How churches make education policy: the churchification of Hungarian education and the social question under religious populism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 2010, Hungary’s authoritarian populist government has radically redefined church-state relations, promoting the governance narrative of building an ‘old-style Christian democracy’. Public education has been reconceptualised within a religious framework and outsourced to religious actors. This article explores how key religious organisations engage with the government’s religious populism and govern their expanding school networks. Given the immanent tension between nativist Christian-conservative identity politics and Christian teachings about the church’s social mission, I focus on how Christian church elites have engaged with the education of underprivileged communities. Four characteristic types of strategic involvement are identified based on church education policies and their legitimacy discourses concerning their (lack of) engagement with the social question. Despite using different approaches to navigate political pressures, both the nativist illiberal and inclusive liberal visions of religion and their corresponding policies have reinforced the structures of segregated education and legitimised the government’s education policy.