Tensions in representative democracies: causes and consequences

Tensions in representative democracies: causes and consequences 

EMILIJA TUDZAROVSKA

The new ways of doing politics, embodied in the appeals to populism, the appeals to technocracy, or combined both i.e. technopopulism are revealing symptoms of crises of citizen's representation and tensions in representative democracies, in different societies in the EU. Which historical conditions led to the rise of the new populist parties, populist leaders or unelected technocrats, promising to solve the people’s problems? Why are these symptoms present both in Central-East and Western Europe? How the complex intertwining of politics and economics, in a few critical junctures, led to transformations of the societal relations, at the expense of what K. Polanyi has called the “logic of an impersonal market mechanism”?

Dr Emilija Tudzarovska is a University Lecturer in Contemporary European Politics at Charles University, Prague and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences. She is a researcher of SYRI (National Institute for Research on the Socio-Economic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks), as part of PA5, working on polarization & populism. She holds a PhD degree in Public and Social policy obtained as a Marie Currie Fellow under the Horizon 2020 program, PLATO (2017-2022). She recently contributed to Sovereignty in Conflict: Political, Constitutional and Economic Dilemmas in the EU (Palgrave Macmillan) and The Politics of Legitimation in the European Union (Routledge). She has previously worked for the British Embassy in Skopje and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Germany. She regularly writes op-eds for Social Europe, European and Western Balkans media.

Seminar will be held in English.

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