The EAI held an Expert Roundtable on the topic of “Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation in Hungary in the 1990s and 2000s” with Professor Jason Wittenberg and distinguished Korean experts in democracy and Hungarian politics. Professor Wittenberg analyzes how the dynamics in civil society development might have interfered with the processes of democratic consolidation. According to him, while the left-liberal practices of keeping democratic politics and policy making “above” the sphere of society might have impeded democratic consolidation by discouraging popular democratic engagement, the rightist practices of bypassing parliament and appeal to the people directly through civil organization and permanent mobilization might have impeded democratic consolidation “from below” by not respecting the results of democratic elections and undermining trust in democratic institutions in yet other ways.   Topic “Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation in Hungary in the 1990s and 2000s”   Presenter Jason Wittenberg, University of California, Berkeley   Moderator Jin Seok Bae, EAI   Discussants Seung-Jin Jang, Kookmin University Dae-Soon Kim, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Ji Young Kim, National Museum of Korean Contemporary History Jaechul Lee, Dongguk University Jin-Wook Shin, Chung-Ang University