<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>This review essay focuses on Francis Fukuyama’s book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, which was published in 2018. The text emphasises placing Fukuyama’s new publication in the context of his multi-year work for its correct interpretation. Fukuyama’s conception of the human soul is analysed in confrontation with contemporary issues of liberal democracy. It mentions other authors criticisms of Fukuyama’s work and, at the same time, it is defended by Fukuyama himself. The text can be seen as an introduction to Francis Fukuyama’s reasoning regarding the modern problems of liberal democracy and as an attempt to understand his unsuccessful prediction of the end of history. The central theme of the text is the concept of identity, which Fukuyama describes as a source of conflicts and friction areas in modern societies. Fukuyama’s findings are supplemented by the findings of other authors and current world events.</abstract>

Identity according to Francis Fukuyama: An obstacle to the end of history

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The automobile industry is one of the most rapidly growing industries, a significant employer and investor in research and development, and also one of the most important sectors of the EU economy. Nevertheless, even this sector has gone through a series of structural changes and territorial transfers, recently. Exactly for this reason, it seems crucial to examine the competitiveness of the automobile industry on the national level, analyze the long-term trends throughout the whole EU, and put them in a global context. The article uses standard methods of statistical analysis of indices of revealed symmetrical comparative advantage to detect the trends characterizing the shape and long-term development of the automobile industry in Europe. The authors point out the substantial shift s in production and exports from traditional Western European car makers in favor of the new EU member states, but also from the USA and Canada in favor of new, fast-growing developing countries in the South and Southeast Asia and in Latin America. A brief outline of the European Commission’s response to these changes in the European automobile industry in the form of an Action Plan CARS 2020 can be found in the final part of the article.</abstract>

Competitiveness of the European Automobile Industry in the Global Context

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Until now there is no consensus in the academic literature as to whether Fidesz is a (soft) Eurosceptic party or rather Europragmatic. By identifying the manifestations of Euroscepticism on the policy level rather than the party level, this article sheds light on the dynamics of Fidesz’s Euroscepticism. It also looks at the party strategy of Fidesz regarding its main Eurosceptic competitor Jobbik, and how this facilitated further Euroscepticism. Hungary’s vision of the EU is at odds with the vision of most member states and EU institutions, which makes Fidesz not only Eurosceptic; but there is a form of inverted soft Euroscepticism characterising Fidesz’s vision and policies towards the EU.</abstract>

How Eurosceptic is Fidesz actually?

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> The migration crisis opened up new themes on the basis of the Visegrad Group, which has become the subject of negotiations. Reaction at the EU level showed no/coherence clusters and no/ability to share common positions in negotiations in the EU institutions. There has been a tendency to represent the Central European region as a unit with common interests and needs. The text analyzes 1) the migration policy of the Visegrad Group as a regional organization within the EU and 2) the separate negotiations of the V4 member states at the time of the migration crisis. Our basic assumption for the analysis is the assertion that the Visegrad Group has made it easier for Member States to formulate common positions and objectives in migration policy at a time of migration crisis.</abstract>

Migration Policy of the V4 in the Context of Migration Crisis

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>This article is a case study focusing on employer organisations and business organisations in the Czech Republic. In legal terms, employer organisations are a specific type of interest group with special regimes of registration and record keeping. Unlike business groups, they are endowed with certain privileges and, in particular, can participate in collective bargaining. This study analyses the relations between these two types of groups. The database originates from a questionnaire-based survey undertaken in 2010 among 91 groups representing businesses and employers. The analysis focuses on the relationship between a group’s registration as an employer organisation and its orientation towards employer and business interests. It also investigates similarities between the two organisation types in terms of secondary organisation and strategies used. The analysis suggests that the differences between these two types are minimal and that the possibility of participating in collective bargaining and in tripartite counselling bodies remains the only relevant distinction. This holds true even when we take into account these groups’ self-perceived primary role, i.e. defending their members as employer or as business organisations.</abstract>

Employer Organisations and Business Groups in the Czech Republic

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
All ECE countries have covered the same historical trajectory of ‘the third-generation autocracy’, but Hungary has been reaching its ‘perfection’, since the two-thirds, constitutional supermajority in the Hungarian case has allowed for the Orbán regime to complete this ‘reverse wave’ in all fields of society and turning it into a zombie democracy. The conceptual frame of this paper is that the decline of democracy and the turn to autocratisation can be presented in ECE in the three big stages of the Easy Dream, Chaotic Democracy and Neoliberal Autocracy in the three corresponding decades. The paper concentrates on the third stage in its three shorter periods taking 3–4 years as the De­Democratisation, Autocratisation and De­Europeanisation. The Hungarian case has been presented in this paper in a comparative ECE view as its worst-case scenario that also sheds light on the parallel developments in the fellow ECE countries.
</abstract>

The Orbán regime as the ‘perfect autocracy’: The emergence of the ‘zombie democracy’ in Hungary

