Deconsolidation and Desecuritization in the Visegrad States: The Eastern Periphery of the EU in the New World Order

This paper is based on two assumptions: first, there have been deep deconsolidation and desecuritization processes in the V4 states concerning both the internal and external processes; and second, these processes have taken place in the Old World Order between 1990 and 2015, but in the mid-2010s a New World Order has emerged, so the V4 states nowadays have to face these new realities of the international system in their domestic and foreign policies.These new realities deserves closer analyses in three aspects: (1) the collapse of the EU’s external governance in the EaP due to the revived Russian aggressionism and the failure of its transformation capacity with the priority of democracy promotion and deep trade (the carrot crisis); (2) the refugee crisis that has led to some new convergence in the V4 states as an “Unholy Alliance” (The Economist) producing a deepening conflict between the EU mainstream and the Eastern semi-periphery; and (3) the mutual reinforcement between the internal deconsolidation as the failure of the catching up process and the external desecuritization as the impact of dual crisis (the Ukrainian and refugee crisis) on the V4 developments that has generated a mass xenophobia and increasing popular support for the authoritarian tendencies in the region.The paper investigates these processes and aspects in the V4 region with a special focus on Hungary and Poland and the wider EaP region.