Cultural War or Mimetic Conflict? Illiberalism as Legitimacy in contemporary Europe

Conventional wisdom sees illiberal politics in East-central Europe as an illegitimate rejection of liberal democracy. What appears as a cultural war in rejection of western modernity and its attendant values and norms should be more accurately described as a process of legitimacy-formation in a region where collective identities are liminal and have largely been constructed in mimetic conflicts with western models. This paper explores three theses on cultural sources of the polarisation around the nationalist and illiberal turns in Poland and Hungary. First, the long-standing non-congruity of state borders with national consciousness created a psychology of fear and encirclement. Borders and meanings of collective national identity in the region have traditionally been liminal, weak, and porous. Second, the populist turn seeks a model of sovereign autonomy, which only in appearance is anti-Western. It is closer to a mimetic catching up, seeking sovereignty within domestic narratives, myths, and symbols, not as a poisoned gift by the secularised western Europe. Third, the nationalist turn in some Central Europe countries testifies not so much to a resentment of a technocratic-globalist European centre but rather to an unrequited love of not being accepted as equals.