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<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The question of whether there is increasing social integration among EU citizens in Europe as a spill ‑over effect of the ongoing process of system integration, as expected by utilitarian perspectives on integration, has been discussed in many contri‑ butions so far. In particular, the question of how the economic strength and develop‑ ment of macro ‑units affects European social integration has gained new momentum after the 2004 enlargement, when economically weaker ECE countries became part of the EU. In this contribution, I focus on the impact of regional economic strength and development on European social integration. I analyse the relationship between the economic situation and development of NUTS‑1 regions and individual European identity using Eurobarometer data for the years 2004, 2010 and 2015. Using descrip‑ tive and multivariate quantitative approaches, I show that regional economic strength is weakly correlated with European identity, although not significant in multivariate models. However, citizens who believe that the EU is an economic advantage are more likely to identify as Europeans and are more prevalent in regions with higher economic growth. I conclude that convincing citizens of the economic benefits of EU membership could result in increased European social integration in the long run.
</abstract>

The Regional Economic Foundations of European Identity

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<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This paper examines how regional contextual factors influence Eurosceptic voting in Eastern Central and Western Europe. It employs a theoretical framework of multidimensional regional periphery and relative deprivation to explore how economic, spatial and demographic factors can generate collective feelings of deprivation among regional inhabitants. This relative deprivation is supposed to manifest as political discontent expressed at the EU level, either by attributing responsibility for regional peripherality to the EU or by blaming national institutions, potentially spilling over to the EU level. Based on an integrated dataset encompassing economic, spatial and demographic indicators as well as election data from the European election 2019 for 1169 NUTS 3 regions within the EU, the findings support the hypotheses. Poor economic performance in a region, relative to the national average and historical levels, increases Eurosceptic voting, and the impact of an ageing population is significant. Spatial infrastructure conditions have minimal direct but moderating effects: Eurosceptic parties benefit more from economic underperformance, if the infrastructure is also poorly developed. The paper further shows differences in cue -taking between Eastern Central Europe and Western Europe suggesting that citizens in Eastern Central Europe consider the EU more often as saviour than as creator of regional deprivation. The paper underscores the importance of regional contextual factors and infrastructural effects, and highlights the need to avoid one-size-fits-all explanations for Euroscepticism in Eastern Central and Western Europe.
</abstract>

Contextual Sources of Euroscepticism in Eastern Central and Western Europe: The Role of Peripheral Regions

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Peripheralisation is determined in socio ‑demographic, economic, political and identitarian factors. It is, many say, by definition, characterised by a willingness to migrate, in particular among the younger generations. European citizenship comes with the right to migrate – to relocate, to work and to be treated as equals in many respects to the local citizenry. In this research paper, I explicate the results of twenty interviews in six CEE countries with 7 th ‑graders who were asked what they thought of European citizenship. Those who knew what this is give widely divergent answers, but there are two dominant themes running through their perspectives: they do not feel great affection for the EU, and whilst willing to migrate, they do not appreciate the need to do so. Thus, they feel the EU does not live up to its promises to deliver equality for all Europeans. One explanation they give for this is that ‘the Iron Curtain did not dissolve very well’: the burden of history is acutely experienced.
</abstract>

‘The Iron Curtain did not dissolve very well’: Reflections on EU Citizenship from CEE peripheralised perspectives

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
In the early 2020s we live in the transition period between two world systems, the Old World Order (OWO) and the New World Order (NWO), in a deep ‘polycrisis’. Therefore, the term transformation has recently appeared in official EU documents as well as in political science literature. The transition to the NWO has begun with this crisis management and it will produce a radical transformation of the entire global architecture in the 2020s. In its conceptual framework this paper focuses on the contrast between ‘de‑coupling’ and ‘de ‑risking’, as it has been explained very markedly in the recent speeches of the president of the European Commission, Ursula van der Leyen (EC 2023a), and the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan (The White House 2023). This contrast symbolises the US policy, concentrating more on cutting or reducing connectivity among the various policy fields, versus the EU policy turning them safe and interdependent. These approaches represent the US and EU attitude in the emerging New World Order, and primarily in their relationships to China.
</abstract>

The Emerging New World System and the European Challenge

Introduction to the Special Section ‘EU Citizenship in Peripheral Regions: Collective Identities and Political Participation in Eastern Central and Western Europe’

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The ‘liberal world order’ can be considered as an historic exception in the history of ‘realist anarchy’ of international relations. This exception is the result of many factors and it has been significantly influenced by the power of the United States. Thus, the agenda of the world order can be analysed in the context of American foreign policy. The place of Central Europe – and in the Visegrad countries – can be analysed in this frame. This approach elaborates the basis for further inquiries also of the Central European-American relations but here the goal is to understand the place of the Visegrad countries in the context of the American led liberal world order. The goal of this study is to theorise the world order, and to identify the role of the United States and the place of the Visegrad countries in it. Furthermore, the study tries to draw theoretic conclusions in the light of the ‘Biden doctrine’ – which is theoretically coherent with the liberal characteristic of the order – to the Visegrad-US relations.
</abstract>

