and sovereignty has also gone hand-in-hand with attempts to attract investments from Eastern authoritarian states, further illustrating the connection between Central Europe's development strategies and the region’s sources of foreign capital.
Speaker: Dr. Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor and Chair of Russian and East European Studies at University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Rise and Resilience of Populism in Eastern Europe
Professor Milada Vachudova introduces the concept of ethnopolulism and discusses how political party competition in some member states of the European Union has shifted to issues of identity, as a result of and to the benefit of ethno-populist parties defending “the people.” Such polarization, she argues, goes hand in hand with democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland; a somewhat different dynamic, however, is playing out in the Czech Republic, where liberal mobilization brought down the former ethno-populist incumbent. Professor Vachudova concludes by discussing the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the strategies and popularity of ethnopopulists in Europe.
