Enyedi, Zsolt2025-03-242025-03-242020-07-022159-916510.1080/21599165.2020.1787162https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/26620Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.The decline of the quality of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe was facilitated by intellectual, ideological, and organizational innovations of a new authoritarian elite. I this article I discuss five such innovations: a particular combination of victim mentality, self-confidence and resentment against the West, the transformation of neighbor-hating nationalisms into a civilizationist anti-immigrant platform, the delegitimization of civil society and the return to the belief in a strong state, the resurrection of the Christian political identity, and the transformation of populist discourse into a language and organizational strategy that is compatible with governmental roles (“populist establishment”). These factors together point to an overarching ideological fame that I call paternalist populism.enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessEast-Central EuropeOrbanPopulismideologynationalismpolitical ChristianityGeography, Planning and DevelopmentDevelopmentPolitical Science and International RelationsJournal articlehttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087568424&partnerID=8YFLogxKEnyedi, Z 2020, 'Right-wing authoritarian innovations in Central and Eastern Europe', East European Politics, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 363-377. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2020.1787162151495994