Syllabus
1. Introduction. Analysing politics in Central Europe: definitions, milestones, universality vs. particularity
2. Democracy three decades after regime change: regression/backsliding?
3. Populist turn: elitism, pluralism, populism
4. Evolving party politics: innovative right, declining left
5. Party-state relationship: corruption, oligarchy, state capture
6. Economic discontent: social inequalities and insecurities, regional disparities
7. Cultural anxieties: emigration & immigration, identity politics
8. Central Europe and the West: imitation thesis and its critique
9. Central Europe in the world: Foreign Policy dilemmas
10. No class (National Holiday) 11-14. Case studies: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia (possibly other CEE countries)
Annotation
The course explores the latest developments in Central European politics and engages with the current scholarly debates around this topic. It focuses primarily on the politics of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, with possible excursions into other countries of the wider Central European region (eg. the Balkans and the Baltics).
The course looks into variety of topics - it attempts at identifying the main political trends in the region, laying a broad political, economic and cultural context for the current developments. It applies in particular the concept of populism, in order to show its usefulness, but also some shortcomings in explaining the developments in the region.