party system

The aim of this article is to explain why Czech media and politicians even raised the possibility of leaving the EU (calling it Czexit), to focus on the debate surrounding this subject, and to try evaluating if or when such a debate might become an issue before the 2019 European Parliamentary elections.

Swedish think-tank Timbro presented the subsequent edition of the Authoritarian Populism Index. The aim of the index is chiefly to determine to what extent populist parties can pose a real threat to liberal democracy in the European Union and five other countries on the continent.

In 2017, the Cambridge Dictionary proclaimed “populism” the word of the year. There are many definitions of the term, still, it always evokes strong emotions. One of the definitions of populism in politics was proposed by the Swedish think tank Timbro.

A study by McKinsey & Company showed that 49% of the working hours in Hungary can be automated with the already existing technologies. This does not necessarily mean that these jobs will be lost forever, but they are going to be transformed.

The conflict of interest of individual parties in Hungary proved to be the opposition’s great weakness, the 2018 election results illustrate this perfectly: The national electoral system was shaped by the 2010 Fidesz government to favor large parties, including winner compensation and different types of gerrymandering.

The governing coalition of PSD and ALDE, elected in December 2016, seems indecisive in exercising executive power. The declining voter turnout, the street protests of February, and the curious change of prime minister in June raise legitimate questions about Romania’s flawed democracy.

When, back in April 2015, I had the honour and pleasure of setting up NowoczesnaPL with Ryszard Petru and 19 other eminent individuals, we didn’t expect that Law and Justice (PiS) would be able to ruin Poland to the extent that it has. For ruining the country is exactly what it is doing.

The great divide has been extensively fed by a colourful palette of issues, from the support/disapproval of the current or former president, through a worldly perspective either from a cosmopolitan or traditional standpoint, all the way to the question of the future direction of the US.

Since the victory of Fidesz-KDNP in the parliamentary elections of 2010, there were no successful political campaigns – not even those run by the governing parties. The only exception is the Two-Tailed Dog Party (Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt, MKKP), which is currently conducting its second poster campaign.