Mihai Varga
I teach sociology at the Institute for East European Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. In teaching and research I focus on state-society relations and political economy of liberalization (and in particular of the resistance to it, including the rise of illiberal forces in Eastern Europe). My published work deals with topics as varied as the World Bank's record of fighting poverty through land reform, trade unions, far-right and right-wing formations, and commercialization in food supply chains.
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Papers by Mihai Varga
how formal organisations of the far right interact with skinhead subcultures and local communities. It
argues that government actions have facilitated an increase in recent far-right militancy (2004–2006) in
Russia: the authorities have provided the far-right with political opportunities that their organisations
use to coordinate further actions, recruit new members and gain visibility.
Books by Mihai Varga
Worker protests in post-communist Romania and Ukraine is a book about strategies of trade unions confronting employers in difficult conditions. The book's main idea is to study why and how successful forms of workers' interest representation could emerge in a hostile context. The post-communist context makes it difficult for workers and trade unions to mobilise, pose threats to employers, and break out of their political isolation, but even under such harsh conditions strategy matters for defending workers' rights and living standards. The cases studied in this book are 18 conflict episodes at 10 privatised plants in the Romanian steel industry and Ukraine's civil machine-building sector in the 2000s. This book should be relevant for anyone taking interest in how and to what extent workers can reassert their influence over the conditions of production in regions and economic sectors characterised by disinvestment (of which outsourcing and 'lean' methods of production are instances).
An increasingly complex counter-movement to liberalism developed across the European continent, taking the form of a practical questioning of central institutions and approaches, but also – and perhaps most importantly – taking place at the ideological level. Scholars, media, and mainstream politicians across Europe were quick to squeeze such ideological departures from the recent liberal vision of the polity and market economy into the notion of populism. Yet while highlighting important commonalities, populism does not capture the depth or detail of the contestation that liberalism is now being met with in post-communist Europe. Described as a “thin-centered” ideology (Mudde 2004, Freeden 1998), populism needs “thicker” or “full” ideologies in order to achieve concrete political goals (Stanley 2008).
This is where our research comes in (Bluhm and Varga forthcoming), developing a series of projects on how contestations of liberalism unfolded in three post-communist states: Poland, Hungary, and Russia. Perhaps important to note, it is often precisely these three countries that are singled out today, both in academic research as well as media accounts, as being at the forefront of illiberalism. We argue that it is conservatism that became the “thick” ideology to complement populism in challenging the liberal order in recent years. Conservatism has become a joint reference point for the ideologues and activists who use it not only for self-identification but also for identifying each other – including their counterparts abroad.
how formal organisations of the far right interact with skinhead subcultures and local communities. It
argues that government actions have facilitated an increase in recent far-right militancy (2004–2006) in
Russia: the authorities have provided the far-right with political opportunities that their organisations
use to coordinate further actions, recruit new members and gain visibility.
Worker protests in post-communist Romania and Ukraine is a book about strategies of trade unions confronting employers in difficult conditions. The book's main idea is to study why and how successful forms of workers' interest representation could emerge in a hostile context. The post-communist context makes it difficult for workers and trade unions to mobilise, pose threats to employers, and break out of their political isolation, but even under such harsh conditions strategy matters for defending workers' rights and living standards. The cases studied in this book are 18 conflict episodes at 10 privatised plants in the Romanian steel industry and Ukraine's civil machine-building sector in the 2000s. This book should be relevant for anyone taking interest in how and to what extent workers can reassert their influence over the conditions of production in regions and economic sectors characterised by disinvestment (of which outsourcing and 'lean' methods of production are instances).
An increasingly complex counter-movement to liberalism developed across the European continent, taking the form of a practical questioning of central institutions and approaches, but also – and perhaps most importantly – taking place at the ideological level. Scholars, media, and mainstream politicians across Europe were quick to squeeze such ideological departures from the recent liberal vision of the polity and market economy into the notion of populism. Yet while highlighting important commonalities, populism does not capture the depth or detail of the contestation that liberalism is now being met with in post-communist Europe. Described as a “thin-centered” ideology (Mudde 2004, Freeden 1998), populism needs “thicker” or “full” ideologies in order to achieve concrete political goals (Stanley 2008).
This is where our research comes in (Bluhm and Varga forthcoming), developing a series of projects on how contestations of liberalism unfolded in three post-communist states: Poland, Hungary, and Russia. Perhaps important to note, it is often precisely these three countries that are singled out today, both in academic research as well as media accounts, as being at the forefront of illiberalism. We argue that it is conservatism that became the “thick” ideology to complement populism in challenging the liberal order in recent years. Conservatism has become a joint reference point for the ideologues and activists who use it not only for self-identification but also for identifying each other – including their counterparts abroad.