“The interpretation of time has been a challenge to philosophers, writers, and common people alike since the dawn of mankind, more precisely, since the appearance of ancient, natural religions,” our Research Fellow Zsolt Cziganyik and Judit Banhazi (ELTE) write in their article in The AnaChronisT.

Democracy in History
Democracy in History will complement and enrich the work of the other groups of the Democracy Institute by creating a broad historical perspective and opening up the research field toward the humanities. It seeks to focus both on the emergence of democracy as a sociocultural practice and as an ideational framework. Thus, it will engage both with the long-term roots of democratic patterns in pre-modern societies (from political philosophies of classical antiquity and political theology of medieval universities to the medieval communes and early modern noble republicanism) and their modern and contemporary manifestations and legacies (such as debates on the relationship of democracy to constitutionalism, liberalism, or republicanism).
By analyzing various patterns of democratization, our group is aware that this is not a “one-directional” teleological process. Therefore, it will pay special attention to the study of earlier and recent crises of “de-democratization.” Thus, we seek to put contemporary debates into a broad historical framework, but also look at previous instances of de-democratization and processes of democratic revival while having in mind our current problems. Thus, the historical study of the rise of autocratic/totalitarian regimes in past times is relevant to current political discussions and it allows for a critical examination of the dominant civilizationist discourse. In connection to studying patterns and processes of democratization and de-democratization, this research group will also explore the history of “thick” and “thin” ideologies, such as liberalism, socialism, anti-liberalism, nationalism, populism, fascism and their impact on social and political changes.
We will explore questions such as: How to map comparatively national, meso-regional, and global patterns of democratization and de-democratization if we want to go beyond the Huntingtonian “waves,” and consider the backlash of the last decade? Can we use populism as a trans-historical category of internal challenges to democratic regimes going back in time, or is it a recent phenomenon? What is the role of history (politics of remembrance, populist reinterpretation of medieval and recent past, erecting and reinterpreting monuments, rewriting of schoolbooks) in this process? How and when did civil society function as an agent of democratization or of democratic backsliding? How was the creation of autonomous communities instrumentalized by monarchical and state power for various purposes? In order to address these issues, we also plan to involve colleagues working at the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) on the history of transition to team up with Democracy Institute researchers and run common projects.
Website: DI Democracy in History
Contact: democracyinhistory@ceu.edu
Researchers
Balazs Trencsenyi | Lead Researcher / CEU Research Affiliate / CEU Professor |
Thiago Amparo | Research Affiliate |
Nikita Bogachev | Junior Research Fellow |
Zsolt Cziganyik | Research Fellow |
Iva Dimovska | Post-doctoral Fellow |
Anna Grutza | OSUN Doctoral Fellow |
Ferenc Kanyo | Junior Research Fellow |
Nurzhamal Karamoldoeva | Research Fellow |
Agnes Kelemen | Research Assistant |
Gabor Klaniczay | CEU Research Affiliate / CEU Professor |
Laszlo Kontler | CEU Research Affiliate / CEU Professor |
Daryna Koryagina | Research Assistant |
Andras Kovacs | CEU Research Affiliate / CEU Professor |
Noemi Levy-Aksu | Research Affiliate |
Almira Ousmanova | Research Affiliate |
Daniel Palm | Research Fellow |
Zala Pavsic | Post-doctoral Fellow |
Lourdes Peroni | Research Fellow |
Vladimir Petrovic | Research Affiliate |
Istvan Rev | CEU Research Affiliate / CEU Professor / Director of Open Society Archive |
Marsha Siefert | CEU Research Affiliate / CEU Associate Professor |
Katalin Szende | CEU Research Affiliate / CEU Professor |
Renata Uitz | Co-director / CEU Professor |
Jordan Voltz | Junior Research Affiliate |
Alexandr Voronovici | Research Fellow |
Projects
News
“Unfortunately, for reasons beyond our control, we cannot populate this beautiful and modern environment with our own students,” our Research Affiliate Laszlo Kontler, CEU’s Pro-Rector for Budapest said to Nepszava.
The volume of our Research Fellow Zsolt Cziganyik, entitled Utopia Between East and West in Hungarian Literature, provides the first comprehensive study of Hungarian utopian literature in English.
The book of our Research Fellow Zsolt Cziganyik focuses on the most important utopian and dystopian literary texts in nineteenth and twentieth-century Hungarian literature, and therefore widens the scope of the traditionally Anglophone canon.
We are happy to announce that our Democracy in East Central European Utopianism project has launched its new academic blog, entitled Utopia and Democracy.
Audiovisuals
RevDem assistant editor Bence Bari interviews László Kontler, Research Affiliate of the CEU Democracy Institute’s Democracy in History workgroup and lead researcher of the project “History as Democracy.”
Kasia Krzyzanowska interviews Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, a faculty member in History Department at Dartmouth College, on the future of liberalism, especially post-Cold War liberalism as envisioned by American intellectuals.