Aaron Irion on Marine Le Pen, and the Rassemblement National party's role in opposing French President Emmanuel Macron's signature pension reform, and what it says about the state of the far-right party and its political strategy.
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Nicolas Lebourg on how anti-communist Russian émigrés in France helped redefine the meaning of solidarism through ideological exchanges conducted with the French far right during the interwar period.
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Dominik Juling on the Reichsbürger movement and its ideological and sociological structure and origins. |
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Jeffery Tyler Syck on the dichotomy between pluralist and statist liberalism with a call for the revival of pluralist liberalism. |
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Zuzana Maďarová on the connection between anti-gender movements and illiberal politics using the case study of Slovakia's abortion debate.
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Daniel Stevens on varieties of authoritarianism, how political advertising and the media influence elections, and how feelings of insecurity influence voting behaviors. |
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Pavel Kanevskiy charts the decline of the internet as a force for democratization, accountability, and trustful interstate relations, noting that a “darker reality” emerged, wherein “online technologies became instruments of digital illiberalism.” He sets out to explain how states, political groups, and private companies use technology to undermine liberalism at home and abroad. Kanevskiy concludes that the technologies are not themselves the problem, but rather their problematic use is explained by a lack of uniform regulation and by exogenous factors. He proposes that solving the problem requires “careful state regulation must be accompanied by diplomatic and trust-building measures, new models of normative behaviors, adjustments in education, and instruments for power-projection and information.”
Ireneusz Paweł Karolewski et al. revisit the influence of the controversial German intellectual Carl Schmitt. The authors view Schmitt’s influence as two-fold. On the one hand, some political actors may never have heard of Schmitt but act in Schmittian ways, as they “frame their own authoritarian drive perversely as the core of democracy.” On the other hand, some political actors “directly draw on Schmitt’s writings in their political and ideological claims and aspirations.” The authors suggest that using Schmitt as a framework of analysis is the best way of understanding the former, while studying Schmitt as a direct source of inspiration is the best way of understanding the latter.
Olga Burlyuk et al. explore the tension between the European Union’s external democracy promotion initiative and the democratic backsliding of its own member states in Eastern and Central Europe. They set out to determine whether the EU’s backsliding undermined the legitimacy of its democracy promotion throughout the European neighborhood. They find that “the democratic erosion in the eastern EU members has not (yet) negatively impacted the EU’s credibility in supporting democracy in the neighborhood.”
Radek Buben and Karel Kouba probe the robustness of Czech democracy by comparing it to the Hungarian and Polish cases. While Czech democracy has faced difficulties in the past decade, Buben and Kouba determine it has proved resilient and defied the Central European illiberal trend. According to the authors, the divergent outcomes of the Czech case, compared to its Hungarian and Polish counterparts, is attributable to a difference in political tradition, i.e., “the liberal, secular, and pluralist tendencies present in the Czech democratic myth have made it more difficult to form an ideologically based movement built around a national-religious conservative narrative challenging liberal democratic values.”
Using Slovenia as a case study, Mojca Pajnik et al. examine how people’s relationship with media affects their worldview, specifically whether they embrace populism. Using public opinion surveys, they find a positive relationship between tabloid media consumption, negative media attitudes, and populist worldviews. However, they also find differences in the dimensions of populism that people embrace, and propose the idea of an illiberal political landscape accordingly.
Beata Paragi analyzes Hungary’s Hungary Helps Programme (HHP), a program designed to assist Christian communities in the Global South. The author finds that HHP has assisted local Christian churches, communities, and faith-based organizations by financing more than 160 projects worth €53 million since 2016. Paragi concludes that HHP “serves to strengthen Hungary’s autonomous role within the EU.”
The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-Wing Populism in Europe analyzes the political positioning of 37 populist radical right parties in 23 European countries. The report notes that many of these parties have traditionally admired Russia and/or had direct ties to Vladimir Putin’s regime, creating acute problems for them in the wake of Russia’s invasion. The authors focus not only on the reactions of these parties but on the electoral consequences of the conflict for these parties. They focus on the supply side – where parties have tried to exploit or distract from war-related issues – as well as the demand side – focusing on how the invasion may have affected the public perception of radical right-wing populist parties and leaders.
