Factors that made Hungary a borderline democracy (And are likely to stay) (original) (raw)
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Political transformation reached Hungary in parallel with other Central and Eastern European countries at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The core of the events, the year of 1989, the so called “annus mirabilis” when, within one year almost the entire Central and Eastern European region stepped onto the path of changes. The actors adopted Western patterns within a short period, institutions of new political systems were established, and a new political power verified and consolidated its legitimacy by free elections. As a final proof of transformation, most of former socialist bloc member states joined both the NATO and the European Union. Hungary had the chance to enter in the 21st century under radically changed and much more favourable conditions than it ever had before. This smooth transformation interrupted by political and economic crisis that finally led to the victory of the opposition that managed to repeat the next elections and implemented the Programme of National Coope...
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Since 2010, Hungarian democracy has been fundamentally transformed, and most observers agree that the quality has decreased in this time. Most critics of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, of the Fidesz party, felt vindicated when, in a major speech in 2014, he outlined his vision of building an “illiberal democracy” in Hungary. The goal of this study is to analyse some of the factors that made it possible that the Orbán government could go on its illiberal way relatively easily. Therefore, the first part of the study presents the Hungarian public attitudes concerning socioeconomic changes twenty-five years on from the country’s regime change and also tries to explain how shifting perceptions of the systemic changes, democracy and capitalism laid the foundation for the implementation of illiberal domestic policies following 2010. This will be followed by the description of some of the key moves of the Hungarian government since 2010 that indicate what the building process of an illiberal democracy looks like in practice. The third section will analyse whether the Eurosceptic standpoint of Viktor Orbán’s government has had an influence on the attitudes of the Hungarian population towards the European Union. Finally, there will be discussion of what conclusions can be drawn from the general disappointment of the Hungarians with the regime change, democracy and capitalism, and how trust in democracy could be improved in Hungary in the future.
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By the time we political scientists started discussing the “in-between” nature of the Hungarian political regime, by the time we began niggling over whether it is still a democracy or whether it is already something else, a modern autocracy had been built up in the heart of the EU. It has been proposed by political scientists that the illiberalism of Hungary’s “illiberal democracy” was aimed against social liberalism – against free speech, individual rights, etc. But it is not. The unique aspect of Hungarian illiberalism lies in the alliance between autocracy and neoliberal capitalism it has produced. This is why it is a clear and present danger to democracy.
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This paper tries to point out that the three subsequent crises (the triple crisis) in the New Member States (NMS) have produced their heavy social price that has been responsible for the drastic "backsliding of the new democracies". These countries underwent a transformation recession in the early nineties and with the EU entry they fell into the post-accession crisis, followed immediately by the global crisis. Originally, their populations reacted to the collapse of the authoritarian rule with a "revolution of high expectations", so under the label of democracy they expected a Western welfare state "overnight", thus after Twenty Years the disappointment has been tragic. This paper approaches the crisis of the democracy in NMS from the side of the triple crisis in general and from that of Hungary in particular. Although it would be very tempting to generalize on the NMS backsliding, the focus of this paper is on "the country I know best", i.e. on Hungary with its idiosyncrasies.
The Political Economy of De-Democratization in Hungary
Paper Prepared for the Session of the Critical Political Economy Network at the 12th Conference of the European Sociological Association, 25-28 August 2015, Prague, 2015
Most of the recent episodes of democratic backsliding do not fit well the existing theoretical approaches. Understanding the process of democratic backsliding in Hungary represents a unique opportunity to revise and refine theories of democratic consolidation and backsliding. This article provides a Weberian class based and international political economy inspired account of de-democratization. Using descriptive and comparative macro-economic and macro-social statics as well as providing two case studies the paper analyses the two sides of the development trajectory that lead up to democratic backsliding in Hungary: (1) the exhaustion of the political economy of patience and the resulting demobilization of the voters of the Left and (2) the polarization of the economic elite leading to the native capitalist class pushing for central intervention into existing rights to secure protection and accelerated capital accumulation. Both processes are linked to the Hungarian political economic model of international integration, to the evolving tensions of building capitalism without capitalists.
The Political Theory and Paradoxes of the Governing Populism in Hungary
After the regime change the Hungarian politics can be characterized by emerging populist tendencies. Before 2010 the populist forces were opposition parties, the post-2010 period is the era of governing populism in Hungary and at the same time the biggest opposition party (the far-right Jobbik) is populist too. It will be argued in my lecture that the (populist) political theory of the governing party alliance (Fidesz-KDNP) is based on three main pillars. (1) The first one is the concept of the Political and massive anti-liberalism elaborated by Carl Schmitt. Schmitt describes the depoliticisation tendencies caused by liberalism, he also argues that the bureaucratic nature of liberalism promotes law instead of politics. (2) The second pillar is the Weberian concept of leader democracy, which argues that the political leader, who is creative and charismatic, has a strong political responsibility. (3) The third pillar is political constitutionalism, which is a counter-theory of legal or liberal constitutionalism and points out that the political institutions (parliaments and governments) cannot be restricted by legal institutions, first of all judges or constitutional courts. Which is common in these three theories is the repoliticisation. The populist governing parties accused the opposition and the European Union that their politics is anti-politics and bureaucratic, they cannot make political decision, thereby endanger the (Hungarian and European) political community. On one hand it can be a very successful political strategy, on the other hand making constantly enemies can destroy the political community. According to my hypothesis the populist promise of political leadership is inherently false, because instead of repoliticisation, the populist forces are mo nopolizing the political representation and liquidating the political responsibility. My second hypothesis is dealing with the paradox nature of the current Hungarian governing populism: while the governing parties promise more Political and emerging influence of people on political decisions, it could be confusing that the Hungarian government excludes certain groups from politics (preventing the holding of referendums; starting political wars against NGOs). This is the paradox nature of the Hungarian governing populism: the governing parties would like to be seen as populist forces, but they are acting as elites. Furthermore this elitist populist approach is upheld by the pure political realism which is one of the main driving forces of the regime.