Hanley, SL;
Dawson, J;
(2016)
East Central Europe: The Fading Mirage of the ‘Liberal Consensus’.
Journal of Democracy
, 27
(1)
pp. 20-34.
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Abstract
In 2007 Ivan Krastev argued that EU-enforced ‘liberal consensus’ in East Central Europe (ECE) was giving way to illiberal, but ultimately benign, populism. Post-accession ‘backsliding’ in Hungary suggests a stronger illiberal challenge. However, we argue, democratic malaise in ECE is better understood as a long-term pattern of ‘illiberal consolidation’ built on an accommodation between technocratic, economistic liberalism and forces of rent-seeking and cultural conservatism. This configuration generates a mirage of liberal-democratic progress and mainstream moderate politics, which obscures engrained elite collusion and limits to cultural change. Bulgarian-style hollowness, rather than Hungarian-style semi-authoritarianism, better exemplifies the potential fate of ECE democracies today.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | East Central Europe: The Fading Mirage of the ‘Liberal Consensus’ |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/what%E2... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2016 The Johns Hopkins University Press. This is a prepublication version of a forthcoming article that will appear in Journal of Democracy, Volume 27, Issue 1, January, 2016. |
| Keywords: | Democracy, Eastern Europe, East Central Europe, liberalism, backsliding, democratisation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > SSEES |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1470009 |
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