Using Poland as a case study, Dawid Piątek maps the connection between the post-financial crisis move towards state intervention in the economy and the increase in democratic backsliding, populism and illiberalism that characterized the last decade. Piątek suggests that these trends intersect to create an “illiberal model of state capitalism,” one that he identifies in Poland today.
Tamás Gyulavári and Łukasz Pisarczyk compare the socio-economic policies of the Hungarian and Polish governments, both of which are often labeled populist. The authors suggest that, while both regimes engage in politically motivated layoffs and have overseen significant wage increases, the discrepancies are far more numerous. Gyulavári and Pisarczyk argue that these differences are the result of different material conditions, but also nearly “diametrically opposed” political visions; whereas Hungary’s Viktor Orbán believes “in a workfare society, without social allowances and with flexibilized employment protection,” Poland’s PiS is pushing through a “belated welfare revolution with expanded social benefits and employment rights.”
Svilen Veselinov Trifonov explicates Viktor Orbán’s illiberal rhetoric in Hungary, paying close attention to his, seemingly contradictory, narratives of Hungary as a country experiencing national ascent as well as a country in peril. Using a rhetorical analysis, Trifonov demonstrates that both narratives are “containers,” or vehicles, for an illiberal ideology. Though different on their surface, both narratives are ultimately “appeals to Hungarians to embrace nationalist, isolationist, and illiberal approaches to democratic governance.”
Dean Dulay et al. unpack the latest Philippine Presidential election, looking to explain how Bongbong Marcos, the son of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, managed to win such a commanding victory just thirty-five years after democracy returned. The authors find that more than age, education, or income, support for Marcos could be better predicted by looking to a) support for former President Rodrigo Duterte, b) positive perceptions of Marcos’ father and martial law, and c) ethnic (linguistic) identity. They conclude that the weight of continuity and history influenced the election more than current material conditions.
Emma Mawdsley surveys the actors, organizations, and discourses that proclaim India to be a “civilizational state.” She expounds on why Hindutva – a Hindu nationalist ideology – is more powerful today than it was when the BJP, its key political vehicle, first came to power in the late-1990s and early-2000s, noting the changes in India’s political economy, the advance of Hindu nationalist organization, and a more sympathetic global environment. Mawdsley draws a pessimistic conclusion: “The forces of Hindutva show no signs of abating, and oppositional voices—from secularists, young people, academics, think tanks and human rights organizations, among others—are being openly suppressed.”
Ronald A. Pernia challenges the prevailing wisdom that citizens of post-authoritarian democracies learn to trust political institutions by evaluating the government’s institutional performance, rather than by seeing them through a cultural, ideological, or psychological lens. He suggests instead that “citizens’ need for economic deliverance and social stability develops agreeable attitudes towards prevailing public institutions even though political incumbents project authoritarian tendencies.” He further explains that, in post-authoritarian states like Indonesia and the Philippines, the “enduring nondemocratic psychological disposition” of citizens who lived through prior spells of authoritarianism colors their acceptance of undemocratic institutions.
Aries A. Arugay and Justin Keith A. Baquisal examine the perceived role of China in eroding democracy in the Philippines. While an increase in Chinese engagement has coincided with a period of backsliding in the country, Arugay and Baquisal claim that “it is not Chinese influence per se that has primarily contributed to democratic erosion, but rather local elites employing the ‘China factor’—namely access to alternative credit, China’s overseas development policy, and its pragmatism in working with illiberal elites.” Therefore, Chinese engagement – in its own mind aimed at pursuing geopolitical advantage – plays a secondary role in Philippine backsliding.
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For resources on illiberal, populist, and authoritarian trends across the globe, consult our growing Resource Hub aggregating hundreds of published academic articles on illiberalism and other topics relating to illiberal movements. From security and international affairs, to democratic backsliding and public policy, this center of longstanding and recently-published literature continues to document ongoing global trends of growing illiberal movements around the world.
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Illiberalism Studies Program
Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES)
Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
1957 E Street, NW | Suite 412 | Washington, DC | 20052
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