Participation in the Conference

Andrei Yakovlev, the Head of the Institute for Industrial and Market Studies, took part in the Conference on Eastern Europe's New Conservatives: Varieties and Explanations from Poland to Russia, which was held in Berlin on February 9-10, 2017.

Professor Yakovlev presented his paper "When and why ordinary people and elites in Russia started to turn to non-liberal thinking?"

The major goal of the conference was to explore the communalities and varieties in the new conservatism of Eastern Europe and Russia. News about post-communist Europe has been dominated, ever since the 2000s, by the coming to power of political forces rejecting the “consensus” surrounding market reforms and liberal democracy. These political forces — from the “Law and Justice” party in Poland, through “Fidesz” in Hungary, to Vladimir Putin’s “United Russia” — have been described in various terms, ranging from right-wing “populism” and “backsliding” regimes (to describe the dominant trend in Central Eastern Europe), to “authoritarianism”, “dictatorship”, and “one-man regime” in the case of Russia. From Poland to Hungary and Russia, these actors prefer to call themselves “conservatives”. They locate themselves as a part of a global political, social and intellectual movement against a globalization driven by financial markets.          

For more details please find the program below. conference-flyer.pdf