Political Opposition in the Post-communist Space

The workshop will be organized in the framwork of the SNSF project "Political Opposition in post-communist Democracies and Authoritarianism" and take place at the University of Fribourg in cooperation with the Department of European and Slavic Studies and the Department of Social Work, Social Policy, and Global Development.

Call for papers and more information coming soon!

12th Biennale Conference of the Standing Group on the European Union (SGEU)

Panel: Domestic and transnational opposition against authoritarian governments – The role of opposition stakeholders in the fight against democratic backsliding

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Paper proposal:

Magdalena Solska: "Just ineffective or intentionally constrained? Explaining the long-term opposition in Latvia, Poland and Hungary"

Why do opposition parties remain incapable of regaining power, even though incumbents fail to address urgent issues, overtly break democratic rules and provoke conflicts with the European Union? PiS-led Poland (2015-2023) and Fidesz-led Hungary (since 2010) have been regarded as paradigmatic examples of "democratic backsliding", "autocratization" or "illiberalism at power" (Dresden & Howard 2016; Lührmann & Lindberg 2019, Pirro & Stanley 2022). However, even a cursory look at the state of political, societal and media pluralism in both countries unveils quite a different picture of their political systems, which has been confirmed in the recent parliamentary elections in Poland. Latvia, in turn, has been considered a consolidated democracy, even though its strongest political party – the "Harmony" – was excluded from the government for almost 17 years. Revisiting the assumptions about executive aggrandizement and its adverse side effects, I posit that the current approaches blur the substantial differences between the political systems of the new EU member states. The paper therefore adopts a different, "functionalist" perspective. While looking at the political "opportunity structure" of domestic opposition parties, it examines whether and how the opposition can fulfil its functions of alternative, control and critique. It argues that once the opposition is deliberately hindered in performing its most important function – presenting a programmatic and personnel alternative – the system change towards authoritarianism is likely to occur. The paper builds on empirical material including interviews and documents collected in Latvia, Poland and Hungary. It leverages a comparative approach to show that despite the existence of long-term opposition, the strategies of incumbents to stay in power differ decisively across these three cases. This way, the study elucidates the phenomenon of "permanent opposition" in liberal democracies and draws the line between the deterioration of democratic quality and an outright system change.  

XI. Dr. Fritz-Exner Kolloquium 

Interdisciplinary Workshop 

Organized by Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft

Paper proposal: 
Mélody Gugelmann: "Civil society de facto opposition in competitive authoritarianism: EU leverage as a strategy of democratizing forces in Georgia?"

Competitive authoritarian regimes are often mistaken for weak or defective democracies. However, they have one central feature which distinguishes them fundamentally from democratic systems: Restricted political pluralism. Whereas political pluralism – including an opposition which fulfills the functions of control and alternative – is a core of democratic politics, the restricted political pluralism in competitive authoritarian regimes forces opposition parties to adapt their strategies to the undemocratic system they exist in (Helms 2023). Empirical examples such as Hungary and Georgia show that opposition parties engage in polarization (Enyedi 2016, Somer et al. 2021) and do not offer real alternatives for the electorate. As people lose faith in the representative political system of a competitive authoritarian system, they resort to non-institutional means to keep their governments in check or press for democratization. In fact, “the closer a country proceeds on the line of autocratisation, the more the role of non-parliamentary opposition is on the increase” (Illonszki and Dudzińska 2021). This non-institutional way of influencing politics needs organization through channels such as NGOs, social movements, civil society groups and mass protests which can mobilize people and resources. I summarize these elements under the umbrella term of civil society which under certain condition acts as a de facto democratizing opposition. The present research project aims to take up this approach and study civil society de facto opposition as a democratizing force in Georgia. It follows three main questions: How do extra-parliamentary opposition’s collaboration strategies affect political change in competitive authoritarian regimes? In what situations do domestic extra-parliamentary and parliamentary opposition choose to collaborate in power contestation against the ruling party? How do supranational organizations’ leverage (mainly EU conditionality) affect extra-parliamentary opposition’s strategies?

Competing for Power in Southeast Europe: Strategies and Approaches

International Workshop

Organized by the Southeast Europe Association (Munich) and the Centre for Southeast European Studies (University of Graz)

27th World Congress of Political Science 

Panel: "People against Pluralism? Sources of Public Support for Illiberal Regimes." 

Paper Proposal:

Solska, Magdalena: "Just Ineffective or Intentionally Constrained? How the Weakness of Opposition Parties Contributes to Democratic Backsliding"

Why have opposition parties failed to act as effective safeguards against democratic backsliding in Poland and Hungary? Backsliding appears as a gradual process that leads to a decline in democratic quality. With time, it can also reduce the power of domestic actors to hold a government accountable. Revisiting the assumptions about the adverse side effects of executive aggrandizement as the main drivers of ongoing democratic backsliding, I posit that the current explanations fail to account for the quality of domestic responses to illiberal tendencies. Even though scholars have started to investigate democratic resilience and strategies of “resistance” to illiberal trends. Most studies, however, have tended to focus on top-down intervention by the European Union.
The examination of domestic opposition appears relevant as its unimpeded functioning sustains liberal democracy on the one hand and the deliberate constraints imposed on it by the ruling parties fuel the autocratization process on the other. The paper explores therefore the sources of apparent weakness of opposition parties in Poland and Hungary, and highlights their strategies and tools. It claims that opposition parties’ (partially) self-inflicted weakness is conducive to explaining the enduring public support for the incumbents despite their overt violations of democratic standards. The paper builds on empirical material including interviews and documents collected in Poland and Hungary. It leverages a comparative approach to show that in spite of significant differences in political and institutional “opportunity structure” under PiS-led and Fidesz-led government, the opposition in both countries has been ineffective in presenting a programmatic and personnel alternative to challenge the incumbents.

Full Program

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27th World Congress of Political Science