 Education Duke University, Durham, Ph.D., Political Science (April 2012) Harvard University, Cambridge, M.A. Russian and East European Studies Central European University, Budapest, M.A. Political Economy Charles University, Prague, M.A. Sociology L.BUSTIKOVA at gmail.com Dissertation Revenge of the Radical Right. When Minority Accommodation Provokes Political Backlash [summary is here] How can we explain variation in support for radical right parties over time and across post-communist democracies? This project suggests that support for radical right parties is driven by the politics of accommodation, and is aimed at counteracting the political inroads, cultural concessions and economic gains of politically organized minorities. It differs from other studies of extremist politics in three primary respects: (1) Unlike current approaches that focus on competition between the extreme and mainstream parties, I emphasize dynamics between the radical right party and non-proximate parties that promote minority rights. (2) Several approaches argue that xenophobia drives support for the radical right, whereas I show that xenophobia is not a distinct feature of the radical right party support base; what differentiates radical right voters from other voters is opposition to governmental transfers towards politically organized minorities. (3) I endogenize issue salience and identify coalition politics - i.e., coalitions of mainstream parties and parties supporting minority protection - as a key mechanism that increases the salience of identity issues in political competition, and benefits radical right parties. The project tests these propositions empirically, and finds supportive evidence using two unique micro-level surveys and an original party-election-level data set covering all post-communist democracies. Publications Journal Articles "The Radical Right in Post-Communist Europe. Comparative Perspectives on Legacies and Party Competition," Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 42:4, 459-483, 2009. (with H. Kitschelt). [link] [pdf] [online appendix] What role do legacies of past mobilization under late communist rule play in the success of the radical right parties in Eastern Europe? This article considers two major legacies: the legacy of national-accommodative communism and the legacy of patrimonial communism. We investigate the effect of welfare retrenchment on vote support for radical right in 2000s. Social policy reform retrenchment in universalistic welfare systems has a highly incendiary potential for political conflict and radical parties. In countries with a legacy of national accommodative communism, early differentiation of major parties on socio-cultural issues and strategies of social policy compensation kept reform losers at bay, which limited voter success of radical parties. Highly polarized patrimonial regimes, on the contrary, are the most fertile breeding ground for the radical right due to the high levels of inequality and dissatisfaction resulting from a rapid dismantling of the welfare state. The ethnic composition of countries plays an important role in the radical right mobilization as well. Radical right parties benefit from a situation in which the titular majority faces a small ethno-cultural minority. *reprinted in: Historical Legacies and the Radical Right in Post-Cold War Central and Eastern Europe, Minkenberg, Michael (Ed.), Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, 2010, [link] reviewed [here] "The Extreme Right in Eastern Europe: EU Accession and the Quality of Governance," Journal of Contemporary European Studies 17, 2, 223-239, 2009. [link] [web appendix] [pdf] This paper investigates variation in voter support for extreme-right parties in Eastern Europe, especially among the new EU members. It suggests that the success of the extreme right is a reaction to corruption and the absence of political accountability, and that extremists thrive in competitive democracies where the rule of law is weak. Moreover, it shows that the accession process and EU conditionality contributed to emptying the policy-oriented issue space, and that as EU conditionality has withered away, so too have rapid improvements in the quality of governance. Variation in cross-national support for the extreme right is therefore a reaction to the convergence of the major political parties on the most salient policy issue of the late 1990s—joining the EU. The technocratic and bureaucratic process of EU accession, which was accompanied by declining improvements in the quality of governance, contributed to a ‘vacuum’ effect in the policy space that led to party competition based on identity-based appeals, such as ethnic hatred, and set the stage for the success of the extreme right in Eastern Europe "On Social Network Analysis," Czech
