Authoritarian Trends and Parliamentary Democracy in Europe

Overview & Synopsis

How can we counter the rise in authoritarian attitudes and the loss of trust within European societies? Experts and writers provide survey-based answers. The global financial crisis, Covid, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine: against the backdrop of major crises, European societies are seeking security, and many find this security in a longing for strong leadership, without elections or parliaments, as seen in Italy and France. Growing dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy is the key finding of a study commissioned by Oliver Rathkolb for the Institute of Cultural and Contemporary History at the University of Vienna: in 2022, people in eight European countries were surveyed about their views on history and democratic attitudes, and their responses were compared with a survey from 2019, prior to the Covid pandemic. Based on the results of this comparison and an analysis of the causes, recognised scholars develop models and strategies in this book to raise democratic awareness, seeking to counteract a trend towards an authoritarian era – an era that sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf had already foreseen in the 1990s as a consequence of the social crises brought about by neoliberal turbo-globalisation. These academic findings are complemented by literary reflections on the themes of democracy and authoritarianism by European writers. The book is published in full in English.