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2020
The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly reshaped debates on the global order, democratic politics and the liberal mode of governing societies. Some have compared the virus to the “ultimate empty signifier”, which allowed difficult ideological groups to fill it with their own securitizations, creating in an instant a plethora of political otherings. For IR realists, the sudden collapse of cross-border movement and other privileges of the globalized liberal elite came as a vindication of their long-cherished argument: the nation state remains the key actor in international politics, and the post-national world had largely been a utopian liberal illusion. Right-wing nationalist populists have been saying the same thing but in a different language and were apt to make COVID-19 instrumental to their purposes. Thus, Viktor Orbán quickly linked it to the agenda of migration and used the state of exception as a pretext to further limit the democratic process in Hungary. However, as students of populism have also stressed, the populist response to the pandemic has been far from uniform. In a yet broader perspective, while some democratic governments enacted draconian measures in response to the pandemic, suspending basic individual freedoms, some dictatorships like Belarus experienced a sudden “flow of liberalism“, refusing to cut down on both economic activity and cross-border movement. This special issue focuses on comparing the liberal and illiberal reactions (both domestic and international) to the pandemic, looking into how it has affected the democratic and non-democratic forms of governance; examining where the responses have been similar or overlapping, i.e. where COVID-19 has practically blurred or erased the border between liberal and illiberal politics; looking into how different types of regimes and political groupings have borrowed new elements and styles of politics, e.g. in which circumstances populist or autocratic politicians suddenly seemed more liberal than their liberal and democratic counterparts; and investigating the ramifications of these changes for the liberal components of the globalized international order.
The aim of this study is to explore the Hungarian discourse of "illiberal democracy" alongside the older Russian doctrine of "sovereign democracy", to see their possible implications for regional security and examine broader cultural and political backgrounds of these doctrines. The paper argues that the tension between notions of past historical greatness and the currently diminished power status results in the othering of the liberal order, which is seen as responsible for this degradation. The ideological subversions of the concept of democratic gov-ernance serve the purpose of self-legitimation, but also operate as ideological justifications for policies meant to revert the current status and thus carry significant security risks for regional stability. In Russia's case, these risks are most plainly manifest as military interventions in neighbouring countries. While in Hungary they take the form of opportunistic self-interest, with a disregard for the rule of law and potential for further subversions of regional order.
International Organization
Struggles for Recognition: The Liberal International Order and the Merger of its Discontents2021 •
The Liberal International Order (LIO) is currently undermined not only by states such as Russia but also by voters in the West. We argue that both veins of discontent are driven by resentment towards the LIO's status hierarchy, rather than just economic grievances. Approaching discontent historically and sociologically, we show that there are two strains of recognition struggles against the LIO: one in the core of the West, driven by populist politicians and their voters, and one on the semi-periphery, fuelled by competitively authoritarian governments and their supporters. At this particular moment in history, these struggles are digitally, ideologically and organisationally interconnected in their criticism of LIO institutions, amplifying each other. The LIO is thus being hollowed out from within at a time when it is also facing some of its greatest external challenges.
Problems of Post-Communism
Pandemic Politics in Eurasia: Roadmap for a New Research Subfield2020 •
The sudden onset of COVID-19 has challenged many social scientists to proceed without a robust theoretical and empirical foundation upon which to build. Addressing this challenge, particularly as it pertains to Eurasia, our multinational group of scholars draws on past and ongoing research to suggest a roadmap for a new pandemic politics research subfield. Key research questions include not only how states are responding to the new coronavirus, but also reciprocal interactions between the pandemic and society, political economy, regime type, center-periphery relations, and international security. The Foucauldian concept of “biopolitics” holds out particular promise as a theoretical framework.
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Democratically immature EU member states continue to act like mere guests in the European club, taking minimum responsibility for upholding EU rules and exercising little power in Union affairs.
Global Jurist
The Chinese Advantage in Emergency Law2021 •
This Article has a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it offers comparative materials for an informed discussion of COVID-determined emergency law in China and Italy by assessing its normative implications and political genealogy. On the other hand, it explores the essential contiguity between the 'state of exception' triggered by the pandemic and the possible geopolitical shifts in global legal hegemony in the actual phase of surveillance capitalism which is witnessing a decline of law as a form of social organization and its replacement by the pre-dictive models elaborated by technology. In this respect, the traditional Western iconography has long described the Chinese legal tradition as a "law without law", a despotic regime with intrusive population surveillance whose distance from the Western paradigm is deemed almost unbridgeable. And yet the legal response to coronavirus both in Europe and in the U.S. somewhat replicates the allegedly distant Chinese model in terms of restrictions and surveillance mechanisms which are being deployed to counter the crisis in the face of a formal commitment to the rule of law. This Article concludes that the emerging pre-eminence of the "rule of technology" over the "rule of law" in a critical event of historic proportions like a pandemic should and will set the future agenda of comparative studies in a double direction. On the one hand it calls for a truly critical reconsideration of role of law in society which in turn impels to rethink the hold of the liberal constitutional model and the obsolescence of traditional legal taxonomies. On the other hand, it might point to the emergence of an unexpected Chinese legal leadership, determined by the progressive undoing of the Western legal and political narratives whose backbone has been relentlessly eroded by decades of neoliberalism and populism.
