Conference Agenda

„True democracy is opposed to liberal democracy”. These words open an essay in “The European Conservative”, an online journal, that regularly celebrates Orban‘s “Christian democracy” as a role model of conservative democracy. Conservatism, centering around the idea of an “extra-human origin of the social order independent of human will” and consequently essentially reactionary in its constant endeavour to (re-)establish that good order, is a natural contender of liberalism, with its emphasis on liberty (guaranteed through the protection of individual right), constrained power and neutrality towards different concepts of the “good life” (thus building on equality, tolerance, and pluralism and rejecting any normative order of preferences). As conservatives’ “good order” always builds on hierarchy and authority, it can be characterised as what Kauth and King term “ideological illiberalism”. This new conservatism comes with a different understanding of democracy, a claim to rebuild real popular sovereignty by placing greater emphasis on the commons (the national interest and defence of majority populations; traditional values, religion and patriotism; common sense and attitudes to morality) and reject liberalism’s “radical” overemphasis of the individual. Conservative thinkers call for a “conservative replacement of liberal democracy” understood as the freeing of democracy from the constraints imposed on it by liberalism to make the “true will of the people” heard. this paper wants to step away from the classificatory debates of illiberal democracies (and whether this is democracy at all), but aims to provide a better understanding of how different self-proclaimed “conservatives” understand and frame what they regard as the pathological problems of liberal democracy, in particular in the format the EU propagates. The focus in this paper is on current EU accession candidates and their “new conservatives” (parties and social movements), their design of “civilizational and true” democracy, and their resistance to and contestation of the EU’s liberal conditionality. In their resistance to “Western liberal values” (while not necessarily opposed to joining the EU), they find their role models in the “East”. This is relevant not only for critically addressing the transformative challenges of accession processes (and later potential for backsliding), but it also sheds light on conservative democracy promotion and consequently on conservative alliances in and outside the EU to create a “different” Europe rescued from the “moral, social and economic decay brought about by liberal democracy”.

The paper aims at comparing the European policies of Fidesz and Brothers of Italy. Both parties can be considered populist and right-wing parties, hence, somewhat out of the establishment. Moreover, both parties have criticised the way and form of the European integration several times, so can be considered Eurosceptic parties. Both parties are senior members of the goverment in their countries, which helps to examine not only their communication but also their actions in the light of the European integration process. It is impossible to compare all aspects of their European policies, so the paper focuses on the most important dimensions. The parties' attitude towards the deepeing of the European integration is on the limelight, i.e. how these parties think about the various aspects of the closer integration in certain areas. On the other hand, the paper does not neglect the question of widening of the integration process, so the these parties' opinion on the accession of new member states (Western Balkans, Ukraine etc.). The paper concludes that apart from foreign policy priorities, the examined parties' crticism towards the EU is quite similar and based on their countries' peripheric position within the integration. It raises the question whether we can talk about a centre-periphery division instead of an East-West one.

The populist radical right (PRR) in Europe has long been portrayed as small fringe groups at the outskirts of mainstream politics, groups with neo-fascist agendas, hostile to the very notions of democracy and freedom(s). And yet, over the past few decades, PRR actors across Europe, both in the East and in the West, have not only successfully adopted the mainstream (liberal democratic) vocabulary but also creatively adapted it to their own ideological needs, turning the concepts of democracy and freedom(s) into key discursive tools in their strategies of power struggle. This paper uncovers mechanisms behind the discursive construction and use of the concepts of democracy and freedom(s) by PRR parties in different electoral contexts across the European Union.

By focusing on the cases of two very dissimilar PRR parties from different contexts in the common EU framework – the French National Rally and Polish Law and Justice – the paper offers a (synchronic as well as longitudinal) comparative analysis of electoral speeches given by their respective leaders between 2007 and 2023. Taking inspiration from the post-foundational tradition, it combines Rhetorical-Performative Analysis with some methods and techniques from the toolkit of the Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis focusing on functional grammar, reference analysis, and pragmatics.

The paper shows that despite some differences, PRR actors both in Western and Eastern Europe have effectively appropriated the concepts of democracy and freedom(s) redefining them along populist, nativist, and authoritarian lines. Hence, the PRR has managed to normalise and mainstream its (previously marginal and radical) views and positions ultimately challenging the current hegemonic order in the EU.

By triangulating recent press coverage since the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 with two older multilingual, multinational case study sets, newswire coverage of journalist kidnappings and executions by ISIS in Syria and Iraq from 2012-2014, and broadcast news reports covering lone wolf terror attacks from 2014-2017 across Europe and North America – a unique phenomenon has emerged: the individuation of geopolitical conflict in terms of “individuals at risk” and “risky individuals”.

A tactic of Russia’s hybrid war turned hybrid empire exploits the fundamental social contract of liberal democracy by making the smallest political unit of Western society – the individual whose life and rights must be protected – a target. Whether Belarussian, Ukrainian, or American – athletes, activists, and journalists are detained in spectacular ways as emblematic political pawns. In parallel to covering this, the Western press focuses on numerous classes of individuals – Ukrainian soldiers, refuges, and captured children, Russian emigres, protesters and the LGBTQI+ community – as the individualized everyman, everywoman, everychild that similarly deserve rights.

Risky Individuals though are celebrated and derided in Western press in terms of their outsized influence on the war – Zelensky, Putin, Prigozhin, Musk – representing the other side of the equation. However, this contributes to the social contract of autocracy, wherein the singualrly powerful can relegate entire classes of risky individuals to unnamed masses as represented in the strategic communication of Russian state Media – the slander of populations as foreign agents, degenerate queers, Nazis, and terrorists – justify revanchist invasions of sovereign neighbors, mass conscriptions of racialized population, and wholesale repression across the Russian Federation.