Transformative Populism and the Center Periphery Cleavage in Central Europe

• In Event: Understanding and Explaining Populism in Central Europe and the Caucasus

Abstract

Perhaps the most notable political phenomenon of the past decade has been the global rise of populism. The paper asks why in some countries but not others, populism leads to transformative political outcomes such as concentration of power in the center and a decline of liberal-democratic practices and institutions. To examine the question, the paper compares four Central European countries – Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. A deep center-periphery cleavage was a defining feature in all. However, I argue that the breakdown of Czechoslovakia separated the country along the center-periphery cleavage. As a result, periphery pressures on the political center were lower and transformative populism less likely. Using text analysis on party platforms, the paper will map all political parties in the four cases since 1989. The paper will then examine the elimination and slow reemergence of the center periphery cleavage from Czech and Slovak politics versus its persistence in the Polish and Hungarian cases, and its consequences for populist outcomes.

Author

• Hadas Aron, New York University