Populist Constitutionalism in East-Central Europe

This chapter starts from the supposition that there is something distinctive to East-Central European populism. The distinctive dimension regards the specific transformation trajectories in these countries since 1989. A key dimension to populism in this region is a form of backlash against what can be understood as the ‘legal revolutions’ and/or ‘rights revolutions’ of the 1990s. The backlash expresses itself in some cases as a veritable counter-revolution by law or counter-constitutionalism. At the same time, this chapter will acknowledge the fact that populism manifests itself differently in countries in the region, and a key focus will be on the two most prominent cases of populism-in-government, that is, Poland and Hungary, while also the cases of Czechia, Romania, and Slovakia will be discussed.