Political Science Matters

On October 15 2023, Polish citizens went to the polls to the renew the Parliament, producing the highest turnout ever in post-Communist Poland. The main result has been the defeat of the ruling PiS led by Jarosław Kaczyński and the victory of the opposition coalition, led by Donald Tusk. What were the main points of contentions between and withing the two political camps? Why did many Polish citizens go to vote for the opposition parties? What can one expect with regard to government formation and future policies? Michelangelo Vercesi, co-editor of the Political Data Yearbook, discusses these issues with Krzysztof Jasiewicz (Washington and Lee University of Lexington) in this episode, recorded three days after the elections.

The recent victory of the populist party Smer (Direction) in the 2023 Slovak parliamentary election has sparked concerns about Slovakia’s return to national populism. Are these fears warranted? Is Slovakia sliding into illiberalism and drifting away from the West? Or is the excessive focus on populism preventing analysts from seeing underlying opposing changes in Slovakia’s political landscape? In this episode, recorded two days after the election, Raul Gomez, co-editor of the Political Data Yearbook, discusses these issues with Kevin Deegan-Krause (Wayne State University), Erika Harris (University of Liverpool), and Erik Láštic (Comenius University).

Is there a ‘Latin American’ approach to migration governance? How much do national policies converge/differ across the region today? Latin America has developed new mechanisms of migration governance since the turn of the century. For some, these represented a distinctive approach as, in contrast to trends in the Global North, the region put an emphasis on migrant rights, relatively open border control measures, multilateral efforts to facilitate mobility and coordinate policies, and non-criminalization of irregular migration. As migration dynamics have rapidly evolved and become increasingly complex in the last two decades (including a dramatic refugee crisis triggered by massive intra-regional displacement of Venezuelans since 2015), such approach has lately appeared less distinct from other regions and acquired new components and variants across Latin American countries. This presentation tackles such evolution, with an eye on the factors that induce or preclude policy convergence across the region. The analysis touches on several areas of migration governance, such as irregular immigration, border control, diaspora engagement policies, multilateral management of intra-regional mobility, and forced migration. Selected cases studies from Central and South America will be used to illustrate the main points. Speakers: Ana Margheritis, University of Southampton, and Luicy Pedroza, El Colegio de México

Inspired by Harbour House, our HQ in the UK, which provides both a literal and metaphorical ‘home’ for the ECPR community, we developed The House Series, launching this December to round off our 50th Anniversary celebrations. Our first lecture focused on the resurgence of nationalism, delivered virtually by David Miller, winner of the ECPR’s Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. There is a widely held view that liberal democracies have experienced an upsurge in nationalism in recent years, and that this is best explained as a form of backlash against social and cultural change. In this lecture, David Miller challenged the underlying Enlightenment narrative used to support this explanation, which foresees the progressive disappearance of nationalism as a political force.

Inspired by Harbour House, our HQ in the UK, which provides both a literal and metaphorical ‘home’ for the ECPR community, we developed The House Series, which launched in December 2020, rounding off our 50th Anniversary celebrations. In the second instalment of the series, the 2020 recipient of our Rising Star Award, Veronica Anghel, considers threats to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. During this talk, Veronica addresses some of Central Eastern Europe's most pressing structural, elite and societal challenges for the democratisation process, as well as the institutional incentives and constraints that support its endurance. Veronica pays particular attention to the negative effects of informal institutions on democratisation outcomes and make the case for an extended research agenda on how informal norms may structure citizen and elite behaviour.

Organised by Charles University as part of our 2021 Joint Sessions of Workshops, this lecture assembles scholars whose work transcends the East-West divide to discuss the extent to which both the East and the West are artificial constructs and shortcuts attempting to simplify the complex reality of contemporary democracy and how to move beyond this outdated paradigm – bridging the East-West divide. The speakers, eminent scholars of political parties, social movements, and democracy, touch on these issues in their work and discuss routes to balancing out general trends and unique features of the Central European region. Speakers: Lenka Bustikova, Arizona State University Ondrej Cisar, Charles University Fernando Casal Bertoa, University of Nottingham Zsolt Enyedi, Central European University/Oxford University Milada Vachudova, UNC Chapel Hill Chair: Petra Guasti, Charles University

Watch Robbie Shilliam (John Hopkins University) deliver the Stein Rokkan Lecture from the University of Edinburgh. Titled 'The Academic Legacies of British Empire: Social Anthropology and International Relations', his talk addresses the contemporary moral panic over 'wokeness', its supposed infiltration into academic spaces and its purported degeneration of the ethos of higher education.