Direct Democracy in Post-Socialist Central Europe

This book examines how local referendums function within representative democracy in post-socialist Central Europe, focusing primarily on the Czech Republic and placing the Czech experience in a broader Visegrád context. Drawing on an original dataset of Czech local referendums between 2000 and 2025, it analyses when and where referendums take place, the issues they address, patterns of participation, and their relationship to local political conflict. The book argues that local referendums are best understood neither as an alternative to representative democracy nor as inherently populist instruments, but as an ambivalent corrective to representative decision-making. They can strengthen citizen control and require direct community consent on contentious decisions, while also revealing failures of trust, communication and legitimacy. The book further examines the contrast between the practical use of local referendums and the populist rhetoric of direct democracy, before situating the Czech case alongside developments in Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

Petr Bláha is Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic. His research focuses on democracy, political participation, direct democracy, local politics, populism and political representation in Central Europe. His work has examined local referendums, democratic performance, civic participation and political change in the Czech Republic and the broader Central European region. He has published in peer-reviewed journals and contributed to international edited volumes on democracy, populism and political participation.