Books
Conor O’Dwyer, Coming Out of Communism: The Emergence of LGBT Activism in Eastern Europe (New York: New York University Press, 2018).
In my most recent book, I examine how homophobic backlash unexpectedly strengthened mobilization for LGBT political rights in post-communist Europe.
- Reviewed in Perspectives on Politics, June 2019, Vol. 17/No. 2, pp. 609-610. (link)
- Reviewed in the Slavic Review, Winter 2019, Vol. 78/No. 4, pp. 1078-1079. (link)
- Profiled on the blog Notches, October 2019. (link)
Conor O’Dwyer, Runaway State-Building: Patronage Politics and Democratic Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).
Based on a comparison of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, my first book argues that the critical factor in postcommunist state-building is the robustness of party competition. The legacy of communism creates strong pressures for patronage politics, which swells the administration, but it is party competition that determines whether the predisposition to patronage politics in fact becomes the practice of patronage politics.
Articles & Book Chapters
Conor O’Dwyer. 2024. “Backsliding versus Backlash: Do Challenges to Democracy in East Central Europe Threaten LGBTQIAP Empowerment?” East European Politics and Societies. (https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254231182999)
Dong-Joon Jung & Conor O’Dwyer. 2024. “The demography of intolerance: communist legacy, demographic threat, and attitudes toward homosexuality,” East European Politics, (https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2024.2331504)
Conor O’Dwyer and Matthew Stenberg. 2022. “Local-Level Democratic Backsliding? The Consolidation of Aspiring Dominant-Party Regimes in Hungary and Poland.” Government and Opposition, 57, pp. 508-531.
doi:10.1017/gov.2021.12
Conor O’Dwyer. 2021. “What is to be Done? Framings of Urban Populism in Prague and Warsaw.” Urbana: Urban Affairs and Public Policy, 22: 40-62. (https://doi.org/10.47785/urbana.6.2021)
Conor O’Dwyer. 2020. “Russian and Eastern European LGBT Movements and Interest Groups.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1276
Conor O’Dwyer. 2019. “The Democratization of Urban Planning in Prague?” In Nebojša Čamprag and Anshika Suri (eds.), Three Decades of Post-socialist Transition. Conference Proceedings. Darmstadt, tuprints, pp. 501-508. ” (https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/id/eprint/9222).
Conor O’Dwyer. 2018. “The Benefits of Backlash: EU Accession and the Organization of LGBT Activism in Postcommunist Poland and the Czech Republic,” East European Politics and Societies
(https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325418762051).
Conor O’Dwyer. 2017. “The Struggle for LGBT Rights.” In Adam Fagan and Petr Kopecký (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics. London & New York: Routledge, 245-254.
Conor O’Dwyer and Peter Vermeersch. 2016. “From Pride to Politics: Niche-Party Politics and LGBT Rights in Poland,” In Koen Slootmaeckers, Heleen Touquet, and Peter Vermeersch (eds.), The EU Enlargement and Gay Politics: The Impact of Eastern Enlargement on Rights, Activism and Prejudice (London: Palgrave Macmillan): 123-146.
Conor O’Dwyer, “Remembering, Not Commemorating, 1989: The 20-Year Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic,” In Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik (eds.), Twenty Years After Communism: The Politics of Memory and Commemoration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 171-192.
Conor O’Dwyer, “What Accounts for Party System Stability? Comparing the Dimensions of Party Competition in Postcommunist Europe,” Europe-Asia Studies 66:4 (2014): 511-535. (Article here)
Conor O’Dwyer, “Does the EU Help or Hinder Gay-Rights Movements in Postcommunist Europe? The Case of Poland,” East European Politics 28:4 (2012): 332-352. (Article here; Article proofs here)
Conor O’Dwyer, “Gay Rights and Political Homophobia in Postcommunist Europe: Is there an ‘EU Effect’?”, In Meredith L. Weiss and Michael J. Bosia (eds.), Homophobia Goes Global: States, Movements, and the Politics of Oppression (University of Illinois Press, 2013): 103-126.
Conor O’Dwyer, “From NGOs to Naught: The Rise and Fall of the Czech Gay-Rights Movement,” In Kerstin Jacobsson and Steven Saxonberg (eds)., Beyond NGO-ization: The Development of Social Movements in Central and Eastern Europe (Ashgate, 2013): 117-138.
Conor O’Dwyer and Katrina Z.S. Schwartz, “Minority Rights After EU Enlargement: A Comparison of Antigay Politics in Poland and Latvia,” Comparative European Politics 8:2 (2010): 220-243. (Article here)
Conor O’Dwyer, “From Conditionality to Persuasion? Europeanization and the Rights of Sexual Minorities in Postaccession Poland,” Journal of European Integration 32:3 (2010): 229-247. (Article here)
Conor O’Dwyer and Branislav Kovalčík, “And the Last Shall be First: Party System Institutionalization and Second-Generation Economic Reform in Postcommunist Europe,” Studies in Comparative International Development 41 (March 2007): 3-26. (Article here)
Conor O’Dwyer, “Runaway State-Building: How Political Parties Shape States in Postcommunist Eastern Europe,” World Politics 56 (July 2004): 520-53. (Article Here)
Conor O’Dwyer, “Reforming Regional Governance in East Central Europe: Europeanization or Domestic Politics as Usual?” East European Politics and Societies 20:2 (2006): 219-253. (Article here)
Conor O’Dwyer, “Re-stating Party Development in Central and Eastern Europe: A Response,” Czech Sociological Review, 44/6 (December 2008): 1181-1188. (Article here)
Conor O’Dwyer and Daniel Ziblatt, “Does Decentralisation Make Government More Efficient and Effective?” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 44:3 (November, 2006): 326-343.
Christopher Ansell, Vanna Gonzales, and Conor O’Dwyer, “The Variable Geometry of European Regional Economic Development,” In Steve Weber, ed., Globalization and the European Political Economy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
Other
Conor O’Dwyer and Matthew Stenberg, “Local Elections and the Durability of Illiberal Regimes in Hungary and Poland,”All the Russias’ Blog, Jordan Center, New York University. (May 6, 2020).
Conor O’Dwyer, “How Poland’s attacks on LGBT rights strengthened the Polish LGBT movement,” The Washington Post, Monkey Cage. (August 26, 2019).
“The Poland case shows that the EU should not be inhibited from putting pressure on member states over gay rights,” EUROPP: European Politics and Policy Blog. London School of Economics (July 26, 2013).