The impact of 1989 on theoretical perceptions of democracy

The revolutions of 1989 have predominantly been understood as the confirmation of Western, liberal democracy as the ultimate model of the modern polity. Here, it is however argued that there is more to 1989 than the mere collapse of the communist world as the direct alternative to Western modernity. 1989 has had subtle implications for rethinking democracy. 1989 should not be understood as merely marking the triumph of Western liberal democracy, but instead, it can be shown that the events of 1989 and dissident thought also entailed a variety of alternative democratic models, the retrieval of which can help reinvigorate (and in many cases has already done so) current debates on democracy. In the essay, I will first argue that the general interpretation of 1989 as a triumph of liberal democracy is problematic. I will then proceed by discussing four alternative understandings of democracy that have emerged with 1989, for analytical purposes represented as democratic models: radicalized liberal democracy, republican democracy, civil democracy, and cosmopolitan democracy. The alternative dimensions of democracy as articulated by East-Central European dissidents have been sensed, picked up, and re-elaborated in political theory since 1989, in this contributing to perceptive shifts in the democratic imaginary

The constitutional premises of subnational self-government in new democracies

The paper discusses the significance and role of subnational democracy in the context of new European democracies in flux. In a context of fragile democratic traditions, the displacement of national sovereignty, and increasing civic adverseness to national politics, local forms of representative and direct democracy might – in advantageous circumstances – help to re-attach citizens to the democratic process. What is more, enhanced civic input into local and regional policy-making may enhance local capacities and strengthen forms of local cooperation. Subnational democracy might therefore work as a partial antidote to problems of European democracies, and in particular in the post-communist context. Local forms of democratic interaction have particular significance in the new democracies in that legacies of paternalism, hyper-centralized politics, socialist legality, and deeply engrained distrust towards politics tend to discourage democratic participation. Democracy on the local and regional levels is of a particularly intricate nature in that it is dependent on the way it is institutionalized and constitutionalized, and thus on legal guarantees of autonomy as well as on distinct values of self-government as communicated by constitutions. The paper will discuss the promises and problems of subnational democracy, and will subsequently briefly explore the constitutional premises of subnational selfgovernment in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. The emerging picture shows both an increasing role for subnational self-government and significant hurdles to more widespread democracy on the local level

Participatory Citizenship, Constitutional Reform, and the Conference on the Future of Europe

The paper discusses a broader tendency towards participatory citizenship as an intrinsic part of a wider development of rethinking democracy. The focus is on participation in constitutional reform - as a core dimension of reimagining democracy - in a variety of manifestations and intensities. It will also briefly discuss various stages of constitutional reform processes in which participation may be considered, using a number of examples of reform processes. The Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) in the EU is discussed, which, while not a constitutional reform process in strict terms, may be understood as a pre-constituent endeavour with broad involvement of citizens, and with a more or less broad reform mandate. As such, the CoFoE may provide a highly promising and complex case-study. In the concluding part, some of the benefits as well as pitfalls of participatory citizenship in constitutional reform will be discussed

Varieties of populist constitutionalism: The transnational dimension

Populist constitutionalism is an increasingly discussed topic, but so far the analysis of the interrelation between populism and constitutionalism lacks a more systematic and comparative approach, able to bring out significant variety. Most of the recent literature on the phenomenon focuses on (right-wing) populism as a threat to constitutional democracy. This Article sets out to contribute to a more comparative and comprehensive discussion of the relation between varieties of populism\u2014situated on a continuum from left- to right-wing, but also from national to transnational\u2014with varieties of constitutional projects. The objective of this Article is threefold. First, I argue that it is problematic to consider legal constitutionalism as exhausting the possibilities of constitutionalism. Second, if populism is reduced to right-wing projects and as an unequivocal threat to liberal democracy, it becomes difficult to distinguish between dissimilar manifestations of populist projects, in particular regarding constituent politics. Third, while hardly any attention has been paid to constitutionalism and populist claims on the transnational level, in the European context, transnational forms of populism and constituent politics manifest themselves frequently, articulating an incisive critique on the European constitutional and political status quo, and contributing to a re-imagination and democratization of the European constitutional reality

Constitutional Politics and Populist Conservatism: The Contrasting Cases of Poland and Romania

The constitution-making processes and trajectories of the East- Central European democracies have been more challenging than often supposed. Consolidation allegedly rests on the ‘liberal consensus’ that emerged after communism. This consensus has been much less robust and widespread than often believed and has increasingly been confronted with illiberal counter-forces. The article contributes to a critical discussion of constitution-making and constitutional politics in the context of the forceful (re- )emergence of conservative, populist forces in the region. The aim is to demonstrate that, first, constitutional politics in postcommunist societies have involved significant, ‘postconsolidation’ forms of contestation throughout the post-1989 period. Second, the article shows that anti-liberal, conservativepopulist positions have played substantial but rather variegated roles in different societies. In the most frequently discussed cases, conservative populist forces have mobilized to start an illiberal counter-revolution. In others, largely understudied, such a ‘revolution’ seems hardly in the making, even if the political conflict is evident

Editorial: Judicial Populism: the Rule of the People against the Rule of Law

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Ideologia, immaginazione e immaginario sociale

Ideology has been approached in a negative manner for a long time, and in recent years has been a relatively marginalized field of research in political and social studies. This paper argues that the complex – constructive as well as distortive, narrowing – nature of ideologies needs to be recognized if we want to understand the current challenges of popu- lism and illiberalism. A broader argument is that ideologies are best understood in relation to the backcloth of a more abstract, trans-ideological cultural dimension, that of the relatively open-ended horizon of social imaginaries. Contemporary ideological critiques of liberal and constitutional democracy maybe understood as a reaction to a relatively robustly institution- alized imaginary of liberal-constitutional democracy. The populist counterreaction to liberal legalism, constitutional democracy and the human rights imaginary ought hence to be un- derstood as an ideological phenomenon in its own right, and its success may even indicate an unsettling of the dominant imaginary and a potential shift (or even return) towards an imagi- nary dominated by nationalism and sovereignism. The paper hence attempts to contribute to existing debates in two ways: the consideration of ideology in relation to social imaginaries and a claim towards the self-standing ideological nature of contemporary populism