New study traces how ill health translates into anti-immigrant sentiment.

Happy to share my review of Ali Kadivar's excellent book on the social foundations of democracies, just out in the American Journal of Sociology. From Seymour Lipset to Stein Rokkan, sociologists were central in establishing the discipline of comparative politics, studying regime change. However, if you attend any conference today on democracy, you will hear much less about the social fabric of democracies than about its formal dimensions. Sociology has become peripheral in t

Thrilled to share our article just out in the British Journal of Political Science. The first meta-analysis of the evidence of a causal association between economic insecurity and populism provides a definite answer confirming that economic insecurity is a robust cause. Abstract The literature on populism is divided on whether economic factors are significant and robust causes of populism. To clarify this, we performed the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the evid

I contributed a chapter to the Routledge Handbook of Autocratization. ABSTRACT This chapter reviews the role of social class dynamics behind autocratization. The first section revisits modernization theorists’ arguments about why the business class might be against autocracy and in favor of democratization. However, several sociologists and critical political economists have been skeptical about the mutually beneficial relationship between capitalism and democracy and the sup

It's great to see our chapter on the political economy of the postsocialist mortality crisis published early this year.

Why did 7M people die prematurely in Eastern Europe during the transition in the 90s? In our paper in the Cambridge Journal of Economics, we present new evidence for the role of deindustrialization. First of all, the increase in mortality was centered on middle-aged men between 30 and 59. The elderly, not the young, or infants who are sensitive to that quality of care did not experience a significant increase. Thus, healthcare system changes cannot explain the excess deaths.

In my new essay, The Politics of Growth Models and Populism in East-Central Europe, I embed my research on populism in the growth model perspective. In my new essay, The Politics of Growth Models and Populism in East-Central Europe, I embed my research on populism in the growth model perspective. Out now in the Economic Sociology Newsletter published by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPfIG). The growth model framework allows for an elegant, critical synt

The American Journal of Sociology published a review of my book, The retreat of liberal democracy.

In our new Annual Review of Sociology article, we compare the American Deaths of Despair epidemic and the postsocialist mortality crisis.

We present a neoclassical sociological synthesis of the lived experience of deindustrialization and its implications for health.

We know much about the mutation of neoliberalism in advanced economies. I show how this might happen in investment-dependent economies.

Our special issue—Neoliberal Capitalism and the Visegrad Countermovements—is finally out & complete.

The world is facing a new wave of autocratization. This chapter reviews the social foundations of illiberalism.

This special issue analyzes the lived experience of postsocialist economic change and its relation to populism.

The rise of populism has cast doubt on the sustainability of the marriage of liberal democracy and neoliberal capitalism.

How do populists govern health? How are they handling covid19? We answer these questions by analyzing Viktor Orban's Hungary.

Analyzing transformations in Romania & Hungary this article shows that neoliberalism is not over, just changing, leading to national-neoliberalism. Abstract Has a post-neoliberal policy regime emerged from the challenges to neoliberalism that have accompanied the rise of nationalism and populism in some Eastern and Central European countries? Why has the political organization of these challenges to neoliberalism endured in some countries but not in others? By drawing on a mi

Situations of Dependency, Mechanisms of Dependency Governance, and the Rise of Populism in Hungary and Poland Dependency theory is back! It's so great to see this book and my chapter on dependency just published. In 2019, dependency theory celebrated its 50th birthday: Cardoso & Faletto's classic, Dependency and Development, had been published in 1969 originally, and in 1979 in English - the same year as Peter Evans' book, Dependent development, had come out, who wrote a blaz

Abstract An unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the transition from socialism to capitalism. Working-class men without a college degree suffered the most. Some argue that economic dislocation caused stress and despair, leading to adverse health behavior and ill health (dislocation-despair approach). Others suggest that hazardous drinking inherited as part of a dysfunctional working-class culture and populist alcohol policy were the key determinants (su

The article conceptualises Hungary's neo-nationalist turn as a Polanyian countermovement against globalisation and deindustrialisation.