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Societies around the globe have been witnessing the emergence of the radical right, often seen as the result of neoliberal globalization. Democratic governance, liberalism, human rights, and values are being questioned while populist, authoritarian, and ethnonationalist forms of governance are being offered. In the European Union, the tumultuous developments have been testing the viability of the identity marker of Europeanness and its perseverance in EU member states. What we are witnessing are significant shifts in the discourse about sameness and otherness, the convergence of left and right ideologies and the emergence of hybrid forms of authoritarianism and democracy that have been dubbed as illiberal democracy or authoritarian liberalism. The rise of the radical right and its mobilization across the EU member states is reflective of these processes, and it is the goal of this author to understand the mechanisms behind the empowerment, mobilization, and normalization of radical right through the case study of Slovakia. In particular, the effort of this paper is to understand how the far-right party Kotlebovci – Ľudová Strana Naše Slovensko (ĽSNS) in Slovakia re-conceptualized the notion of nation and normalized far-right ideology as a pretext of a broader mobilization.

The following editorial offers a reflection on the situation of Central and Eastern Europe with a special focus on the European Union's Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia. In the past few years, we have witnessed the divisive impact of neoliberalism, economic recession, Britain's departure from the EU, the refugee and migrant crisis which further shattered societies along cultural lines, the aggressive expansionism of Russia exploiting the weakness of the West, and more recently, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic with an unprecedented impact on societies, global health and economy. The editorial reflects on how Central and Eastern Europe scores among the imaginative geographies and how these imaginative geographies translate into geopolitics concerning hard and soft power application in the Eastern European Neighbourhood.