ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses mechanisms and consequences of populist radical right mainstreaming in Central and Eastern Europe, discussing these processes in broader context. It shows that political agency of established parties plays a pivotal role in the spiral of legitimation of PRR politics. Reciprocal mainstreaming by PRR parties and of PRR politics normalizes PRR counter-modernization frames that – if internalized by established parties – become legitimized as illiberal counter-narrative of mainstream values and democracy itself, ultimately deployed to discursively justify democratic deconsolidation. Hence, while PRR parties effectively use their political agency to ‘trump the mainstream’, the mainstream is well able of trumping itself.
