Abstract
ABSTRACT Modern political trends in democracies, such as post-truth, populist, and identity politics, have produced a solid emotion-based distinction between true believers and non-believers, polarizing the perceptions of the legitimacy of political regimes and decisions. The paper aims to capture this process by introducing the concept of sectarianization built on Max Weber’s thoughts on political sects in democracies and Émile Durkheim’s theory of cults in modern societies. We highlight four core components of sectarianization through the illustrative case of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary: artificially produced charisma; exclusive but voluntary community (schism, conversion and ex-communication); monopolized political rituals; and controlled belief system (propaganda). Building on theories of political/civil religions, personality cults, sociological research on new religious movements and studies on political behaviour and communication, we demonstrate the analytical usefulness of the concept.
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