Experts from the Visegrad Four Examine the Impact of Populism, Led by UWB

How are welfare states within the V4 changing and what role does populism play in this process? Researchers at the Faculty of Arts are exploring this question with colleagues from Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia in a new international research project, with plans to present the results to the public.

In recent years, social policies across Europe have faced a series of crises and unexpected events. A major blow came around five years ago with the COVID-19 pandemic; significant consequences have also followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the ongoing conflict that followed. These developments have brought about profound changes not only in the scope of European social policies but also in their focus. An international research team led by the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, together with researchers from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the University of Debrecen, and Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, aims to map these new trends in the development of Central European welfare states and their societal impacts, with a particular focus on the link between social policy and populism.

“Populist political parties have had enormous influence on public policy in all V4 countries, yet this influence has not been comprehensively mapped in terms of how exactly it has manifested itself and what specific outcomes it has produced,” said project coordinator Vladimír Naxera from the Faculty of Arts, UWB. From his perspective, Central Europe represents a politically distinctive region that differs in many respects from the Western and Southern European contexts most commonly studied to date. “Populist actors in Czechia, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary have entirely different histories, positions and rhetorical strategies than is typically the case elsewhere. These characteristics significantly shape social policy — and, ultimately, affect every one of us. Detailed knowledge in this area is therefore absolutely crucial,” Naxera explained.

The findings of the international research team will be summarized in an academic monograph, with additional outputs planned for policymakers and the general public. The initiative is jointly funded by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants of the International Visegrad Fund, which supports sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe. Further details are available on the project’s website.