The democratic transitions in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the EU’s eastern enlargement beginning in 2004, and more recently concerns about democratic decline in the region have been the subject of numerous academic studies. But what have we learned from these analyses? Sean Hanley and Licia Chianetti One of the most important lessons learned from this book is that authoritarian threats are often misinterpreted, diagnosed too late, and overlooked until they are deeply entrenched.
Despite its relatively small size, Eastern Europe has often been seen as a barometer of global political trends. The sudden and unexpected collapse of communist regimes in the 1990s made the region the epicenter of a new wave of democratization, creating a new framework for peaceful democratic revolutions. Integration into the EU in the 2000s demonstrated the transformative power of international institutions.
Fast forward a decade, and with the rise of politicians like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Eastern Europe has become a testing ground for another unexpected phenomenon: the collapse of seemingly secure democracies. Routledge’s Handbook of AutocratizationWe suggest that this region has something else to teach us. Authoritarian threats are often misinterpreted, diagnosed too late, and overlooked until they are deeply embedded. Academic analysis must evolve more rapidly to keep pace with these changing dynamics.
Doesn’t follow the Latin American way
Recent analyses of the declining democracy in Eastern Europe have lamented the overly optimistic belief that the Western European model could be transferred to the region. However, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of communism, many pundits were deeply pessimistic about the prospects for democracy in the region and predicted a rapid collapse. They expected that the illiberal traditions of the pre-communist era would be exacerbated by communism and lead to Latin American-style authoritarianism.
In Adam Przeworski’s words, the expectation was that “the East would become the South,” trapped in dependent capitalism, exacerbated by the social chaos of market reforms, and plagued by post-communist dilemmas. The perceived threat was a “red-brown” cocktail of far-right nationalism and social populism that profited from the anger of the “losers” in the economic transition, supported by vengeful former communists and conservative institutions such as the church and the military.
But it soon became clear that the nightmare vision of widespread democratic failure in Eastern Europe was not being realized. The far right was marginal and lacking in ideas. Former communists refashioned themselves as social democrats, businessmen or industrial leaders. Transitional “losers” protested at the ballot box rather than in the streets, and in some countries the communist-era welfare state was recycled to buy off key “losers”. Growth resumed, fueled by a vibrant global economy and the prospect of EU membership. EU conditionality forced some institutional reforms and tilted the political balance in “backward” countries like Slovakia, where liberals were weak and nationalists were strong.
Danger on the right
The academic agenda has increasingly tended to see Eastern European democracies as integrated and secure, but flawed and poor quality, shaped by an uneasy combination of Europeanization and communist legacies. But as the transition to the EU seemed complete, new concerns about threats to democracy emerged in the mid-2000s. Initially seen as post-transition fatigue, it has become increasingly clear that the authoritarian threat of illiberal populism feared in the 1990s was manifesting itself, albeit in a belated and somewhat unexpected form.
The main architects of this late assault on post-communist democracy were not nostalgic ex-communists, but radicalized mainstream right-wing parties such as Fidesz in Hungary and Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland. Their leaders had their political origins in the anti-communist opposition movement and fed on resentment about the post-1989 transition. This was not a relic of the past. Unlike the populists of the 1990s, these new challengers had intellectual support from a newly emerging conservative and nationalist intellectual class. Left-wing politicians such as Robert Fico in Slovakia and Miloš Zeman in the Czech Republic later realized that nationalism and populism could serve them well in elections and in governing.
The 2010 landslide victory of Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party in Hungary ushered in a pattern of authoritarianism known as “democratic regression.” Legally elected, Orbán used his majority to reorganize Hungarian democracy, placing it under the tight control of his party and his cronies. During his second term, he revised the constitution, changed the electoral law, curtailed judicial independence, took control of the media, expanded the party’s control of the state, and transformed the economy into a mix of statism and crony capitalism.
A decade after Orbán came to power, Hungary, once a star democracy, has succumbed to authoritarianism, creating a playbook for autocrats across Eastern Europe and beyond, most closely copied by Poland’s 2015 elected Law and Justice government and followed by other populists in the region. His success has placed him and his regional imitators in the orbit of a growing international network of ultra-conservative, nationalist, and “reflexive” leaders and groups, once again putting the region at the center of global political trends.
