Anna Grzymała-Busse, Piotr Zagórski | Democratic Erosion in Europe? The Recent Elections in Poland and Slovakia

As part of Democracy Day events around campus, The Europe Center will host a discussion of the recent elections in Poland and in Slovakia. Both featured prominent populist politicians and parties who have eroded democracy, stoked nationalism and xenophobia, and violated informal norms of democracy. What do these elections mean for the future of democracy in the region? This panel brings together Anna Grzymala-Busse (director of The Europe Center) and Piotr Zagórski (Margarita Salas Fellow at the Autonomous University of Madrid). 

Anna Grzymała-Busse is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, director of The Europe Center, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Grzymala-Busse's research focuses on state development and transformation, religion and politics, political parties, and post-communist politics. Her other areas of research interest include populism, democratic erosion, and informal institutions.

Piotr Zagórski is a Margarita Salas Fellow at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he earned his PhD in Political Science. Currently he is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Euroasian Studies at UC Berkeley. He is a member of the Polish National Election Study at the SWPS University in Warsaw. His research interests include electoral behavior, historical legacies, and populist parties. He has published in Political Behavior, West European Politics, and East European Politics and Societies, and his research has been featured, among others, in El País, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Polityka.

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by October 26, 2023.

Co-sponsored by Stanford Democracy Day