Populism in East-Central Europe: A Revolt against Western Liberalism?

While the populist phenomenon is present in the political arena of almost any European country, it is fair to ask whether there is a specific dimension to populism in East and Central European countries, which have embarked on democratization trajectories only in the last three decades. This chapter argues that a crucial part of understanding current manifestations of populism in the region needs to be related to how (and how profoundly) constitutional democracy was institutionalized in the years after 1989. In addition, enduring forms of contestation over the institutionalization of democracy need to be taken into account in order grasp the current conflicts. Many populist parties in the region, in various moments in time, have criticized the political and economic establishment as well as the ‘liberal consensus’, that is, the idea that the transformations of the communist societies were exclusively about constructing liberal-democratic systems and neoliberal markets. This liberal consensus was clearly predominant amongst political forces in the 1990s, but has been questioned at various points in time in all of the post-communist societies. The chapter, first, discusses the broader backlash against the ‘liberal consensus’ in the region and asks the question of how solid and well-embedded the liberal consensus was in the first place (cf. Bucholc 2020). Second, the chapter will link the contestation of the ‘liberal consensus’ with populist forces and the issue of anti-pluralism. In distinctive ways populists question the hegemony of liberalism as a blue-print for transformation. In the most radical cases, this involves propositions for ‘monistic’ solutions, a hegemony of the populist party and the denial of meaningful opposition. It is argued that such stark anti-pluralism is not visible in every EastCentral European society, as will also become evident in the two cases discussed. Third, the chapter analyzes two less frequently discussed cases of populist parties in East-Central Europe, related to the cases of Czechia (ANO and Dawn of Direct Democracy) and Romania (PSD, PD). The focus in the case-studies is on the emergence of populist parties, the core populist claims of such parties (by, inter alia, analysing party manifestos and other materials, such as interviews), and the populists’ relation to anti-pluralism and behaviour towards other parties in the same domestic political arena.