This paper is dealing with the case of Hungarian nationalist populism and illiberalism which gained its last landslide electoral success in April 2018. I am investigating the contemporary nationalist populism in Hungary in the context of agonizing liberal democracy. I am convinced that the organic crisis of liberal democracy before 2010 has lead the creation of hybrid political regime in Hungary which is based on the permanent state of exception. This paper based on the political theoretical, social and critical theoretical literature. The Hungarian nationalist populism cannot be understood without the situation behind, that is why I am investigating in the first part of this paper the historical tradition of the regime and the wide context as the collapse of liberal democracy and the era of populism. After that I will analyze the political theories of the Orbán’s regime: the concept of Carl Schmitt, the leader democracy and political constitutionalism. In the third part the “System of National Cooperation” has been detailed analyzed: its electoral success (2010, 2014, 2018), the main characteristics and consequences. Concluding the paper, I will rise the question: what can the EU do with such a nationalist-populist and illiberal system? Dealing with this problem the theoretical (the EU as an externally coordinator) and practical (EU Rule of Law Mechanisms) assumption will be investigated here. My main concern is that without a serious political turn in Hungary (creating an anti-hegemony against the Orbán’s regime) the EU would not achieve success fighting for rule of law.
IACL Global Roundtable 'Democracy 2020' Programme
IACL Democracy2020 Programme [08.10.2020]-minGlobal Roundtable - Democracy 2020: On 18-26 November the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) Global Roundtable ‘Democracy 2020: Assessing Constitutional Decay, Breakdown, and Renewal Worldwide’ will take place as series of 9 inter-connected webinars. Featuring 50 speakers from 5 continents across 5 days, the webinars will be devoted to an array of themes including global and regional overviews, challenges from algorithmic governance to vote suppression, understudied countries, key actors like courts, parliaments and parties, and possible remedies and renewal of our democratic systems. The Roundtable is co-sponsored by the Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law (Melbourne Law School) and the Melbourne School of Government. Event website: www.iacl-democracy-2020.org
Aliaksei Kazharski and Clarissa do Nascimento Tabosa in their text further zoom in on the concept of securitization, which has become one of the most popular approaches to analyze interactions between political and security processes, especially within national contexts. This approach builds on the constructivist position claiming that security threats do not exist ‘out there’ objectively, but need to be socially constructed to be perceived as threats. Realizing this allows analysts to study how and when something is securitized, who conducts the process with what aims and whether the securitization is successful (something is accepted as a threat) or not. Some of the most relevant examples of securitization discussed in the chapter are the bilateral securitization of each other between the Soviet Union and Capitalist West, as well as securitization of Russia in more recent years, or securitization of refugees in the Visegrad countries
Sociological Forum
Tolerance of homosexuality in 88 countries: Education, political freedom, and liberalism2019 •
Researchers have repeatedly found a positive correlation between education and tolerance. However, they may be victims of an unrepresentative sample containing only rich Western liberal democracies, where political agendas have a liberalizing effect on curricula. In this paper, we specify the relationship between education and liberal attitudes by analyzing data on educational attainment and tolerance of homosexuality (one dimension of liberalism) drawn from a heterogeneous sample of 88 countries over the period 1981-2014. We argue that nonliberal political agendas in some countries undermine the supposed universality of the positive relationship between educational attainment and tolerance of homosexuality. In relatively free countries, education is indeed associated with greater tolerance. However, in relatively unfree countries, education has no effect on tolerance and in some cases encourages intolerance. Specifically , our analysis demonstrates that education is associated with tolerance of homosexuality only when regimes energetically promote liberal-democratic values. The larger theoretical point is that the agendas of political regimes shape civic values partly via education systems. Especially in an era when democracy is at risk in many countries, it is important to recognize that education is not always a benign force.
Czech Journal of International Relations Vol 55 No 2
Constructing Foreign Policy vis-à-vis the Migration Crisis: the Czech and Slovak Cases2020 •
Social Science Journal
Political freedom, education, and value liberalization and deliberalization: A cross-national analysis of the world values survey, 1981-20142020 •
Forward to the Past? New/Old Theatres of of Russia's International Projection
Arab Public Opinion: The View on Russia’s Foreign Policy2020 •
Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement (RCIS) and the CERC in Migration and Integration
The Substance of Solidarity: What the Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Says About the Global Refugee Regime2020 •
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
In defence of fear: COVID-19, crises and democracyItalian Journal of Public Law
DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE: THE POPULIST FACTOR IN THE CONTEMPORARY CRISIS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACIES2020 •
The Palgrave Handbook of Populism
Global Populism: Sources, Patterns, and EffectsSocial Science Information
Introduction to the Special Issue: "Down with Communism -Power to the People": The legacies of2020 •
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East European Politics
Nation before democracy? Placing the rise of the Slovak extreme right into context2019 •
"Will human rights survive illiberal democracy? Changing perspectives on human rights" Edited by Arne Muis & Lars van Troost, Strategic Studies Amnesty International Netherlands
Responding to illiberal democracies’ shrinking space for human rights in the EU2018 •
TOC and Introduction
Special Issue on POPULISM of Philosophy and Social Criticism, TOC & Introduction2019 •
Journal of Contemporary European Studies
Reverse transformation? Global shifts, the core- periphery divide and the future of the EU2019 •
Interface: a journal for and about social movements
Interface Vol 12 issue 1 - Organizing amidst Covid-19Bulletin of Geography. Socio–economic Series
De Facto States and Democracy: The Case of Abkhazia2016 •
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Centre for Policy Alternatives
Technocratic Populism and the Pandemic State - Performative Governance in Post-COVID Sri Lanka2020 •
ASIAGLOBAL PAPERS
"The Decline of the West": What Is It, and Why Might It Matter2020 •
Internet Policy Review
Russia's great power imaginary and pursuit of digital multipolarity2020 •
Democratic Theory
Editorial: Democracy in a Global Emergency - Five Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic2020 •