Resilience and learning
The realization that new forms of authoritarianism could reverse the political direction of a region once seen as a post-communist success story overturned the notion that the EU could or would have a deep and lasting transformative force. Instead of democratizing Eastern Europe, European integration seemed likely to trigger a chain reaction in which Eastern Europe would authoritarianize the EU. Learning does not necessarily flow from West to East.
The democratic arc of the region has also taught us that political choices, reconfigurations, and rethinking are as important as structural factors such as communist heritage or Europeanization. In the changing landscape of mainstream identities and populist rhetoric, “pro-democracy” and “pro-authoritarian” forces cannot be neatly separated. Some who were initially “pro-democracy” actors were not at all. Many other actors, especially in the economic, non-governmental, and civic spheres, fit the distinction more vaguely. And illiberalism has sometimes spoken the language of democracy, dignity, social justice, and even colonial liberation rather than openly rejecting democracy. It can also sometimes dominate a large social base.
Contingency was also important. Shocks to the broader international system created opportunities for autocrats who could capture them. The Great Recession of 2008–9 galvanized populists, and the European “migrant crisis” of 2014–5 allowed them to create the phantom threat of mass migration. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated autocraticism in some parts of the region, but it also stressed institutions and civil society in others. Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine initially divided populists but later provided a political opportunity.
Reading the entire region through the lens of a “regressive paradigm” has proven to be an oversimplification. Many populist governments have either lacked the votes for a strong Hungarian-style constitutional reform or faced resistance from the courts, protests, or opposition coalitions, as in the Czech Republic in 2021 or Poland in 2023. Others have lacked the will or vision for a Hungarian-style transformation, opting instead to build up corrupt informal networks of power. The limits to authoritarianism in the region have given rise to a new body of research on “democratic resilience,” understood in terms of strong institutions, civic mobilization, and well-crafted opposition coalitions.
But a simple story about democracy “turning the tide of populism” or surviving “the precarious situation” and continuing with normal politics will not be adequate. Illiberal populists lose some elections and win others. Robert Fico’s return to power in Slovakia in 2023 after his disgraceful departure in 2018 and decisive electoral defeat in 2020 shows that they are resilient and can recover in a radical form.
They can also learn that authoritarian half measures may not be enough, as Fico did, when they push hard and fast against the judiciary, public media, and civil society. The recent assassination attempt on Fico, which was immediately weaponized by some of his supporters to demonize the opposition, once again highlights how unpredictable events can increase or decrease the stakes.
Keeping pace with dictatorship
Recent events across Eastern Europe have shown that authoritarianism processIt is not an event. It is not a neatly organized “episode,” and it takes different forms even within the same region. Most importantly, Eastern Europe shows that it is not helpful to think of states as “regressive” or “resilient,” because politics are unlikely to change along a linear path. Theories that see democracy as “evasive” or “rushing” best capture the region’s authoritarian tendencies.
But what can we learn from the mixed record of scholarly paradigms that trace democratization and dictatorship in Eastern Europe? Scholars are not fortune-tellers, of course, but they can and should retrospectively assess how their theories align with reality and identify cognitive and intellectual biases. Looking back at the study of actual and potential dictatorships in post-communist Eastern Europe, we can identify four key lessons that can help researchers prepare more nimbly for the future.
First, the direct legacy of the past is less weighty than is often assumed. The ability of political actors to reconstruct that legacy, to reinvent themselves, to change the game is crucial.
Second, the rigid division of political actors into essentially liberal, pro-democratic benefactors and illiberal, populist, authoritarian villains has proven flawed in the past and is unlikely to capture the dynamics of authoritarianism in Eastern Europe (or elsewhere) today.
Third, focusing too much on parties, elections, and formal institutions can underestimate the origins and stability of democratization and authoritarianism, and miss the bigger picture of elite reorganization, the building and erosion of the social bases for alternative political projects, the role of informal power networks, and the “patronage” takeover of the economy, state, and society from above (and resistance to such takeover).
Finally, and above all, researchers should avoid the temptation to prematurely “call” the region’s story either a case study of democratic success or gradual authoritarian failure, and instead focus on the changing trajectories and sources of unexpected political change.
We would be better off not trying to guess (or presuppose) the ultimate outcome of the process, but rather focusing on understanding the underlying logic that drives political change in the region. If we fall into the temptation to tell a story with unambiguous heroes and villains and a clear ending, we will be wrong once again.
Note: This article presents the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the position of EUROPP (European Politics and Policy) or the London School of Economics. Featured image source: Cristi Dangeorge / Shutterstock.com
