scholarly journals NATIVIST AND ANTI-LIBERAL NARRATIVES IN CONSERVATIVE POPULIST AGENDA IN CENTRAL EUROPE

2021 ◽  
pp. 284-304
Author(s):  
Ladislav Cabada
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Central European ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Central European Region ◽  
Theoretical Reflection

Abstract. Nativism does not only present a concept, but also an ideological framework as well as a political practice related to identity politics. In the article we firstly present the theoretical reflection of nativism and operationalise the most important terms and characteristics of this phenomenon. Later, we apply the concept of nativism to the analysis of conservative populist and/or nativist political actors in the Central European region. The analysis shows how nativism, as a relatively peripheral issue in the first 10–15 years after the democratic transition, became stronger in the next period characterised by a set of crises after 2008. The analysis demonstrates how the mainstream parties in Central Europe adopted the nativist and conservative populist agenda and implemented it into mainstream politics. Furthermore, the analysis shows how Central European nativism correlates with the long-term existence of antiliberal streams that were revitalised after the fall of Communist regimes. These anti-modern societal groups were reformulated as the counter-cosmopolitan camp within the polarisation process that is clearly visible in the political arena. Keywords: nativism; national conservatism; identity politics; Central Europe

Contested Constitutions

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper de Raadt
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Central European ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Constitution Making

What were the effects of constitution-making procedures on the acceptance of the new “rules of the political game” in postcommunist Central Europe? This article sets out to scrutinise the increasingly popular claim among politicians and scholars of democratisation that inclusiveness and popular involvement in constitution-making processes enhance a constitution's legitimacy. The concept of constitutional conflict, referring to political contestation over the interpretation and application of constitutional relations among state institutions, is introduced as a way to assess constitutional acceptance among politicians. The investigation concentrates on constitutional conflict patterns during the five years following constitution-making in seven Central European countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Constitution-making procedures varied substantially among the cases, as did the intensity and timing of constitutional conflict. The article finds that differences in constitution-making procedures do not necessarily determine the legitimacy of constitutions among political elites. Instead, ambiguity on the allocation of formal competencies among political actors and increasing political tensions between pro-reform and anti-reform parties during the early 1990s proved to be more important triggers of constitutional conflict. Accordingly, studies on constitution-making and democratisation should focus less on procedural aspects and take into account the fuzziness of important constitutional provisions and the extent to which constitutions can survive periods of intense political polarisation.

scholarly journals Historical public health in central Europe with special reference to Hungary. Long-term environmental effects of a historical cataclysm

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Csaba Varga ◽  
István Ember ◽  
Edit Murányi ◽  
István Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Environmental Effects ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
State Of Health ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Central European ◽  
Central European Region

<p class="Abstract">Hungary, in the centre of Carpathian Basin grapples with numerous challenges in order to improve catastrophic indices of environmental conditions of the country, as well as the state of health of the population. Some of these problems are subjects of financial and health policy, and can be solved internally. The remaining environmental problems can only be remedied by cooperation with neighbouring younger countries. This vitally important cooperation is hampered by severe historical conflicts burdening even the present political affiliations. The authors give a short introduction and explanation of the recent sensitive situation in this Central European region, as a late consequence of an historical cataclysm happened more than nine decades ago.</p>

Migrants help keep Central European populists in power

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Central European ◽  
Eu Integration ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Eu

Subject Populists' exploitation of the refugee crisis in Central Europe. Significance Support for populist parties has risen after last year's refugee crisis across the EU, but nowhere have they been as successful as in Central Europe (CE). Peddling migrant fears has secured the re-election of Robert Fico's Smer (Slovakia) and the revival of Viktor Orban's Fidesz (Hungary) from a post-election popularity slump. On the back of the migration tide, populists are transforming CE's political trajectory. Impacts A united CE front will gain prominence at the EU, stoking tensions with Berlin on migration policy and the future of EU integration. The strengthened legitimacy of illiberal positions on migration will foster the emergence of imitators elsewhere in Europe. The chance of an EU-level, long-term solution to the refugee crisis will remain slim in the medium term.

scholarly journals Europa Środkowa — od idei literacko-kawiarnianej do koncepcji politycznych

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-145
Author(s):  
Radosław Zenderowski ◽  
Andrzej Rudowski
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Community ◽  
Central European ◽  
Political Concept

