About us
POPREBEL (Populist Rebellion Against Modernity) was a H2020-funded research project run by a consortium of seven partners: UCL (co-ordinating institution), Jagiellonian University, Charles University, Tartu University, Corvinus University of Budapest, Belgrade University and Edgeryders.
The project, whose funding has ended, is now in its final stage. Our researchers have already published many books and articles, and they are all referenced in these pages. A small group is now completing the final segment of the project – semantic network analysis of our ethnographers’ conversations with people in Poland and the Czech Republic. Once this study is finished (early summer of 2025), we will enter the final stage of preparations for the summarizing publications of the project. You can get the preliminary taste of this aspect of our studies in Working Paper 14 Working Paper no. 14: A large-scale ethnography of populism in the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland..
In general, the project aims at taking stock of the recent rise of populism – in its various forms – in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), including the Western Balkans. Its trajectory is not just interesting in and of itself: it is also the harbinger of a possible future for the whole continent that by now (early 2025) looks increasingly alarming. It is urgent for Western Europeans to look into the CEE mirror, just as it is urgent for the CEE region to understand itself. We describe the phenomenon, create a typology of its various manifestations, reconstruct trajectories of its growth and decline, investigate its causes, interpret its meanings, diagnose its consequences, and propose policy solutions. Our focus is on the CEE region, but we will engage in comparisons with populisms in other parts of the world, particularly Western Europe.
The present wave of populist mobilizations in Europe is more politically consequential than any of the previous waves and it has already produced an ‘extraordinary’ [Brubaker 2017a, 2017b] reconfiguration of the political map of Europe. Populist parties have become significant political players in several countries, including Italy, Holland, Austria, France, UK, and Germany, and their number and influence has been systematically growing (Hall et al, 2023). For example, Brexit vote in the UK might have gone the other way had it not been for the campaigning by the populist UKIP.
Our work has focused particularly on Hungary (still governed by right-wing populists) and Poland (where they governed between 2015 and 2023). We have also conducted studies of various aspects of right-wing populist politics in Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, and the Czech Republic. While it may no longer be the case that ‘populists are the strongest in Eastern Europe’ [Eiermann et al. 2018], it is this part of the continent that provides us with rich data on what happens when right-wing populist govern a country for several years. We have studied the rise of populism in this part of Europe in order to draw lessons that will be applicable also to other countries. No doubt Eastern Europe has some specific features, but since the phenomenon is so intensely pronounced in that part of the continent we believe it is easier to diagnose the causes of its emergence, reconstruct its basic features, and formulate policy recommendations that may be helpful also in other contexts. We do rely, however, on comparisons with other parts of Europe and the world when our specific tasks call for them.