Natasza Styczyńska presents a book about populism outside of Western Europe. This, per se, is already a very interesting premise because way too often we tend to conflate ‘European populism’ with just a few Western European countries, while this new volume describes the characteristics of populism in Central and South-Eastern Europe. Moreover, the volume offers a very interesting overview of the features that unite different populist manifestations across Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro as well as the differences between several types of populisms in these countries. Natasza Styczyńska discusses the interactions between populism and phenomena such as Euroscepticism, religion, corruption, clientelism and oligarchic structures across Central and South-Eastern European countries, with an eye to the post-communist transition and the formation of ‘democratic illiberalism’.

Enjoy the read…