Central European culture wars: beyond post‑communism and populism

Abstract

The book reflects the transformation of politics in Central Europe during the last decade. As editors of the book, Pavel Barša, Zora Hesová and Ondřej Slačálek explain in chapter 1 that the text tries to go beyond two of the most common explanations: the post-communist condition, or weakly rooted liberalism, in the context of an unfinished transition, or, conversely, populist strategies employed by some leaders. Instead, the book focuses on culture wars that have become important (not only) in the region, and their replacement, to a considerable extent, of the right versus left socioeconomic cleavage. The book identifies three arenas of culture war – memory, morals, and identity – and presents an analysis of how various struggles around topics like gender, identity, sovereignty, and globalization transformed national politics inside a broadly conceived Central Europe of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Croatia. In chapter 2, Michal Kopeček outlines a genealogy of contemporary debates on national identity from within the dissident and (post)dissident debates of Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia. The chapter reconstructs the main disputes about various concepts of nation, civil society and totalitarianism framework. In the end, it shows that the national-conservative turn is among the possible actualizations of discourses on nation and democracy and was already present in the previous era. In chapter 3, Csaba Szaló interprets Viktor Orbán’s nationalconservative discourse as presented in speeches during annual Bálványos summer meetings. It shows how Orbán powerfully enters into all three culture war arenas: in the politics of morality, through the reconstruction of family, presented as a solution guarding against a decadent West while also inciting demographic panic; in the politics of identity, by accenting a strong state and nation; and in the politics of memory, through emphasis on a Christianist reinterpretation of the national roots, including references to Horthy’s interwar conservative nationalist regime. In chapter 4, Ondřej Slačálek analyses the dynamics of value conflicts in Poland. The chapter traces the roots of Polish reservationstowards Western liberalism on moral issues in the 1980s and 1990s. While this distance transformed the most critical political cleavage in the 2000s and 2010s and temporarily marginalized the Left, a full-blown culture war on all three fronts of memory, identity and morality also had paradoxical effects. The Roman Catholic Church, openly siding with one side on some of these value conflicts, could, as a result, lose its important position within the Polish national identity. Ondřej Slačálek tries, in chapter 5, to explain the much weaker impact of the culture wars, especially as connected with memory and morality, in the Czech Republic. Some aspects of the culture wars are present (nationalism, anti-feminism), and populist leaders (Zeman, Babiš) often use relatively xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric. However, much more important is the conflict about the nature of democracy and the relationship towards the West. To some extent, they become the subject of culture wars. Unlike Poland and Croatia, the Roman Catholic Church is relatively weak, and its role in the culture wars can marginalize its influence. In chapter 6, Jana Vargovčíková maps the transformation of Christian politics in Slovakia. Anti-gender campaigns marked the break-up of the liberal-conservative consensus and differentiation of the Christian scene. At the same time, conservative positions on questions of morality and national identity have been adopted by politicians both from the Right and the Left. Zora Hesová, in chapter , shows how culture wars broke out after Croatia’s accession to the European Union. The strong role of the Catholic Church produces, as in Poland and Slovakia, significant conflicts around morality. The memory of the Ustashe regime, at the same time, makes memory conflicts extremely relevant, as has been seen, above all, in the conflict around the symbolic sites of Jasenovac and Bleiburg. In chapter 7, Zora Hesová analyses how some dynamics attributed to ‘post-communist’ countries are also present in Austria – above all, the intense conflict around politics of identity and migration. While presidential elections in 2016 made the key political conflict a struggle between green and far-right politicians, both the far right and the Christian democrats transformed their stratégy substantively in subsequent years. In the afterword, Pavel Barša and Zora Hesová identify the main conclusions. They describe both elements of the liberal-conservative consensus after 1989 and how these were abandoned following the integration of these countries into the EU. This provided national conservatives with political opportunities to vocally defend their positions in arenas of memory, morality and, above all, identity as revolts against Western Europe were depicted as ultra-liberal. The authors also discuss three deeper reasons for the power of national-conservative discourses: missed (post)1960s value transformation, the perverse effects of communist anti-religious politics, and the discourse resources and opportunities of the national-conservative Right.