WHERE IS REGIONALISM DISAPPEARING? COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF REGIONALIST MOVEMENT TRANSFORMATION IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPE

Abstract

The study of regionalism has been, perhaps, one of the trends in the world political science for more than half a century. At the same time, the main attention of researchers is attracted by cases of “successful” regionalism (for example, in Spain or Great Britain), while “unsuccessful” (in electoral terms) regionalisms remain without proper analysis. The purpose of this study was to identify the main factors contributing to the decline of the regionalism. Based on the materials of three regionalisms in Central Eastern Europe (Somogy, Moravia and South Slovakia), these factors were identified. As a research method, a small-N qualitative comparison was used. The study identified three groups of factors that can potentially influence the success of the regionalist movement: factors associated with the activity of regionalist actors, institutional factors and factors of regional identity. Each of these factors, directly and in combination with others, can affect the success of the regionalist movement. Thus, for Moravian regionalism, the decisive factors of decline were the organizational weakness of the regionalist party combined with the decline of regional identity; for regionalism in Somogy, the fatal reform of the administrative-territorial structure of Hungary, depriving the regions of any autonomy and real power, and Hungarian regionalism in Slovakia, deprived institutional and organizational privileges, has lost its electoral significance. In general, the decline of the regionalist movement in this context only in one case out of three led to the disappearance of the regionalist movement itself, in two cases it was successfully transformed into other organizational forms. Thus, the study identifies the main factors of the decline of regionalism and identifies possible models of its transformation.