The Illiberal Turn or Swerve in Central Europe?

0484047 - SOÚ 2018 GB eng J - Článek v odborném periodiku
Buštíková, L. - Guasti, Petra
The Illiberal Turn or Swerve in Central Europe?
Politics and Governance. Roč. 5, č. 4 (2017), s. 166-176. ISSN 2183-2463. E-ISSN 2183-2463
Grant CEP: GA ČR GA16-04885S
Institucionální podpora: RVO:68378025
Klíčová slova: Czech Republic * democracy * democratic consolidation
Obor OECD: Political science
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1156

Scholars are coming to terms with the fact that something is rotten in the new democracies of Central Europe. The corrosion has multiple symptoms: declining trust in democratic institutions, emboldened uncivil society, the rise of oligarchs and populists as political leaders, assaults on an independent judiciary, the colonization of public administration by political proxies, increased political control over media, civic apathy, nationalistic contestation and Russian meddling. These processes signal that the liberal-democratic project in the so-called Visegrad Four (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) has been either stalled, diverted or reversed. This article investigates the “illiberal turn” in the Visegrad Four (V4) countries. It develops an analytical distinction between illiberal “turns” and “swerves”, with the former representing more permanent political changes, and offers evidence that Hungary is the only country in the V4 at the brink of a decisive illiberal turn.
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0279206