ABSTRACT
As a living dead, the spectre of populism haunting Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was supposed to be buried and overcome by the rise of liberal constitutionalism. However, society has brought the spectre back in a period witnessing the rise of charismatic authority (Weber) and the revival of a strong sovereign (Schmitt). Using the Lacanian metaphor of the reflection, a society in crisis, filled with anxieties of unstable times ahead, sees its reflection in the mirror as an object that does not possess all these anxieties. The paper's main claim is that the current politics of populism in the CEE region are the effect, not the cause, of crisis because the demand for populism is already rooted in popular sentiments, and populist politics are just a reflection of the state of society. Liberal constitutionalism, teamed up with capitalism, did not provide enough opportunities for filling the desire of everybody, leading to the feeling of economic precarity instead of security for many. The process of developing populism in CEE is portrayed on the steps of the parliament and administration against the judiciary, which serves as a litmus paper of rising populism.
