J. D. Vance’s Munich Speech: Neo-Liberal Autocracy vs. Populist Democracy

Ideological proliferation of actors in democratic society evolved in last few decades. Europe faces new wave of populist right and left movements primarily as a reaction of old establishment political subjects and bureaucratization of social environment. Monopoly of power distribution concentrated toward social elites with lower legitimacy is increasing which is obvious in lower turnout on elections, especially in supranational bodies as EU parliament. On the other side, populist movements are using the moment of rigid political mobilization with continues progressive results. The reaction on old party system is to use bureaucratic society and fetishizing neo-liberal ideology in its core, addressing individualism sometimes to absurd, and neglecting collective social entities, including family and its values.
In Munich summit J.D. Vance surprised the public with the speech where he focused on jeopardizing of essential democratic principles in Europe. The value system of democracy recognized the legitimacy derived from popular will. The recent case of Romania’s presidential elections used the argument of Russian hybrid threat to disqualify candidate which had no establishment background, was critical toward EU and proclaimed closer relations with USA. But, also, he was exponent of traditional value system, discarding extreme features of neo-liberal policies. Similar example was in April 27, 2017 events in Macedonian parliament, where the President of the parliament was elected with minority votes, which make the process non-legitimate and non-legal.
Through the prism of the war in Ukraine, if we extract only ideological premises. It’s noticeable that the clash was between democratic model of Ukraine, and autocratic Russian model. Existential threat of Putin’s regime is to have fully functional democracy with its Slavic neighbor. Therefore, Putin is using its hybrid tools to deflect European political changes toward reaction of the old elites vs. new populist. This is diminishing basic democratic values and can make Europe more authoritarian.

Democracy, populism, J. D. Vance, autocracy, values, Ukraine, Russia.