by Michael McClure | Feb 5, 2022 | University of Chicago
A few weeks ago, I received the letter pictured above from Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in my mailbox. “Dear citizen! I write to you today because Hungary has a parliamentary election next spring,” the letter reads. Aiming to mobilize the addressees—Hungarian...
by Hugo Barrillon | Nov 16, 2020 | University of Chicago
Incentives are everything. Since its founding in 1993, the European Union (EU) has understood this and become a master of soft power pressure and incentive-based democratic reforms. Indeed, as much as the European Union began as an economic union, it has taken on...
by Wenquan Xiao | May 7, 2019 | University of Chicago
On March 30, 2019 Zuzana Caputova, leader of Progressive Slovakia (PS), won a sweeping victory in the country’s presidential election. In a few months, she will become Slovakia’s first female president. Her triumph marks a symbolic victory for liberalism in Central...
by Takatoshi Sawayama | Apr 10, 2019 | Boston University
While Western European countries are in a political turmoil, some Central and Eastern European countries face an even graver crisis. Bolstered by skepticism with regards to the European Union, which has been perceived to have failed to sufficiently deal with the...
by Nicole Wells | Mar 25, 2018 | American University
Just before the Hungarian national election in 2014, Prime Minister Victor Orban declared his intention to build an illiberal state in Hungary. Orban said the “Hungarian nation is not a simple sum of individuals, but a community that needs to be organized,...
