The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a new and unparalleled stress-test for the already disrupted liberal-representative, democracies. The challenges cluster around three democratic disfigurations: technocracy, populism, and plebiscitarianism—each have the potential to contribute to democratic decay. Still, they can also trigger pushback against illiberalism mobilizing citizens in defense of democracy, toward democratic resilience. This article looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic affects democratic decay and democratic resilience in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It finds varied responses to the COVID-19 crisis by the CEE populist leaders and identifies two patterns: the rise of autocracy and democratic resilience. First, in Hungary and Poland, the populist leaders instrumentalized the state of emergency to increase executive aggrandizement. Second, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, democracy proved resilient. The COVID-19 pandemic alone is not fostering the rise of authoritarianism. However, it does accentuate existing democratic disfigurations.

Towards Closure

“…Some parliaments have either been semi-suspended or have decided to give a wide berth to governments during the COVID-19 crisis, thereby postponing the accountability work; others have been highly assertive and have demanded ongoing engagement from government. For example, in a discussion of the Czech Republic during the first phase of the epidemic, Guasti (2020) observes that: while the Czech government occasionally swerves towards illiberalism, political opposition, media and courts provide an effective bulwark against the rise of autocracy. Czech civil society, universities, and startups were able to mitigate the scarcity of PPE effectively.…”

Calling in "Sick": COVID-19, Opportunism, Pretext, and Subnational Democracy

“…This abuse is readily apparent in the COVID-19 pandemic at both the national and subnational levels. In Hungary, the ruling Fidesz party, holding a parliamentary supermajority, gave Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the right to rule by decree without a set end date to respond forcefully to the public health threat; Orbán used the opportunity to restrict freedom of the press and to push an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda (Guasti 2020). Opposition efforts to question the imposition of rule by decree were met with accusations that they were impeding the government's ability to stop the spread of coronavirus (Kádár 2020).…”

Populism in Power and Democracy: Democratic Decay and Resilience in the Czech Republic (2013–2020)

“…During pandemic states of the emergency, core civil rights and civil liberties were suspended. Populist governments instrumentalized the pandemic restrictions to push through policies, laws, regulations, or hold elections to supervisory boards that would-in a non-pandemic context-have resulted in backlash (Guasti, 2020a). Emergency powers also gave populist leaders the ability to bypass checks and balances.…”

“…Jirák & Köpplová, 2020). In fact, in 2017, PM Sobotka left politics and, in 2018, joined the anti-governmental protests (Guasti, 2020a).…”

“…Attempts to undermine horizontal accountability and the rule of law have been largely unsuccessful due to a combination of veto points. Furthermore, the attempts by ANO triggered large scale protests (Guasti, 2020a). Both institutional veto points and civil society's agency prevent democratic decay (cf.…”