Collegium Carolinum,
and the Institute of Contemporary History
cordially invite you to the lecture

DR. MICHAL KOPEČEK, MGR. MATĚJ SLAVÍK (PRAGUE)

Illiberal Constitutionalism: Oxymoron or Embedded Historical Tradition?

Thursday, March 12 2026, 6.30 p. m.
Valentinská 91/1, 3rd Floor

This lecture presents key findings from the concluding volume of the research project Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East Central Europe: Historical Analysis in Comparative and Transnational Perspectives. The multi-disciplinary project examines the deeper origins of the illiberal turn in several EU member states in East Central Europe and assesses its broader implications for Europe’s constitutional architecture. Bringing together intellectual and political history, constitutional theory, and legal sociology, the project traces the lineages of illiberalism and illiberal constitutionalism within, across, and beyond national contexts. Rather than treating illiberal constitutionalism as a sudden deviation from liberal-democratic norms, the research situates it within longer historical trajectories.

The presentation will outline the project’s historical approach and develop it through an analysis of the changing role and character of constitutionalism: in the late socialist period before 1989, during the democratic revolutions, and in the decade that followed. By embedding contemporary developments in a broader temporal framework, the lecture invites reflection on whether illiberal constitutionalism represents a conceptual contradiction, or a recurring pattern rooted in the region’s constitutional and political history.

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Michal Kopeček and Matěj Slavík are scholars at the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences.