DEMOS Leader Zsolt Boda Says "Populism Challenges Institutions of Liberal Democracies"

Populism is a complex term usually carrying a negative connotation, often associated with leaders who criticize the elite—be it political, academic or scientific—that their citizens view, and react to, with skepticism. Scholars have tried to define the term and label parties and politicians as such, but the H2020 Research and Innovation Action project DEMOS seeks to go beyond that, taking into account both the individual level, psychological roots of populist attitudes and describing the features and consequences of populist governance. In an interview for the Hungarian radio channel Civil Rádió on March 6Zsolt Boda, the leader of DEMOS, spoke about the goals of the project. One of them is to cover populism through multiple manifestations across Europe and beyond, shedding light on its varieties, how populism relates to specific cultural contexts, and how different social actors react to the challenges of populism.

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About our Institute

The primary objective of the Institute for Political Science of MTA Centre for Social Sciences is to conduct basic research in political science. Researchers at the Institute conduct both theoretical and empirical research, and the results are disseminated to both the academic and general public at scientific and professional forums.

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24th Annual Conference of the Hungarian Political Science Association

24th Annual Conference of the Hungarian Political Science Association

The Test of Democracy? Elections – Participation – Representation

The central theme of the 24th Annual Conference of the Hungarian Political Science Association revolves around the 2018 Hungarian parliamentary elections and its lessons for political science. Besides examining the institutional and regulatory context of the elections, the conference pays great attention to the issues of political participation and representation and to those symptoms of crisis that are related to the lack of participation. The sections of the conference aspire to highlight various aspects of elections, participation and representation and aim to draw normative and/or descriptive observations as well as discuss theoretical or empirical scholarly reflections on these issues.

Institute for Political Science 2.0

On the occasion of the Researchers’ Night 2017, we launched the PTIblog which is designed to be the main online platform for communicating our activities towards the general public. The entries (available in Hungarian) have been being published twice a month. All represent the very best essence of our research products. The aim is to provide short, jargon-free but strictly evidence-based reflections to politics. The covered topics (so far) are the hybrid regimes, contentious politics, right wing radicalism, leadership, populism, political thoughts, party politics, political behaviour and many more.

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