Historical Legacies And The Radical Right In Post Cold War Central And Eastern Europe

The transformation process in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) after 1989 is often clothed in terms of historical and geographical categories, either as a 'return of history' or as a 'return to Europe', or both. Either way, the radical right in CEE claims a prominent place in this politics of return. Studies of the radical right echo the more general concern, in analyses of the region, with historical analogies and the role of legacies. Sometimes parallels are discovered between the post-1989 radical right and interwar fascism. They imply a 'Weimarization' of the transformation countries and the return of the pre-socialist, ultranationalist, or even fascist past—the 'return of history'. Another interpretation argues that since some CEE party systems increasingly resemble their West European counterparts, so does the radical right, at least where it is electorally successful - the 'return to Europe'. A third line of thought states that the radical right in the region is a phenomenon sui generis, inherently shaped by the historical forces of state socialism and the transformation process. As a result, and in contrast to Western Europe, it is ideologically more extreme and anti-democratic while organizationally more a movement than a party phenomenon. This book provides insight into the role of historical forces in the shaping and performance of the current radical right in CEE. It conceptualizes 'legacies' both as a contextual factor, i.e. as part of structural and cultural opportunities for new movements and parties in the region, and as textual factors, i.e. as part of the ideological baggage of the past which is revived—and reinterpreted—by the radical right. An introductory essay by Michael Minkenberg puts the topic and the concept of legacies into a larger research perspective. Articles by Lenka Bustikova and Herbert Kitschelt as well as John Ishiyama employ the role of legacies as context, whereas the contributions by Timm Beichelt, Sarah de Lange and Simona Guerra as well as James Frusetta and Anca Glont treat legacies as text.

Often neglected in the study of far right organisations, post-communist Europe recently witnessed the rise and fall of a number of populist radical right parties. The Populist Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe is the first comparative study to focus on the ideology, impact, and electoral performance of this party family in the region. The book advances a series of arguments concerning the context and text of these parties, and systematically analyses the supply-side and demand-side of populist radical right politics. Whilst populist radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe maintain broad similarities with their West European counterparts, they come across as a distinct phenomenon worthy of study in their own right. Parties like Ataka (Bulgaria), Jobbik (Hungary), and the SNS (Slovakia) resort to historical legacies and contextual idiosyncrasies to frame their ideology; interact with other parties over a number of policy areas; and ultimately compete for public office on the basis of their nativist agenda. The book provides a novel framework for the analysis of different aspects of populist radical right politics, notably enhancing the understanding of this phenomenon by means of primary data such as personal interviews with party leaders and original expert surveys. Using the ideological features of these parties as an overarching analytical tool, this book is essential reading for students and scholars researching the far right, post-communist issues and European politics in general.

This volume examines the legacy of the East–West divide since the implosion of the communist regimes in Europe. The ideals of 1989 have largely been frustrated by the crises and turmoil of the past decade. The liberal consensus was first challenged as early as the mid-2000s. In Eastern Europe, grievances were directed against the prevailing narratives of transition and ever sharper ethnic-racial antipathies surfaced in opposition to a supposedly postnational and multicultural West. In Western Europe, voices regretting the European Union's supposedly careless and premature expansion eastward began to appear on both sides of the left–right and liberal–conservative divides. The possibility of convergence between Europe's two halves has been reconceived as a threat to the European project. In a series of original essays and conversations, thirty-three contributors from the fields of European and global history, politics and culture address questions fundamental to our understanding of Europe today: How have perceptions and misperceptions between the two halves of the continent changed over the last three decades? Can one speak of a new East–West split? If so, what characterizes it and why has it reemerged? The contributions demonstrate a great variety of approaches, perspectives, emphases, and arguments in addressing the daunting dilemma of Europe's assumed East–West divide.

The resurgence of strong radical right-wing parties and movements constitutes one of the most significant political changes in democratic states during the past several decades, particularly in Europe. The radical right's comeback has notably attracted interest from political scientists, sociologists, and historians, although the majority of past research focuses on party and electoral politics. In contrast, The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right not only covers existing literature, but also shows how the radical right forms movements rather than parties. Editor Jens Rydren has gathered an international cast of contributors to cover concepts and definitions; ideologies and discourses; and a range of contemporary issues such as religion, globalization, gender, and activism. Further, this volume is one of few to provide a number of cases focusing on areas outside of Europe, including Russia, the US, Australia, Israel, and Japan. By integrating various strands of scholarship on the radical right that covers different regions and different research perspectives, this Handbook provides an authoritative and state of the art overview of the topic and will set the agenda for scholarship on the radical right for years to come.

The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs is the official publication of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Founded to serve as an academic resource for scholars, business leaders, policymakers, and students of international relations alike, the journal cultivates a dialogue accessible to those with varying levels of knowledge about foreign affairs and international politics. Each volume year the journal provides readers with three issues featuring an array of timely, peer-reviewed content that bridges the gap between the work performed by news outlets and that by more traditional academic journals. The first two issues feature a section titled "Forum" that offers focused analysis on a specific key issue, as well as eight regular sections: Books, Business & Economics, Conflict & Security, Culture & Society, Dialogues, Law & Ethics, Politics & Diplomacy, and Science & Technology. The third is a special issue, International Engagement on Cyber. Issue 18.1’s Forum theme is the "global commons," with articles on the Internet as a global public good, the implications of military and security uses of outer space, and international water management challenges.

In Red Hangover Kristen Ghodsee examines the legacies of twentieth-century communism twenty-five years after the Berlin Wall fell. Ghodsee's essays and short stories reflect on the lived experience of postsocialism and how many ordinary men and women across Eastern Europe suffered from the massive social and economic upheavals in their lives after 1989. Ghodsee shows how recent major crises—from the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Syrian Civil War to the rise of Islamic State and the influx of migrants in Europe—are linked to mistakes made after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc when fantasies about the triumph of free markets and liberal democracy blinded Western leaders to the human costs of "regime change." Just as the communist ideal has become permanently tainted by its association with the worst excesses of twentieth-century Eastern European regimes, today the democratic ideal is increasingly sullied by its links to the ravages of neoliberalism. An accessible introduction to the history of European state socialism and postcommunism, Red Hangover reveals how the events of 1989 continue to shape the world today.

This book is a comparative analysis of the post-communist East European radical right, both in party and non-party formation, using the West European radical right as a baseline. Minkenberg offers insights into the political field of the radical right since the onset of democracy in the region and elicits region-wide and country-specific characteristics. The book argues that due to the nature of the transition process from Soviet hegemony to national independence and from communist to democratic societies, and the unfinished process of nation-building in the region, the radical right in Eastern Europe is a phenomenon sui generis, both organizationally more fluid and ideologically more extreme than the Western counterpart. The issues covered include trends in party system and electoral developments, patterns of movement mobilization and racist activism, and the impact of the radical right on their countries’ politics and policies.