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Czech 2010 election: Photo: “Polling station for 2010 czech legislative election in Třebíč, Třebíč District“, by Jiří Sedláček – Frettie licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Hue modified from the original

Buben, Radek, and Karel Kouba. 2023. “How Czech Democracy Defies the Illiberal Trend.” Current History 122 (842): 108–14.

Abstract

Democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland has raised questions as to whether Czech politics would follow a similar path. Focusing on transformations in the country’s political system over the past decade, this article argues that Czech democracy has proved resilient and defied the Central European illiberal trend. The starkly divergent outcomes are attributable to differences that set the Czech political tradition apart from those of Poland and Hungary. The liberal, secular, and pluralist tendencies present in the Czech democratic myth have made it more difficult to form an ideologically based movement built around a national-religious conservative narrative challenging liberal democratic values.

illiberalism.org

The Illiberalism Studies Program studies the different faces of illiberal politics and thought in today’s world, taking into account the diversity of their cultural context, their intellectual genealogy, the sociology of their popular support, and their implications on the international scene.