<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

All ECE countries have covered the same historical trajectory of ‘the third-generation autocracy’, but Hungary has been reaching its ‘perfection’, since the two-thirds, constitutional supermajority in the Hungarian case has allowed for the Orbán regime to complete this ‘reverse wave’ in all fields of society and turning it into a zombie democracy. The conceptual frame of this paper is that the decline of democracy and the turn to autocratisation can be presented in ECE in the three big stages of the Easy Dream, Chaotic Democracy and Neoliberal Autocracy in the three corresponding decades. The paper concentrates on the third stage in its three shorter periods taking 3–4 years as the De­Democratisation, Autocratisation and De­Europeanisation. The Hungarian case has been presented in this paper in a comparative ECE view as its worst-case scenario that also sheds light on the parallel developments in the fellow ECE countries.
</abstract>

The Orbán regime as the ‘perfect autocracy’: The emergence of the ‘zombie democracy’ in Hungary

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

This paper deals with the sluggish Europeanisation efforts of the current political elites of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A typical explanation for the lack of progress would be the complex structure of consociational democracy of the specific Bosnian confederation. The authors, however, claim that the structural obstacles could have been bypassed given the real will of political elites of all three nations to cooperate. The authors examine the role of the structure of the peculiar political system in comparison with the influence of the agency of Bosnian elites on the integration process. The empirical analysis focuses on the situation after the general elections in 2018. The authors discuss the contrast between the official declarations of consistent support for a European future with the real political performance of the various Bosnian party elites. These elites often misuse the institutional settings of the political system to block reforms. They also prefer the politics of obstruction to cement their leading positions within their constituent nations. More than a quarter century after the Dayton Peace Treaty and adoption of the Constitution, the lack of genuine intrinsic motivation to pursue Europeanisation has remained the main reason for the reluctant rapprochement of Bosnia to the European Union.
</abstract>

Professor at the Faculty of Social Science, Masaryk University and as a Head of the International Institute of Political Science

Serious about Integration or Political Posturing? Political Elites and their Impact on Half-hearted Europeanisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The article investigates the discourse of two Czech presidents, Václav Klaus (2003–2013) and Miloš Zeman (2013–incumbent), vis­à­vis the salient issue of the Eurozone crisis. Having adopted the general orientation of the discourse historical approach to discourse analysis, and working with a corpus of data on Klaus’ and Zeman’s public utterances on the Eurozone crisis in the 2010–2018 period, the central research question that the article addresses is: How was the Eurozone crisis discursively constructed in the presidential rhetoric of Václav Klaus and Miloš Zeman? Building on the crisis literature, the article answers the question by exploring the presidential discourse within three persuasive narratives of the crisis causes, resolution and consequences.
</abstract>

Associate Professor of European Politics at the Department of Politics and European Studies

assistant professor at the Department of International Relations and European Studies

Masaryk University, Czech Republic and a researcher at the Department of Politics and European Studies at Palacký University

Constructing the Discourse on the Eurozone Crisis in the Czech Republic: Presidents Václav Klaus and Miloš Zeman Compared

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

National or supranational consultations on general policy questions are unusual phenomena. Nevertheless, they seem to play an important role in the political life of the community either because they might be considered as rudimentary forms of deliberative practices or because they are important strategic tools in the hands of political actors. Given this salience of consultations from both normative­deliberative and descriptive-strategic perspectives, it is surprising that academic analyses of national consultations are scarce. This paper tries to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on one of the most well­known examples of nation-wide consultations, the series of national consultations in Hungary. It aims to present why national consultations gradually lost their deliberative character and how they have been transformed into a strategic instrument for mobilising supporters.
</abstract>

Head of the Center for Constitutional Politics at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and senior research fellow at the University of Public Service in Budapest

political scientist, he received his PhD in political sciences from the Corvinus University of Budapest in 2015. Currently he is research fellow at the Eötvös Loránd Research Network Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest

From Deliberation to Pure Mobilisation? The Case of National Consultations in Hungary

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The local policy is sometimes degraded by this opinion: in the small village, there is no policy, self-government is based on the personal character without the political context, it is mainly oriented on the technical side of the government. However, different researches confirm that despite this claim local policy contains political (and ideological) fights. These researches focus on different topics and different attitudes in cleavages or conflict study. However, only a few research types mentioned the importance of local civic activism in connection with the local policy trends. It is interesting because civic activism, values and attitudes are the main points in the cleavage topic. In this research, we will discuss the term cleavage (concept by Deegan­Krause) in the context of four Czech municipalities which have experience with civic activism – the referendum. In our research, we will focus on four municipalities, on which we will present the application of the Deegan­Krause model. Based on the application, we will discuss if civic activism in the form of a referendum could lead to changes in the local party system.
</abstract>

student in doctoral degree program at Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Science

political scientist and historian, professor of political science at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies

Could a Referendum Change the Local Party System? Discussion of the Referendum’s Consequences in the Context of Cleavages

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The article examines the Eastern Partnership (EaP) as the initiative of the European Union (EU) through the prism of the constructivist concepts of soft power, normative power and transformative power. The research focuses on the assessment of the EU’s transformative strength in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, based on the analysis of declared EU policy goals and instruments and the real results of political reforms in partner countries. The results of the study show that the EaP has little transformative impact and needs further revision. The analysis of empirical indicators in the field of political transformation of the EaP countries shows that since its inception, as well as after the signing of Association Agreements with three countries and the renewal of the European Neighborhood Policy in 2015, no radical changes have been made, and the EU’s influence on the course of reforms has been insignificant. Institutional and geopolitical constraints and challenges that complicate the EU’s ability to influence its eastern neighbours are addressed. The article analyses prospects for strengthening the effectiveness of the EaP in the context of its latest update after 2020.
</abstract>

Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of International Relations at the National University of Ostroh Academy

PhD in History. He is a Professor at the Department of International Relations at the National University of Ostroh Academy

PhD. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations at the National University of Ostroh Academy

The European Union’s Transformative Power in the Countries of the Eastern Partnership

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

The central aim of this article is to consider tools and methods for studying expert knowledge (EK) diffusion in international politics. What we need are methodological devices to enable research of the object in motion and to study small or multiple sites, and even global scales in time, as well as the object of inquiry at different levels of analysis. Based on the marriage of network analysis and mobility research this article discusses the research potential of several methodological tools: bibliometrics, QHA, SNA techniques, topology, topography and biography. I conclude that despite these methods being imperfect, they 1) make possible the bridging of traditional IR dilemmas, such as the level­of­analysis problem, the micro­macro gap, and the agent-structure debate, 2) enable to collect and evaluate a much richer class of evidence and contextualization than methods usually used in IR offer, and 3) make possible to be much more ethnographically sensitive than IR research traditionally is.
</abstract>

How to follow and Study Through the Sites and Situations of Expert Knowledge Diffusion in International Politics: Research Challenges and Methodological Responses

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Politics in Central Europe

 POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE publishes original, double-blind, peer-reviewed manuscripts that provide scientific essays focusing on issues in comparative politics, policy analysis, international relations and other sub-disciplines of political science, as well as original theoretical or conceptual analyses. The essays should contribute to a broad understanding of the region of Central Europe.  The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 