Abstract: Why have liberal democracies yielded to illiberal populism? Comparing Hungary and the United States, we argue that the interaction between socioeconomic shocks and the strategic failures of center-left parties drives this transformation. We combine fine-grained Hungarian settlement-level data on industrial employment, mortality, and electoral outcomes from 1990 to 2010 with a content analysis of party manifestos, linking demand-side material dislocations to supply-s

This study for the FOUNDATION FOR EUROPEAN PROGRESSIVE STUDIES maps the international infrastructure scaling Orbán’s counter-hegemonic project. The roots of this counterhegemonic project go back to the exhaustion of liberal globalism, which created fertile ground for far-right challengers. Instead of progressive correction, the far right seized the initiative, treating the crisis of globalization as an opening for a long-term counter-hegemonic project. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary

Excited to see our new paper out in Comparative Political Studies. In this study, we extend the research on anti-immigrant attitudes by analyzing an overlooked factor: health. We develop a framework explaining why residents perceive competition for health services with immigrants. Using data from eleven rounds of the European Social Survey, covering 222,989 respondents in 30 European countries (2002–2023), we find a consistent association between poor health and anti-immigrat

Thrilled to see our new paper out now in European Journal of Sociology Abstract Social reproduction scholars have made headway in integrating the analysis of capitalism, class, gender, and care. We offer two contributions to this literature. First, we provide a novel framework with insights into companies as sites of decommodification, shaping childcare cost distribution and affecting childbearing rates. Second, we extend social reproduction research geographically to the oft

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, est

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

Populism scholars cannot ignore the robust causal evidence on the disruptive political effects of economic insecurity and claim that economic factors play no role in populism. To beat right-wing populism, politicians and policymakers need to tackle economic insecurity. My piece in the Culture Wars Papers of the Illiberalism Studies Program.

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