The DOI matches its Crossref record; 30 of the 30 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Hollowing and Backsliding of Democracy in East Central Europe
Abstract
The essay identifies two main dangers to East Central Europe's young democracies: ‘hollowing,’ or declining popular involvement in democracy, and ‘backsliding,’ or destabilization and reverting to semi‐authoritarian practices. It traces the malaise of some but not all postsocialist democracies to varied combinations of hollowing and backsliding. The main finding is an intricate pattern: in some cases the two syndromes coincide, in others they do not. There is also significant cross‐country variation in the gravity of syndromes. The region's pure neoliberal capitalist regimes are likelier to undermine popular political participation than those, which try to balance marketization with relatively generous social protection for its losers. At the same time, the article finds that while the hollowing of democracy before the global financial crisis has not necessarily been a curse, the massive participation of citizenry prior to the crisis has not been a generalized blessing from the viewpoint of democracy's resilience. This is substantiated by a comparative case study of Hungary and Latvia with lessons for activists of democracy promotion and civil society development.
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“Both view backsliding as an ongoing, gradual process rather than a turning point that can be clearly identified in time.”
From Towards a Conceptual Framework for Struggles over Democracy in Backsliding States: Gender Equality Policy in Central Eastern Europe (2018) · cites this paper as Greskovits, 2015
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Research works printed but not linked: 6
- Beissinger M. R., 2012, An End to ‘Patience’? The Great Recession and Economic Protest in Eastern Europe
- Ekiert G., 2013, The Illiberal Challenge in PostCommunist Europe, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 8, 63
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Metadata
- Authors
- Greskovits, B.
- Affiliations
- Central European University (AT)
- Corresponding author
- Greskovits, Béla
- Venue
- Global Policy
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-06
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- S1
- Pages
- 28-37
- ISSN
- 1758-5880 (ISSN-L)
- 1758-5899
- OpenAlex
- W2170798589
- Cited by
- 310
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 52 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 56 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 73.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Global Policy (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Eastern European Communism and Reforms
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition
- Keywords
- democratic backsliding, East Central Europe, political participation, semi-authoritarianism, neoliberalism, social protection, 2008 financial crisis, democracy promotion, civil society, Hungary, Latvia
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