Jan Kubik Chair

Istvan Benczes Discussant

---

 

Economic Inequality and Insecurity and their connection towards populism – some conceptual considerations

This research focuses on the demand side of populism, and in particular on the socio-economic context, which establishes the ground for the rise of populism using the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region as a case study. The paper investigates whether a prerequisite for populism is in the “inequality-economic insecurity” vicious circle and if so, up to what degree these two phenomena can explain the rise of populist parties. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to conceptualise and to operationalise economic inequality and insecurity with an additional aim of identifying the mechanisms through which these two can be linked with one another.
Economic inequality is conceptualised from a material perspective and will be expanded to offer a broader understanding of inequality of opportunities. The article will utilise both the vertical (relative and absolute) understanding of inequality along with the horizontal theory to offer a more balanced perspective. Economic insecurity is conceptualised in the paper as the co-existence of actual and perceived risk, where persistent economic inequality (measured in loss of wages, higher inflation, spiralling mortgage etc.) exacerbates the perception of risk, by focusing solely on negative economic tendencies. This framework is applied to the case of CEE since the EU accession and identifies the most important indicators.

Andras Tetenyi

Corvinus University of Budapest

Krisztina Szabo

Corvinus University of Budapest

 

Disembeddedness in Central and Eastern Europe: a Polanyian approach to emerging populism

This paper investigates the major political economic causes behind the emerging populism in Central and Eastern Europe. Increasing popularity of populist parties (and also the emergence of newly established political parties throughout the region) should be understood as a Polanyian countermovement against the political and economic regime change of the early 1990s. Around that time social scientist were afraid of the potential unfeasibility of the parallel political and economic regime change, mostly arguing that democracy might be threatened by political pressure coming from the losers of the transitional process. We will argue, that current mobilization of right-wing populist can be understood as a “delayed transformational fatigue”, or a delayed political “U-turn”. We will seek for possible explanations of this delay and timing of this U-turn and try to prove this was caused by the increasing inequality and insecurity because of the increasing exposure to the negative effects of economic globalization: especially during and after the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the 2015 migration crisis.
Eventually the paper seeks to conceptualize the connection between globalization, capitalist transition and the reaction of societies against this process. We will argue, that economic transition caused an accelerating process of disembedding markets: a process that had started in developed countries earlier but was faster and even deeper in case of the CEE region. Using Polanyi’s double movement theory we will argue, that emerging populism can be understood as a natural countermovement against this process.

Gabor Vigvari

Corvinus University of Budapest

 

From competitiveness to defensiveness. A neo-feudal approach of economic sovereignty in Central and Eastern Europe

In the course of the 20th and 21st century, market competition has been globalised and institutionalized: political and even civic sphere had been imbued with the spirit of strengthening competitiveness, which aim became a kind of moral imperative for politicians and policy-makers. Since the key factors of production had shifted from natural resources to human resources, the role of local institutional frameworks has become crucial in improving and maintaining the national competitiveness, as the theory of competitive advantage elucidated it.
In post-crisis CEE-societies, the predominance of competitiveness, as a pivotal driving force of society, seems to be fading. However this tendency seems to be a global one, present paper scrutinizes just its regional form, focusing primarily on Visegrad countries’ neo-feudal spirit in public discourse and in political acts as well. This atmosphere offers the escape from today’s uncertainty back to bygone societies’ perceived stability, unfolding the new moral imperative of defensiveness: to create a secure national market instead of volatile economic results. In this view, competitive markets are the birthplace of behemoth oligopolies, trying to dominate societies as post-modern Leviathans; against which people vote for strong statehood, which shelter function can evolve through its power-centeredness and personal dependencies. The research intends to unveil, what defensiveness means in public discourses, how it embodies in practical political steps and what might be their expenses in the short and in the long run. Finally, the paper intends to place this neo-feudal trend within – or out of – the theoretical framework of crony capitalism.

Istvan Kollai

Corvinus University of Budapest

 

The roots and consequences of economic populism

Populism has recently become one of the most intensively scrutinised social and political phenomena within the academia, both in and outside of Europe. The heated debates that populism generates can be explained by the fact that it has emerged as a viable political platform in countries such as Hungary or Poland. Yet, populism is a thin concept. In order to enrich our understanding of populism, the paper aims at broadening this concept by focusing on its economic and political economy dimensions. The conceptualisation of economic populism is rather rare and even contradictory in the literature. In its original form it was understood as economic policies used for distributive purposes, resulting in dramatic cycles (Dornbusch and Edwards 1991). Most recent interpretations place institutional constraints in the spotlight (e.g., delegation), with the aim of retrieving the capacity to manipulate policy instruments to the people (Rodrik 2018). By critically reviewing the literature, the paper attempts to identify those factors and ideas that can help (re-)conceptualise economic populism in a non-contradictory way. Furthermore, the paper will elaborate on the causal mechanisms between economic and political populisms in order to clarify whether economic populism can trigger political populism.

Istvan Benczes

Corvinus University of Budapest

Elena Cossu

Corvinus University of Budapest

Elena Cossu

Corvinus University of Budapest

 

Qualitative text analysis: Understanding the state of the art in (economic) populism

Qualitative Text Analysis
Understanding the state of the art of populism

The noisy dispute over the meaning of the term populism, its’ social and economic roots and consequences are more than just an academic squabble, this is a crucial argument about what we expect from democracy, what we expect from the government and through what channel voters can be mobilised. This paper aims to understand the academic state of the art in the topic of populism in general and in economic populism in particular. More precisely, through quantitative analysis, using Python and R softwares, it creates structured data out of free text content. The process can be thought of as slicing and dicing heaps of unstructured, heterogeneous documents into easy-to-manage and interpret data pieces. By doing topic modelling, the paper is discovering the main themes that pervade a large and otherwise unstructured collection of academic abstracts in populism.

Krisztina Szabo

Corvinus University of Budapest