Fareed Zakaria coined the term "illiberal democracy" in a 1997 article in Foreign Affairs to describe the rise of populist democratic states that lacked a culture of constitutional liberalism. The term has gained popularity over the last five years to describe the dismantling of liberal democracy in postcommunist Eastern Europe, especially in Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and more recently Poland. In each of these countries, corrupt oligarchic elites have rooted their legitimacy in authoritarian nationalism while dismantling civil societies and press freedoms. While outside observers initially viewed this move towards authoritarian as "democratic backsliding" within countries that lack a culture of western values, it is now hard to disagree with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who in a recent interview in the Daily Telegraph proclaimed that, with the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, "we have stepped across a threshold...liberal democracy is now over [and] reality has triumphed."

This discussion will offer an introduction to some key characteristics of "illiberal democracy" in Eastern Europe, and consider how these characteristics are reflected (or not) in the American context.

Producer: Sean Clybor

Dr. Shawn Clybor (Ph.D. Northwestern), is an Eastern European historian and former Fulbright-Hays scholar who spent a total of four years living in the Czech Republic.