Jitka Králová

Present status: PhD Candidate

Working title of thesis: Between Debt and Democracy: Populism, Financialization and Over-Indebtedness in Czech Deindustrialized Regions

Research: With the re-configuration of the global economy towards financialization, the increased reliance of households on consumer credit has emerged as an acute problem of the past decade. In the Czech Republic, this has led to widespread over-indebtedness, spatially concentrated in the poorer deindustrializing regions, which are simultaneously the regions with the highest electoral support for illiberal and populist parties. This research project sets out to investigate these apparent interrelationships. Through an ethnographic study of the Czech deindustrializing spaces, I will examine how the experience of over-indebtedness shapes local political beliefs, agency and (in)action. At the same time, I will analyse the discursive strategies employed by national and regional populist movements in displacing the effects of debt-induced economic and cultural dispossession. As dependence on credit for basic social reproduction and the popularity of populist movements are only expected to rise, my project offers an important intervention into the wider intellectual and policy conversations on debt legislation and the crisis of liberal democracy.

Research interests: capitalism, financialization, social movements, populism, far-right nationalism, deindustrialization, Czech Republic

Research Centre Affiliation: FRINGE