Central Europe’s Chequered Path to Europe
22 November 2024 2:30 pm CET
Piroska Nagy Mohacsi, Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Venue
wiiw Seminar Room, Ground Floor, Rahlgasse 3, 1060 Vienna
Description
The ascent of “illiberal democracies” and populism in Central-Eastern Europe since 2010, merely two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, surprised the world and challenged Europe’s liberal values. Yet illiberalism has a long tradition in the CEE region, and related path dependency is likely to be a main reason. I argue that it has also been amplified by some unintended consequences of the region’s post-communist transition itself and EU entry, which created an additional “democracy deficit” and pushed the region’s political transformation more towards illiberalism. Privatisation to – mainly EU-based - foreign owners has created a bourgeoisie that did not have voting power and stayed outside nascent national democratic processes. Moreover, labour mobility upon EU entry, a key tenet of the EU project, has led to massive emigration and “de-populisation” of the region and enabled CEE governments to “choose” whether their citizens residing outside their country can vote. Local elite and populist leaders have taken advantage of the related challenges and CEE became the stronghold of “illiberal democracy” and anti-Brussels sentiment on the continent, bolstered also by external shocks such as the global financial crisis in 2008/9 and the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015/16. But recent seismic events are splitting the CEE’s illiberal stronghold. The imperial aggression of Russia on Ukraine is consolidating Europe, divided the CEE’s illiberal bastion, and given boost to EU enlargement for Southern Europe and even for Ukraine. Europe itself may be on a path of change. Europe’s re-birth can be a simultaneous reckoning of pure liberal European ideas and the CEE’s own struggle with its illiberal tendencies.
Piroska Nagy Mohácsi is Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Previously she was Interim and Program Director at the Institute of Global Affairs at the LSE’s School of Public Policy between 2015-21. Prior to that she was Director for Policy at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (2008-2015), where she led policy research, macroeconomic forecasting, and co-created and co-led the Vienna Initiative, a public-private crisis management and coordination platform in emerging Europe. She also worked in senior positions in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (1986-2008) on surveillance and country programs. She was Senior Adviser at Fitch Ratings in 2003-04 and visiting scholar at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1996-97.
Piroska is the author of several books, including on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise of of the Russian entrepreneurial class, titled The Meltdown of the Russian State https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/the-meltdown-of-the-russian-state-9781858988207.html. Her current research interest includes central banking in emerging markets https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/breaking-down-success-how-emerging-market-central-banks-have-outperformed-fed-and-ecb; central bank digital currencies (CBDC) https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/cbdcs-have-become-a-political-imperative-by-piroska-nagy-mohacsi-2023-06; financial innovation-financial resilience nexus and https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/cryptocurrencies-challenge-status-quo, and Central Europe’s political economy https://www.erstestiftung.org/en/publications/lessons-from-europe/ (pp 47-69).