The Janus-Face of Informal Institutions in the New Democracies: Democracy Innovations in the New Member States

This paper deals with the opportunities of democracy innovations in NMS. It has developed a special focus on the informal institutions and the participative democracy in the democracy-building. The backsliding of the NMS democracy has been largely described in the recent literature, therefore, although this paper has a deep concern with the present “decline of democracy” or “regression of democracy” in NMS, it tries to discuss first of all the “remedies” for the renewal of the NMS democracies and not such much the “disease” itself. The paper offers also a case study of the democracy supporting informal organizations in Hungary and it describes the Hot Autumn in 2014 in Hungary.