Constitutional politics and populist conservatism: the contrasting cases of Poland and Romania

Abstract

ABSTRACT The constitution-making processes and trajectories of the East-Central European democracies have been more challenging than often supposed. Consolidation allegedly rests on the ‘liberal consensus’ that emerged after communism. This consensus has been much less robust and widespread than often believed and has increasingly been confronted with illiberal counter-forces. The article contributes to a critical discussion of constitution-making and constitutional politics in the context of the forceful (re-)emergence of conservative, populist forces in the region. The aim is to demonstrate that, first, constitutional politics in post-communist societies have involved significant, ‘post-consolidation’ forms of contestation throughout the post-1989 period. Second, the article shows that anti-liberal, conservative-populist positions have played substantial but rather variegated roles in different societies. In the most frequently discussed cases, conservative populist forces have mobilized to start an illiberal counter-revolution. In others, largely understudied, such a ‘revolution’ seems hardly in the making, even if the political conflict is evident.