Political science

Resentment

Politics

Computer science

Democracy

Populism

Political economy

Sociology

Philosophy

Elite

State (computer science)

Algorithm

Identity (music)

Legitimacy

Aesthetics

Autocracy

Authoritarianism

Ideology

East European Politics

The decline of the quality of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe was facilitated by intellectual, ideological, and organizational innovations of a new authoritarian elite. I this article I discuss five such innovations: a particular combination of victim mentality, self-confidence and resentment against the West, the transformation of neighbor-hating nationalisms into a civilizationist anti-immigrant platform, the delegitimization of civil society and the return to the belief in a strong state, the resurrection of the Christian political identity, and the transformation of populist discourse into a language and organizational strategy that is compatible with governmental roles (“populist establishment”). These factors together point to an overarching ideological fame that I call paternalist populism.

Right-wing authoritarian innovations in Central and Eastern Europe