Populist rebellion against modernity in 21st-century Eastern Europe: neo-traditionalism and neo-feudalism

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - POPREBEL (Populist rebellion against modernity in 21st-century Eastern Europe: neo-traditionalism and neo-feudalism)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-01-01 al 2021-09-30

The problem being addressed
POPREBEL aims at taking stock of the recent rise of populism, in its various forms, in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We describe the phenomenon, catalogue its forms, reconstruct trajectories of its growth and decline, investigate its causes, interpret its meanings, diagnose its consequences and propose policy solutions. Our focus is on the CEE region, but we will engage in comparisons with populisms in other parts of the world, particularly Western Europe.

Importance for society
Populism has emerged as a serious political option in several European countries. There is a debate on the economic, social, and cultural causes and consequences of these developments, but most observers agree that populism constitutes a serious challenge to liberal democracies and the broadly liberal architecture of the European Union. The societies have become divided, the previously accepted rights of minorities and refugees have been challenged, and the rule of law has been dam-aged. This prompted not only disciplinary actions by several European bodies but has also contributed to the rising levels of anxiety among a part of the public. Diagnosing the phenomenon and de-signing remedies is urgent.

Overall objectives
1.To prepare a comprehensive portrayal of the rise of populism, particularly in CEE, drawing on sources, methods and models from various disciplines; 2. To provide a mirror in which other parts of Europe can catch a reflection of themselves as they are dealing with the rise of populism; 3. To develop and apply a new tool of online ethnography that allows us to gauge people’s thoughts and sentiments that underpin their support for or rejection of populism.

WP1 Key concepts. The key theoretical categories, neo-traditionalism and neo-feudalism, were defined. We posit that these categories capture the essence of social and cultural transformation in Central and Eastern Europe and the rise of right-wing populism, but they are also applicable beyond the CEE region. Subsequent empirical research, on religion and nationalism, national mythology, connections between anti-migrant sentiments and neo-traditional interpretations of national community and methods of building legitimacy for neo-feudal regimes, confirmed their analytical value.

WP2 Participatory online conversation. We convened a large-scale online conversation on East European populism, across different languages, and enriched it with online ethnographic fieldwork in Poland, Czechia and Germany. This resulted in a large ethnographic corpus of almost one million words, about 7,000 annotations and 1,600 ethnographic codes. Our initial analysis shows that people rarely call their political views ‘populist’. Instead, they frame and respond to everyday problems in society, invoking them as explanations for their political choices.

WP3 Culture. The work carried out in the first period focused on the conceptualisation of our approach and preparation of our methodology. This activity led to the creation of a common conceptual and theoretical basis for the study of the cultural dimensions of populism. The work completed in the second period consisted in extensive data collection. Research focused on: populism and social and political transformation, populism and popular culture, homophobia and populist policies, and a wide spectrum of issues related to the process of “othering Europe”. The data was collected in Poland, Czechia, Serbia, Latvia and Estonia.

WP4 Politics. Initially, the work concentrated on developing a theoretical framework, methodological foundations and reviewing the extant literature. The second phase was devoted to data collection, including the construction of a large, comprehensible database of political and economic indicators relevant for the study of the rise of populism. Among the studies are: an examination of Czech populism, a reconstruction of populist trends in Yugoslav/post-Yugoslav politics, a comparison of regime performance and support for populist parties in CEE, and populist imageries in geopolitics.

WP5 Economy. WP5 studies the economic roots and policy consequences of populism, heavily relying on the “demand” and “supply” distinction. In the first period, the team prepared a conceptualisation and preliminary operationalisation of neo-feudalism and economic insecurity, as distinct from income inequality, laying the foundations for subsequent research. In the second period, a novel approach to the economic causes and consequences of populism was formulated and the work on econometric analysis of collected data commenced.
WP6: Foresight scenarios. In the first period WP6 drew up map of the macro-level forces (drivers) driving populist politics in CEE. Next, several scenario narratives were written and tested at engagement seminars held with academics. Updated scenarios were to be introduced to policymakers and the public in early 2020. COVID largely rendered the above outputs obsolete. This disruption necessitated a re-drafting of almost all of this original work. The re-booting of the WP was completed by September 2021. This included a new (and expanded) set of scenarios, a new process of verification with experts, and a preliminary launch of engagement seminars with policymakers and members of the public (planned to begin in early 2022).

WP7 Communication and dissemination. Despite COVID-related travel restrictions, we have made continuous progress in implementing the aims of our dissemination strategy as our researchers begin to generate theoretical and empirical results. Our researchers have been active in online seminars and conferences and we began promoting our work among broader audiences, e.g. CORDIS published a piece about POPREBEL in six languages and we prepared an extensive write-up about our work for Open Access Government, out in January 2022.
WP8 Management. The first period work focused on setting up the management structure, its pro-cesses and procedures. The second period focused on the submission of an amendment requesting 9 months project extension, as contingency plan to the disruption caused by COVID.

The first, conceptual, phase of the project is completed. By contrast to purely political approaches to populism, POPREBEL’s perspective is more multidisciplinary, designed to offer new insights into its causes and potential remedies. It stresses the importance of economic and cultural factors in the rise of populism but conceptualizes them in an innovative way, best captured by the two key concepts: neo-feudalism and neo-traditionalism. The former refers to an economic subsystem of populist counter-revolution, justified by nationalistic, exclusivist and isolationist discourse, and generating new forms of inequality and insecurity. Neo-traditionalism, related to illiberalism and conservatism, legitimises favouring outcomes rather than procedures of the political processes, protection of a (national) collective rather than an individual; and championing ‘traditional’ social – particularly gender – roles. Its overriding concern is with protecting the purity of the (national) community against the perceived threats of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. In order to deal effectively with neo-traditionalism and its consequences, policy makers need to realise that has not been simply manufactured top-down. Over the last several years, it has been nurtured within selected subcultures in several areas of European life.

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Periodic Reporting for period 2 - POPREBEL (Populist rebellion against modernity in 21st-century Eastern Europe: neo-traditionalism and neo-feudalism)

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