US-Visegrad Realities in Biden’s World of Democracies

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> The Visegrad Group celebrated its 25th anniversary in February 2016. Established as an initiative of three statesmen from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, this cooperation has experienced booms and crises. The aim of this paper is to analyse the function of this regional integration in the years following the end of bipolar system as Visegrad Group members headed down the road to Euro-Atlantic integration. To this end, I apply different theoretical approaches and attempt to explain the influence of key former politicians as well as new scenarios for the Visegrad Group’s position in the European Union. This analysis also covers the latest foreign policy changes and challenges facing CEE due to the involvement of a wider region that creates a counter-balance to the core EU. Statistical data and official documents from the Visegrad Group’s website strengthen these findings.</abstract>

University of Pecs, Central European University, State University of New York (Albany, USA)

Friends forever? The Role of the Visegrad Group and European Integration

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> Even after achieving its goals, i.e. the entrance of member states into NATO and the EU, the Visegrad Group has managed to profile itself as a significant collective actor. Analyses to date clearly show that the group is able to function as a distinct and even key actor in various policies, including those within the EU; this statement is without doubt valid primarily for the region of the European neighborhood policy and the Eastern partnership, but also for enlargement policy and its clear targeting of the Western Balkans. We can also observe a highly proactive approach in issues linked to security, primarily in the energy sector and recently also cyber security. Nonetheless, all of these and many other significant V4 activities have been overshadowed of late by dispute between the group and a significant portion of members states on perspectives regarding the migration crisis including the tools to deal with it or preventive measures to prevent it from continuing or repeating. This stance on the issue, however, can be seen as proof of the relative power and success of the V4.</abstract>

The Visegrad Group as an Ambitious Actor of (Central-)European Foreign and Security Policy

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> This study considers the plethora of contemporary institutional frameworks for Central European cooperation. While the Visegrad Group has been the most visible and stable format for Central European cooperation in recent history, it has been challenged by a number of alternative or complementary projects. These include the Austrian concept of Strategic/Regional Partnership, the Austrian-Czech-Slovak project Austerlitz-Formate/Nord‑Trilaterale, the Polish-Croatian Three Seas Initiative and the European Union’s macro‑regional Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR). I focus on the development and prospects of each of these projects as well the rivalries among them and their intersections ot interference with one another. This survey then turns to the future Central European constellations suggested by the very different cooperation trajectories within the region. My thesis is that the region’s identity has been challenged by offers to merge with Europe’s West. Central European cooperation must find new challenges and themes if it is to survive.</abstract>

The Visegrad Cooperation in the Context of Other Central European Cooperation Formats

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>In the article, the authors address certain recent political developments in two former communist countries, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. They focus on the rise of personalized politics, i.e. the type of political conduct that is driven predominantly by the personal character of political leaders (much more than by programs and ideologies). Specifically, the authors look at the weak political partisanship in East-Central Europe as one of the key factors triggering person-based politics. They find that personalized leadership has divergent consequences for political life in a democratic polity. It is very effective in mobilizing mass support as well as in overcoming many organizational obstacles. However, its influence on the quality of the democratic process is questionable.</abstract>

The Rise of Person-Based Politics in the New Democracies: The Czech Republic and Slovenia

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Corruption is a phenomenon with significant effects – economically, politically and culturally. Corruption tends to be viewed negatively by the public. As such, anti-corruption rhetoric may be an ideal election strategy for individual political parties. Nevertheless, anti-corruption rhetoric does not necessarily translate into an actual anti-corruption policy. This study analyses the impact of anti-corruption rhetoric that does not reflect the actual practices of its speaker and has been used strategically to gain favour. My focus is on elections and the subsequent formation and exercise of government in the Czech Republic. I analyse how anti-corruption rhetoric directed at political opponents works as an election success strategy. At the same time, I show how electoral success, transformed into real political power, strengthens the ability of actors to engage in activities that amount to borderline or outright corruption, irrespective of any anti-corruption rhetoric.</abstract>

The Never-ending Story: Czech Governments, Corruption and Populist Anti-Corruption Rhetoric (2010–2018)

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The Three Seas Initiative (TSI) is an informal association that focuses mainly on the economic integration of EU member states through the cooperation of specific sectors. It is meant to strengthen the single market and bonds among countries in Central and Eastern Europe. It also seeks to reduce developmental differences between these countries and the older EU member states. This study explores the background of the TSI, which was jointly conceived by the presidents of Poland and Croatia with the goal of strengthening ties among countries in the area between the Black, Baltic and Adriatic seas. The association brings together 12 states across Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Austria. As well as enhancing their political ties, it aims to develop cross-border cooperation and implement macro-regional projects. The analysis highlights both the diverging interests of the TSI countries and their common predicament. These states are connected by the fact that they stand to lose the most from the two-speed Europe idea that some Western politicians have imposed. They are also at a clear disadvantage when it comes to infrastructure investments. In the past, the European Union has emphasized East–West cooperation and overlooked the North–South communication and energy corridors. The Three Seas Initiative founders are trying to determine the best form of cooperation for the Central and Eastern Europe region.</abstract>

The Three Seas Initiative as a Political Challenge for the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

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Politics in Central Europe

The Journal of the Central European Political Science Association

 POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE publishes original, double-blind, peer-reviewed manuscripts that provide scientific essays focusing on issues in comparative politics, policy...

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 POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE publishes original, double-blind, peer-reviewed manuscripts that provide scientific essays focusing on...