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and called for greater protection of domestic

Is Liberalism to Blame?

producers. Though Fidesz has been kept out

of power, its support is at an all-time high,

having risen from around 9 percent in 1990

No doubt one of the reasons for the rise of

to 42 percent in 2006.

populism in Central Europe is the dramatic

With the notable exception of the Czech

social change that the region is undergoing.

Republic, the politicians in Central Europe have

Despite their official commitment to "social

managed to combine right-wing attitudes on

progressivism," the Communists, who domi-

public and private morality with left-wing atti-

nated Central Europe for four decades, were, in

tudes on economics. Calls for price regulations,

fact, socially ultraconservative. Pornography

increased taxation of the wealthy, and renation-

and gender equality, not to mention homosex-

alization of privatized property have been heard

uality, were either prohibited or discouraged.

throughout the region. The same goes for calls

The groundswell of expressions of personal

for a return to traditional family values, relig-

freedoms that followed the collapse of the

ion, and suppression of sexual autonomy. This

Berlin Wall in 1989 took the stultified socialist

combination of socialist and conservative atti-

societies of Central Europe by complete sur-

tudes does not fit the usual left-right divide,

prise. Permissive attitudes to individual free-

A more helpful

making accurate reporting on Central Euro-

doms, especially toward expressions of sexual

way to analyze

pean politics complicated. The European press,

autonomy, which took decades to evolve in the

for example, keeps on referring to the Slovak

West, were suddenly expected in the East as

the political scene

Nationalists as a "far-right" party, even though

well. The EU made socially liberal legislation a

in the region is

their economic program is as left-wing as that

prerequisite for EU membership.

of the Slovak Communist Party.30 A more help-

by contrasting

As long as the EU membership was being

negotiated, the extremist voices were silenced

ful way to analyze the political scene in the

liberal with

or dismissed through cooperation of the polit-

region is by contrasting liberal with illiberal

illiberal

ical elites and the media in the region. Now

political forces, where the former generally tend

that the Central European countries are part of

to favor extension of individual autonomy in

political

the EU, the populists have simply reclaimed

economic and social spheres, and the latter

forces.

their natural political space. That partly

object to both.

explains the electoral success of socially conser-

Opponents of liberalism are not merely

vative forces in Slovakia and Poland, as well as

reactionary, of course. They offer an alterna-

the relative strength of Fidesz in Hungary.

tive program based on active government

Only the Czechs have so far evaded the lure of

intervention with the stated goal of making

moral populism. That is in part because the

people's lives better. The defining feature of

Czechs have the longest and most deeply root-

what some European analysts call "pop-

ed liberal tradition in the region. Moreover, as

ulism" is the refusal to consider trade-offs.

a survey by the EU Commission's pollster

Some of the standard populist promises

Eurobarometer found in 2005, only 19 percent

include substantial increases in welfare

of Czechs believe in God. With 16 percent,

spending and income redistribution, tighten-

Estonia is the only country in the EU with a

ing of the labor code, and price controls on

lower level of religiosity. In contrast, 44 percent

popular goods and services, while at the same

of Hungarians, 61 percent of Slovaks and 80

time committing the government to budget

percent of Poles said they believe in God.31

discipline, sustained high rates of economic

growth, and the reduction of unemployment.

According to the conventional wisdom, the

Whether this new political phenomenon in

other important reason for the rise of populism

Central Europe is called illiberalism or pop-

in Central Europe is the free market or, to be

ulism, the recent election outcomes clearly

more precise, its alleged excesses. In Poland, for

indicate that liberal parties are no longer as

example, Leszek Balcerowicz, the head of the

potent a political force as they used to be.

National Bank of Poland and the former

7