Because democracy in "the West" shows signs of decay and crisis and is lost in bureaucratic routine and publicity style election campaigns (the politics of fashion). In other words, the West finds its interest in Eastern Europe as a kind of "lost origins" - Eastern Europe functions as the "ego-ideal" of the West, the point from which the West sees itself in a likable, idealized from, as an object worthy of love. The more the "Other" crumbles, the more fascinating the Other becomes, as a mirror reflection of the ideal vision of the onlooker. In other words, the "democracy lost" (the fall from grace)(the invention of one nation under God) is reinvented in the traumatic transitions of the Other.
The ontological consistency of a liberal democratic state is, of course, its enjoyment of the Thing (the ever elusive "way of life") (the internal self-understanding of a citizen). A nation exists only as long as its specific enjoyment continues to be materialized in a set of social practices and transmitted through national myths that structure these practices ('our' place in history)(the very constitution of the "our" to begin with). In the Other here is a perception of theft... the Other is the person or group perceived to steal from the enjoyment derived from a "way of life" that remains buried within actual social practices and rituals ("they are taking what we've got!") (the gaze is both one of fascination and horror, of excitement and revulsion). In other words, the structure of the "western gaze" reiterates, on a national level, "the west is best" as a condemnation imputed to the Other, the thief, which reveals that "we never possessed what was allegedly stolen from us." The hatred of the Other is the hatred of ones own excess of enjoyment (which is why many of us love and hate Hollywood or some such other product of industry) - which is also why authoritarian nationalism tends to overshadow democratic pluralism (the authoritarian nationalist is an authoritarian nationalist precisely because they distance themselves from the nation - and find, in themselves, something Other). Capitalism cements this process (a system within a system which facilitates cynical distance - which might also explain the appeal of gangster flicks like the Godfather). Fascism here is a dream to have capitalism without its excess - without the antagonism that causes its structural imbalance. The gesture that reinforces all of this is the fear that the problem might actually disappear (thus liquidating our experienced reality) (yeah, postmodernism does this which is why so much of it is just plain psychotic). The paradox here, upon which our very physical survival depends, might fully have to do with our ability to assume responsibility the "nonexistence of the Other" in the face of our lived historical experiences - in other words, a radical tarrying with the negative.
speculatively swiped from zizek without apology, it's all theory until you throw the first rock or flame the shit out of this post, ken