The COVID-19 pandemic has not only caused millions to die and even more to lose their jobs, it has also prompted more governments to simultaneously declare a state of emergency than ever before enabling us to compare their decisions more directly. States of emergency usually imply the extension of executive powers that diminishes the powers of other branches of government, as well as the civil liberties of individuals. Here, we analyze the use of emergency provisions during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and find that it can be largely explained by drawing on political economy. It does, hence, not constitute an exception. We show that many governments have (mis-)used the pandemic as a pretext to curtail media freedom. We further show that executive decrees are considered a substitute for states of emergency by many governments.

Media freedom is often curtailed in the wake of terrorist attacks. In this chapter, we ask whether constitutional provisions that are intended – directly or indirectly – to protect media freedom affect the degree to which press freedom is curtailed after terrorist incidents. We find that neither provisions explicitly protecting media freedom nor provisions that might protect media freedom indirectly (such as those guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary) mitigate the post-terror curtailment of press freedom.

Chapter 5 examines the practice of the application of competition law by competition agencies, and identifies the major characteristics of agencies’ practice in countries ruled by populists’ governments. In doing this it examines the manifestations of the influence of populists’ governments on the enforcement of competition law. The chapter examines the nature of enforcement, the application of competition law to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and the influence of exemptions to the application of competition law on its enforcement. In addition, the competition agencies’ advocacy efforts vis-à-vis anticompetitive legislative measures is subjected to scrutiny. The discussed manifestations include limited enforcement, politically motivated enforcement, limited enforcement of the prohibition of abuse of dominance and lenient review of mergers in relation to SOEs, the introduction of exemptions limiting the reach of competition laws, and agency’s limited advocacy role.

Until 1989, communist parties were hegemonic throughout the Central and Southeast European region. With the downfall of communism in the course of 1989–1990, new challenges, opportunities, and problems have presented themselves. In the years following 1989, two states – Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia – broke up into their constituent parts, ten of the resulting fourteen states were admitted into NATO and eight of them also joined the European Union (EU). States in the southern tier continue to be affected by corruption, cronyism, and monopolization of the media. But, prior to 2010, most observers were optimistic about the prospects for states in the northern tier to continue to build liberal democratic states. However, since May 2010 in Hungary and since October 2015 in Poland, there have been tendencies of backsliding, with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán even proclaiming his intention to build and maintain an illiberal de-facto one-party state. Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán have followed the same playbook – restricting and, in Hungary, taking over control of, the media; establishing party control of the judiciary; and playing the patriotic card, while ostracizing gays and lesbians. Religion remains strong in most of the region, with religious affiliation even gaining ground in Bulgaria since 1989.