Nostalgic Demography: Geo-Political Resilience and Legacy Dynamics

This paper explores the ways in which historical and geo-political legacies influence the strategic frames used by Populist Radical Right Parties in Central Eastern Europe. Homing in on the Parties relationship with prior regional superpower, Russia, I explore how Nostalgia – as both a positive and negative emotion – is used by these Parties within the socio-cultural policy realm. Within this remit, this paper concentrates on Demographic and Family Policy, which is broadly conceived to refer to pro-natal policies, the endorsement of traditional familial structures and, the simultaneous demonisation of “foreign …LGBT ideologies.” Considered alongside partnered Framing Strategies of Native Othering, and Securitisation, this paper positions Nostalgia centre stage and develops the argument that the emotional tenacity of this core strategy is such that it is able to metamorphose whilst retaining its compellability, resonance and crucially its supporting role within the Demographic Frame Network implemented by Populists in Central Eastern Europe. In order to demonstrate this versatility, this paper selects Populist Parties from differing points along the Russian-Spectrum. This criterion forms the IV within this paper, and as such determines Case Study Selection. Accordingly, this paper commences with a focused analysis of how Nostalgic Demography is articulated by an ardent anti-Russian Populist Party, PiS. This is then followed by the fascinating case of EKRE, who are included within this paper, as despite being traditionally positioned as a pro-nativist party, have displayed a palpable tendency towards Russian-inspired practices and socio-cultural dispositions, particularly relating to the construction of a normal family, and anti-LGBTQ discourses. Finally, this paper considers the pragmatic/sympathetic position maintained by Fidesz in Hungary. Furthermore, a product of conducting this analysis within the “pro-peace” context, this paper is particularly enriched by a concerted focus on how Nostalgia Frames may encounter challenges in particular geo-political environments (most explicitly those which contradict or accentuate the Parties position on the Russian-spectrum). Yet, as I exemplify, these strategies display a remarkable level of resilience, elasticity and continue to feature – albeit in some cases in amended forms – as a central component of the Parties framing package within the Demographic and Family Policy domain. In order to advance this argument, this paper applies a sequential design featuring discourse analysis of populist-authored press statements (Fairclough, 1993), visual analysis of social media content (Rose, 2023) and finally enriching the desk-based analysis with a series of semi-structured elite interviews. All of this data - once coded in line to a reiterative process centred around the frames, and their accompanying sub-frames - will be evaluated according to a series of distinct geo-political phases, dating from 2015-2024. This encompasses a range of proximate geo-political crises points ranging from the Migrant Crisis to the Full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This span is consciously broad, providing space to consider the individual dynamics of each shock, and explore how resilience - which is treated not as rigid statis, but rather a series of controlled modifications which foresee, respond to, and evolve in line with geo-political shocks - is displayed.