THE POLITICS OF GROWTH MODELS AND POPULISM IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE
- Sep 8, 2025
- 1 min read
The rise of authoritarian populism in East-Central Europe is often explained as a political reaction to economic neoliberalism. This chapter undertakes a more nuanced perspective, emphasizing economic growth models and underlying social coalitions. The Growth Model perspective is an alternative analytical lens to the Variety of Capitalisms perspective in comparative political economy. In the 1990s, a set of macro-economic reforms introduced via democratic political means, establishing a dependent export-led growth mode in the region. By the end of the 2000s, however, the economic and social limits of the dependent export model were increasingly apparent. Taking advantage of this opening, populist political forces built new social coalitions to come to power and to implement an adjusted economic growth model.
In: De Gruyter Handbook of Eastern European Politics, Society and Culture (pp.47-60) Chapter: 3 Editors: Gerald M. Easter
