The Fall of Democratic Optimism in Central Eastern European Studies (2000-2015)

• In Event: Realistic Pluralism: What Can We Expect From Elections?

Abstract

Democratic erosion in Central Eastern Europe is now a well-known phenomenon. Since the early 2010, parties such as the Fidesz in Hungary or PiS in Poland have hijacked democratic institutions in order to consolidate their own power. Yet prior to 2010, there existed a relative consensus in academia and the media that democratic consolidation in the region had been successful. Now that the optimism of those years has collapsed it is important to understand why the most effusive accounts were given such prominence while more equivocal, guarded and critical accounts were marginalised. This project considers these questions, with particular reference to the role of our discipline, political science in creating the narrative of “successful democratic consolidation” of the Post-Communist countries that entered the European Union in 2004-7. Our main hypothesis is that optimistic assessments of democratisation are positively correlated with the level of influence of journals, the use of quantitative methodologies as well as positivist theoretical frameworks. More specifically, we posit that an overreliance on procedural understandings of democracy, which emphasise the importance of institutional design and patterns of party competition, led the discipline to overlook less obvious indicators of democratic stagnation in the region. To verify this, we conduct a quantitative analysis of the methodological and thematic biases of three sets of journals between 2000-2015: the top ranked international political journals, the top European Union studies journals and the top East European area studies journals.

Authors

• Lise Esther Herman, University of Exeter

• James Dawson, University College London

• Aurelia Ananda, Royal Holloway, University of London