Linking contemporary concerns about democratic fragility with historical analysis, this volume examines the crisis and failure of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. The contributions explore political culture, constitutional traditions, religion, violence, and crisis discourse in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Rather than focusing narrowly on institutional breakdown, the authors emphasize long-term cultural legacies, narratives of crisis, and exclusionary identities that undermined democratic pluralism. Interwar Europe functioned as a laboratory of democracy whose experiences offer critical insights into the challenges facing liberal democracies today.
