Illiberal Revolution: V4 or EU phenomenon? • Bartosz Rydliński (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw)

For the last couple of years, Central Europe has witnessed many political shifts. Public opinion in the Visegrad 4 countries has changed significantly after the economic recession of 2008, the EURO currency crisis, and the wave of refugees. Victor Orbán, Jarosław Kaczyński, and Robert Fico have become the faces of an illiberal shift in Europe. How does illiberalism in Central Europe compare to and interact with similar tendencies in Great Britain, France, and Germany? Dr. Rydliński will analyze how the post-1989 transitions, European integration, and current EU conflicts are shaping the ongoing illiberal developments in V4 countries and also in the “old” member states of the EU.

Bartosz Rydliński is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, where he also earned his PhD in 2013. He was a visiting scholar at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University and is currently an EASI-Hurford Next Generation Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His current research examines how Polish-German reconciliation and cooperation affects relations between Russia and the West.
 
This talk is made possible by University Studies Grant from the International Visegrad Fund.