TY - JOUR AU - Tacik, Przemysław PY - 2019/12/29 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - A New Popular Front, or, on the Role of Critical Jurisprudence under Neo-Authoritarianism in Central-Eastern Europe JF - Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Iuridica JA - FOI VL - 89 IS - 0 SE - Articles DO - 10.18778/0208-6069.89.03 UR - https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/Iuridica/article/view/6149 SP - 31-44 AB - <p>The current decade brought a neo-authoritarian wave to the countries in CEE. This&nbsp;process, which in certain respects runs parallel to the populist upsurge in Western countries, has its&nbsp;own specificity. Firstly, by focusing on the clash between “elites” and “the people”, it rekindles – in&nbsp;a displaced, right-wing form – the class conflict which before 1989 was an ideological staple in CEE&nbsp;countries. Secondly, insofar as neo-authoritarianism in CEE has often a distinctly neo-liberal agenda&nbsp;shadowed by declarative anti-globalism and national chauvinism, it warps the field of political&nbsp;struggle. Thirdly, in the neo-authoritarian turn law becomes the crucial field of ideological fight,&nbsp;principally in those countries where populists came to power. In this respect, new governments in&nbsp;CEE resort to a blend of old Fascist tools (such as dismantling of constitutional control and denying&nbsp;the primacy of international law) and new inventions (such as the effective state of exception in&nbsp;some areas of law in Poland introduced in 2015–18). The role of critical jurisprudence in CEE is&nbsp;therefore particularly significant and difficult. The paper argues that liberal jurisprudence, although&nbsp;actively engaged in analysing neo-authoritarianism, does not possess adequate conceptual tools&nbsp;for full success. Therefore critical jurisprudence should urgently take part in explaining neoauthoritarianism&nbsp;in the legal field.</p> ER -