Cultural policies in illiberal democracies: a conceptual framework based on the Polish and Hungarian governing experiences

Abstract

ABSTRACT Different governments in Europe are advancing corporatist mechanisms to foster a homogenizing and conservative understanding of culture. Illiberal practices framed within these policies include a delegated censorship and several measures based on xenophobic claims. Despite the importance of this phenomenon, the available literature on cultural policies has not adequately addressed it so far. This article proposes a conceptual framework to distinguish these illiberal cultural policies from the ones framed by liberal democracies on one hand and totalitarian regimes on the other end. This conceptual scheme is developed through a qualitative methodology based on a thorough review of the relevant literature currently available, a series of semi-structured interviews with relevant actors and a comparative analysis of the cultural policies developed by the ‘populist radical right’ governments in Poland and Hungary.