Europa Środkowa stanowi zarówno ideę wspólnoty kulturowej, przestrzeń geopo­lityczną i geokulturową, jak i pewną koncepcję polityczną. W ostatnich kilku dekadach jesteśmy świadkami przejścia czy raczej interferencji od idei literacko-kawiarnianej ku politycznym formom instytucjonalizacji Europy Środkowej. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest ukazanie owej drogi oraz klu­czowych dylematów stojących przed architektami politycznej Europy Środkowej. W artykule omó­wiono zatem dyskurs środkowoeuropejski w latach 70. i 80. XX w., a następnie poszczególne uwa­runkowania i etapy politycznej instytucjonalizacji Europy Środkowej z naciskiem na okres po 2004 r.Central Europe — from the café literary idea to political concepts Central Europe is both an idea of a cultural community, a geopolitical and geo­cultural space, as well as a concrete political concept. In the last decades, we are the witnesses of tran­sition or rather an interference from the literary-cafeteria idea towards the political forms of institutionalization of Central Europe. The aim of this article is to show this way and key dilemmas facing the political architects of Central Europe. The article discusses the Central European discourse in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century, and then the various conditions and stages of the political institu­tionalization of Central Europe with an emphasis on the period after 2004.

Occupational Therapists as Street-Level Bureaucrats: Leveraging the Political Nature of Everyday Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Aldrich ◽  
Debbie Laliberte Rudman
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Occupational Therapists ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Professional Power ◽  
Exercise Of Discretion

Background. As front-line service providers who often work in systems regulated by governmental bodies, occupational therapists can be conceptualized as “street-level bureaucrats” ( Lipsky, 1980/2010 ) who effect and are affected by policy. Purpose. Drawing on understandings from a study of long-term unemployment, this article proposes that occupational therapists, as street-level bureaucrats, respond to inter-related policies and systems in ways that can perpetuate, resist, or transform opportunities for doing and being. Key Issues. By highlighting practitioners’ everyday negotiation of governmental, organizational, and professional power relations, the notion of street-level bureaucracy illuminates the political nature of practice as well as the possibilities and boundaries that policy can place on ideal forms and outcomes of practice. Implications. Framing occupational therapists as street-level bureaucrats reinforces practitioners’ situatedness as political actors. Mobilizing this framing can enhance awareness of occupational therapists’ exercise of discretion, which can be investigated as a basis for occupation-focused and emancipatory forms of practice.

How to Build and Wield Business Power: The Political Economy of Pension Regulation in Chile, 1990–2018

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomás Bril-Mascarenhas ◽  
Antoine Maillet
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Business Power ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
Pension Regulation ◽  
Theoretical Developments

AbstractWhat explains the remarkable resilience of pension regulation in postauthoritarian Chile, even after decades of majoritarian voter discontent and growing international and domestic criticism of Pinochet’s pioneering private capitalization system? This puzzling outcome can be understood only by looking at the combined effect of the pension industry’s long-term power-building investments and its short-term political actions to outmaneuver state and societal challengers. Engaging new theoretical developments in political economy and historical institutionalism, this study examines the long-term process by which the previously nonexistent Chilean pension industry expanded and leveraged its power during key episodes of open contestation. The analysis of pension regulation in Chile between the 1980s and the 2010s illustrates the importance of placing business power in time, motivating new rounds of theory building in the quest to address the perennial question of how business gets what it wants in the political arena.

Legitimate and Illegitimate Political Self-entrenchment and Its Impact on Political Equality

ICL Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonios Kouroutakis
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Constitutional System

Abstract Self-serving politicians and self-entrenchment of the political establishment is a diachronic problem tantalizing liberal democracies. Incumbent political actors around the world constantly purport to entrench not only their presence in the political arena, but also their power and as a result, barriers to entry to new political actors are set, the chain of the democratic choice is disrupted and equality of opportunity is distorted. This article focuses on the available means in the constitutional system in order to safeguard a level playing field in the political arena. To this end, this article has three scientific objectives. First, it elaborates on the significance of equality of opportunities in the political system. Second, it identifies how political self-entrenchment creates an uneven playing field. Third, it focuses on the remedies that exist in the constitutional system and examines both legal and quasi legal mechanisms. With an analysis on the current means that are available in the constitutional system, the judicial review, and the alternative political processes based on independent bodies and quasi-judicial mechanisms, this article concludes that self-entrenchment and self-serving politicians are mainly left to be resolved by political means, the so called self-corrective promise of politics.

