This brief introduction to the conference explores the subtle philosophical implications behind every wall’s construction. A wall serves not only as a material barrier but also as a symbol that within the enclosed space, a specific social order prevails, while outside it, that order no longer holds. In this sense, the act of building a wall raises fundamental questions about the universality of order. Every wall, in turn, challenges the possibility of “perpetual peace,” a human aspiration that predates Kant’s famous work on the subject.

Our historical moment is often described as an illiberal “counter-revolution” that explicitly rejects the hopes and values of the annus mirabilis 35 years ago. I first hope to show that many of the aspects that we associate with the more recent populist rejection of liberalism are not new, but were present during the transition. Secondly, there was a good amount of border-crossing in 1989, but much of it was neither voluntary nor welcome. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly: while many barriers have been constructed to keep unwanted peoples from entering various territories, wall construction has not only been physical. We have done the same with the inheritance of 1989 itself, erecting a set of conceptual walls, doors, and bridges that have prevented us from acknowledging the underside of 1989 and its aftermath. I will revisit some of the forgotten events and legacies of that revolutionary year, and why its evolving relevance has become a new foundational past for our own time.

The thesis of this article is that if borders did not exist, Eurosceptic leaders would have invented them. To paraphrase Sartre, populism and Euroscepticism need borders in the same intense political and symbolic way as anti-Semitism needs Jews. This thesis is argued in three steps. The first analyzes the paradox of the intense theoretical deconstruction of borders in the era of an overbordered world and argues the ideas of the “revenge of the State” and of the emergence of the “neo-post-Westphalian order.” The second part examines the post-communist Europeanization as de-bordering and distinguishes three forms: Europeanization through utopianization, Europeanization through ethnic de-bordering, and Europeanization through de-territorialization. The third part analyzes the interferences and intensification of re-bordering, populism, and Euroscepticism. Stato-national and the ethno-identitarian bordering practices are analyzed through the images of wall and body. Two types of Euroscepticism—extremist and crypto—are distinguished and compared.

With the populist turn, metapolitical questions have taken center stage (Stanley & Bill 2020). Political debate shifted away from substantive discussion on policy ideas and moved to questions of legitimacy: whose ideas are legitimate? Who is a legitimate political actor? “Metapolitical” discourse, focusing on moral issues—who counts as legitimate or worthy to participate in politics, and potentially to govern—became dominant. And “Manichean” moral discourse—“Good is identified with the unified will of the people and Evil with a conspiring elite” and “people [are] in a moral battle against elites” (Hawkins 2009)—is believed to be at the core of all populist politics (Mansbridge and Macedo 2019). In this paper I will argue that it is important to analytically distinguish benign from not-so-benign uses of metapolitical moral arguments in democratic politics. The first step is to set apart “moralistic” from “moral” arguments in politics (McKeeben 2023). Populism is undeniably defined by (1) “moralism”—a distinctly punitive form of exclusion, which seeks to undermine the equal moral status of the target of criticism, and by (2) anti-pluralism. Yet the use of moral arguments is crucial for a working democratic polity. Such moral arguments may take the form of moral criticism—a “restrained and thoughtful method of holding persons accountable for their actions” (Ibid.)—but need not be limited to this form. Next, by closely looking at the democratization process in Bulgaria post-1989, I try to identify benign, redemptive uses of metapolitical moral arguments in Bulgaria’s transition politics that do not collapse into populist over-moralization. My claim here is that without the use of moral arguments—without the constant morally-charged contestation of the right of the communist party successor to govern—transitional reforms would hardly have started, let alone succeeded. Lastly, I propose a criterion for distinguishing benign and not-so-benign uses of moral arguments. Simply put, it is whether they serve to facilitate pro-reform policies or serve other, possibly “private,” objectives. Thus, while populists tend to use “moralizing” to discredit all adversaries without proposing realistic policy alternatives to solve identified problems, “reformist” democrats tend to use them to mobilize support for painful and difficult (because opposed by the status quo) policy reforms. To the extent discreditation is used here, it is directed towards the parts of the status quo that resist socially necessary reforms, and not towards competitors to power as an end in itself.

My presentation will focus on one dimension of contemporary populism which I believe is the most dangerous for ex-communist countries. Designated as “conservative populism,” its most powerful resource is the past. Memory is used to legitimize populist claims and to delegitimize open discussion and solutions of complex problems in the present. The cultivation of national identity via heritage, tradition, and collective memory played a crucial role in the formation of modern nations. “Conservative populism” abuses this logic by radicalizing the opposition between cultural identity and liberal democratic order, thus creating false dichotomies and offering populist solutions.

People often tend to equate liberalism as a political ideology with liberal democracy as a system of government. It is true that liberal democracy emerges from the general framework of liberal ideas and values of the Enlightenment. In the process of its development, liberal democracy takes shape as a mechanism of integrating diverse political ideas and mindsets into a pluralist system of government, regulated by a minimal number of common rules. It is an inclusive system, transforming long-term rivals or even enemies into partners. In the early 19th-century, the equilibrium between conservative and liberal movements into a system of limited representative democracy was established. In the late 19th –early 20th century, the workers’ movement developed a strong moderate wing and joined the system of liberal democracy—making the introduction of universal suffrage possible. We live in a transitional epoch of rivalry and political polarization that endangers the very existence of liberal democratic government—for the first time after the collapse of major totalitarian systems of the 20th century. Are there opportunities and instruments to safeguard liberal democracy by reframing it and redefining it in the new circumstances?