Authoritarian footprints in Central and Eastern Europe

Daniel Bochsler*, Andreas Juon

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Central and Eastern Europe is the last world region to transition towards democracy. Today, it shows alarming signs of de-consolidation, most prominently in Hungary, Poland, and Serbia. This article assesses whether these observations form part of a systematic pattern across the region. It relies on newly-updated objective data from the Democracy Barometer for the period between 1990 and 2016. It revisits evidence for the three most prominent explanations of democratic backsliding in the region: the rise of populist parties, the incapacity of the European Union to secure democracy once pre-accession incentives weaken, and the global financial crisis.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)167-187
Number of pages21
JournalEast European Politics
Volume36
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Apr 2020

Keywords

  • Central and Eastern Europe
  • European integration
  • financial crisis
  • populism
  • quality of democracy

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