Democracies Adrift: How the European Crises Affect East-Central Europe. Issue 5 (1st November 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brusis, Martin
• Is Part Of: Problems of post-communism. Volume 63:Issue 5/6(2016)
• Page Start: 263
• Page End: 276
• Publication Date: 2016-11-01
• Subjects: Post-communism -- Periodicals; Post-communism; Periodicals; 330.91717
• DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2016.1201772
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1075-8216

Abstract

Abstract : Electoral landslides, corruption scandals, mass protests, a declining satisfaction with democracy and weakened democratic accountability in Hungary and Poland pose questions about where East-Central European democracies are heading and how their paths are related to the crisis of European integration. I argue that the crises of economic and European integration have discredited the nexus between economic integration and prosperity and made responsive and responsible government more incongruent. Multi-dimensional policy spaces facilitated the growth of anti-establishment parties in the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Higher performance expectations of citizens, the mixed electoral system, and missing institutional safeguards of societal-political pluralism rendered Hungary's democracy more vulnerable.