scholarly journals A cohort perspective on the fertility postponement transition and low fertility in Central Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Branislav Šprocha ◽  
Pavol Tišliar ◽  
Luděk Šídlo
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Cohort Analysis ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Central European ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cohort Fertility ◽  
The Postponement

Abstract Fertility postponement and the concomitant decline in fertility levels are the most prominent trends in the demographic behaviours of the former Eastern Bloc countries in Central Europe. A number of studies have analysed period fertility development but the cohort perspective is often neglected. The postponement transition has evolved over a long time span and affected many cohorts, so the cohort approach is appropriate for studying long-term changes in fertility tempo and quantum. A cohort analysis engenders an analysis in detail of the onset, dynamics and ultimate extent of this process. Using the cohort benchmark model, we have been able to pinpoint differences in postponement and recuperation levels and have combined it with projection scenarios. Thus we have been able to model the hypothetical trajectory of the completed cohort fertility rate. Our analysis highlights differences in the timing of the onset of the postponement transition, its trajectory and extent, as well as in the recuperation of postponed childbearing. These findings suggest differences in completed fertility across the selected four Central European countries are likely to continue and perhaps increase.

scholarly journals Wielokulturowość: lekcje przeszłości

2016 ◽  
pp. 245-250
Author(s):  
Jan Surman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central European ◽  
European Experience ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

Multiculturalism: lessons from the pastReview: Understanding Multiculturalism. The Habsburg Central European Experience, ed. Johannes Feichtinger, Gary B. Cohen, Berghahn, Oxford–New York, 2014 (Austrian and Habsburg Studies 17), pp. 246While recently the concept of multiculturalism has been an object of strong criticism from the political side, the book under review takes another turn scrutinizing and historicizing it. Looking at Central Europe through the lenses of nonessentialism, postcolonialism or national indifference, multiple authors propose not only new ways of reading the history of the region, but also of establishing categories for the future research in historical cultural studies. Wielokulturowość: lekcje przeszłościRecenzja: Understanding Multiculturalism. The Habsburg Central European Experience, red. Johannes Feichtinger, Gary B. Cohen, Berghahn, Oxford–New York, 2014 (Austrian and Habsburg Studies 17), ss. 246.Podczas gdy koncept wielokulturowości był w ostatnim czasie obiektem mocnej krytyki, szczególnie ze strony polityki, recenzowana książka obiera inną pozycję, analizując i historyzując go. Spoglądając na Europe Środkową z użyciem nieesecjalizujących czy postkolonialnych koncepcji, autorzy proponują nie tylko nowe sposoby odczytania historii regionu, lecz także nowe kategorie dla przyszłych badań historii kulturowej.

scholarly journals States of Central Europe in Establishment of the Official Relations With Soviet Ukraine in the early 1920 s

2017 ◽  
pp. 120-138
Author(s):  
Oleg Kupchik
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Recognition ◽  
Central European ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Official Recognition

The Pre-Conditions of political negotiations of governments of the countries of Central Europe with government of Soviet Ukraine at the beginning of 1920th years have been investigated. The processof talks between the parties to negotiations have been examined. The maintenance of their international agreements has been analysed. The article reveals the prerequisites of the political negotiations between governments of Central Europe and Sovnarcom of the USSR in the early 1920s. The content of the international agreements reached have been analyzed. Although the «Previous trade agreement» (December 7, 1921) was signed between Austria and the SSR RSFSR, the deal has been inked by the Ukrainian representative M. Levitskyi. According to the «Temporary agreement» (June 6, 1922) with Czechoslovakia, the issue of the official recognition of the USSR hasn’t been placed on the agenda. The operation of a “Rappalo agreement” in the USSR barely had been prevented by the Ukrainian People’s Commissars’ claims to return 410 million Hetman Skoropadskyi gold marks owed by Germany. According to Article 2 «Agreement on the extension of the agreement’s Rappalo» (November 5, 1922), the mutual financial claims had to be resolved after further examination. The relations with Hungary have been confined to the repatriate agreements. The article analyzes the official recognition of the Soviet Ukraine by Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. The Central European states have focused on the economic provisions of the Treaty and feasibility of development of trade and economic relations. The SSR has emphasized its international legal recognition. Besides Budapest, the UPR Embassies in Vienna, Prague and Berlin have been closed. The estimations of the official recognition of the Soviet Ukraine by Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany have been given.

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