Journal of
Sociology, (XXXV: II), pp. 193-206. This article is an overview of social network analysis, which is viewed as a highly contextual study of social structure. Its development stems from three sources: (1) the sociometry of Moreno, (2) the Harvard School of the 1930s and 1940s, and, lastly, (3) the Manchester School of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to a survey of the analytical terminology, the distinction between strong and weak ties is underlined as a factor that determines social mobility. Two methodological tools of social network analysis are presented: the positional and the relational. Finally, the concept of weak determinism is compared with two concepts of a dual social order. Book Chapters "Welfare Chauvinism, Ethnic Heterogeneity and Conditions for the Electoral Breakthrough of Radical Right Parties: Evidence from Eastern Europe," in: Right-Wing Radicalism Today: Perspectives from Europe and the US, (Eds. Sabine von Mering and Timothy Wyman McCarty), Routledge, 2013. "The Radical Right and its Nearby Competitors: Evidence from Eastern Europe" in: Europeanising Party Politics: Comparative Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, (Eds. P.G. Lewis and R. Markowski), Manchester University Press, 143- 178, 2011, (with H. Kitschelt). [pdf] [link] "The International Mayor," in: The City As An Entertainment Machine: Studies in Urban Innovation, ed. T.N. Clark. Oxford: Elsevier, 2004. (with T.N. Clark and D. Merritt) [link] Selected Presentations 2009-2011 "Clientelism, Economic Development and State Capacity", MPSA, Chicago, March 31-April 2, 2011; also at Duke University, May 18-19, 2011 (with Cristina Corduneanu-Huci) "When Tolerance Breeds Hatred", APSA, Seattle, September 1-4, 2011 "Contentious Coalitions and Bilateral Oppositions: Explaining the Electoral Success of Radical Parties", MPSA, Chicago, March 31-April 2, 2011 "Workshop on Informal Institutions and the Rule of Law", CIDE, Mexico, March 11, 2011 "The Dynamics of Radical Politics," Association for the Study of Nationalities, NYC, April 15-17, 2010 "Radical Parties in Eastern Europe: The Effect of Policy Convergence and Ethnic Heterogeneity on Voting Behavior," American Political Science Association Meeting, Toronto, September, 2009 "The Correlates of Clientelism: Economic Development and Historical State Capacity" Annual American Political Science Association Meeting, Toronto, September, 2009 (with Cristina Corduneanu-Huci) "Redundant Parametrization in Bayesian Generalized Linear Mixed Models," Annual Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology, Yale, 23-25 July, 2009. 2006-2008 "Political Mobilization of Identities in Post-Communist Democracies: Voter Appeals of Brown and Red-Brown Parties," Annual American Political Science Association Meeting, Boston, August 23-31, 2008. "Comparative Perspectives on Legacies and Party Competition," New York University, Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, organized by Michael Minkenberg, April 26-28, 2008 (with H. Kitschelt) "The Importance of Being Centered: Vague Priors in Bayesian Generalized Linear Mixed Models," Workshop on Methodological Frontiers in Comparative Politics, Duke University, April 11 - 12, 2008 "Investigating Variation in Radical Right Parties' Success: Programmatic Competition, Governance Quality and EU Accession," Association for the Study of Nationalities, New York, N.Y., April 10, 2008 "The Radical Right in Eastern Europe: Quality of Governance, EU Accession and Welfare Chauvinism," International Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, March 29, 2008 "The Radical Right in Central Eastern Europe," at "Citizenship, Civil Society & Political Parties in European Constitutional Politics," Jean Monnet Center for European Studies, Bremen; Prague, July 11th-14th, 2007. "The Radical Right in Eastern Europe," Comparative Political Studies Conference (CPS), Duke University, Co-Convenors: James Caporoso and Herbert Kitschelt, 27-8 April, 2007. (with G. Rodriguez) "The Black Box of the Past: Postcommunist Governance, Legacies, and Mechanisms," Post-communist Political Economy and Democratic Politics. Duke University, April 7-8, 2006. (with Cristina Corduneanu-Huci) Teaching Instructor Violence, Conflict and Human Rights, Fall 2011, Spring 2012 Research Methods, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013 Contemporary Global Trends, Fall 2011 Comparative Politics, Spring 2011 Extremist Politics in Europe, Fall 2010 Comparative Politics of Post-Communism, Summer 2006, Spring 2012 TA Quantitative Analysis |