Illiberal Regimes Research Articles

Shrinking space: the changing political opportunities of advocacy groups in illiberal governance

ABSTRACT The paper focuses on how illiberal politics in post-2010 Hungary have affected the political opportunities of advocacy groups in terms of influencing policymaking and how the latter have adapted their strategies to this challenge. Based on a series of interviews conducted with the representatives of advocacy groups as well as members of the central administration, the paper investigates the changing patterns of policy advocacy in three arenas: the venues of social dialogue, the arena of direct lobbying, and that of activism. The expectation of the research was that the undermining of social dialogue by the government would spur advocacy groups to relocate their activities into direct lobbying and activism. However, the general picture is of a decline in advocacy activity. A decade of illiberal politics has changed not only the political and institutional environment of advocacy groups but also the general social context. Faced with these challenges, Hungarian advocacy groups have not been able to come up with strategic innovations which would have redefined their objectives and means. As a theoretical contribution, the paper suggests that the concept of political opportunities should be broadened in order to account for the deep social transformations that are brought about by illiberal politics.

Illiberal spectatorship – the disfigurement of citizenship in Hungary and Poland

ABSTRACT Hungary and Poland have been forerunners of democratic backsliding in Europe. Both governments have been building an ‘illiberal democracy’ using the populist promise to return power to the people. We argue that despite this promise, the Fidesz and PiS governments have undertaken political reforms that turn citizens into spectators with a very limited say or take in politics and willing objects of propaganda and disinformation. The turning of citizens into spectators is integral part of democratic backsliding as illiberal policies empty citizenship of its meaning, thus facilitating transition to autocracy. Illiberal regimes 1) capture media to control public opinion, 2) remove the opportunities for citizens to exercise their political agency, 3) redefine the contours of the political community to the extent that critical citizens’ belonging is questioned, 4) and instead of political choices, they present an emotional spectacle, often based on propaganda, fake news or straight lies. Spectators do not merely watch the show, they assist in its creation as fans of leaders who supposedly express and realize their collective will – the voice of true people. This way, spectatorship becomes the societal and cultural underpinning of the illiberal regime, where leaders fake democracy to hoard and hold onto power.

Historical reflection as a source of inspiration for youth resistance in illiberal regimes – a qualitative study of the FreeSZFE movement in Hungary

ABSTRACT Political socialization of youth is crucial both in the maintenance of an illiberal regime and in the resistance by civil society. The present qualitative study provides insight into the personal motivations of student leaders of a youth resistance movement organized for the protection of academic autonomy against the ‘illiberal democracy’ of Hungary. The study sought to explore how collective historical memory contributes to political socialization, whether historical reflection was a source of inspiration and whether history education triggered conscious citizenship resulting in the engagement of youth in resistance. Data collection involved interviewing 15 former students of the University of Theatre and Film (Színház- és Filmművészeti Egyetem, SZFE) who played a key role in managing a 71 days long university blockade in 2020. Thematic analysis suggests that history education has the potential to trigger consciousness regarding citizens’ responsibility to confront power restricting individual freedoms and institutional autonomy. However, mainstream, alienating history education supported by the government in Hungary did not realize these potentials. Findings can be utilized in further research on the necessity of interactive, engaging history education methodologies to facilitate comparative reflection on history and current public affairs and to encourage conscious and active citizenship in illiberal regimes.

Hungary in the European Union – Cooperation, Peacock Dance and Autocracy

Abstract Hungary had been one of the frontrunners in the political and economic transition process in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, and in 2004 it joined the European Union. Since 2010, Hungary has gradually become an autocratic regime, a process that has been facilitated by the political benefits of EU integration and money transfers. While the support of the Hungarian people for EU membership has remained high, tensions have increased between the Hungarian government and EU institutions. This article evaluates how the external shock of Russia’s war against Ukraine has shaken Hungary’s so far developed authoritarian equilibrium within the EU. The authors show how embedded the Hungarian autocracy has become and argue that although there have been some effects to the pillars of the authoritarian equilibrium, it has remained stable, and most probably will continue to do so, as long as the illiberal regime stays in power.

The Rise of Autocracy in the Sahel of Africa: Insights from Resource Curse Theory

Abstract The countries in the Sahel, aside from being located in the same geopolitical region, also share similar socioeconomic and socio-political challenges. This includes political instability, insecurity, poor governance, climate change and democratic erosion – among others. The corrosion of the democratic gains recorded since the spread of democracy in the 1990s and the rise of autocratic regimes has become prevalent in the last decade. The subversion of the electoral process, limited freedom and military takeovers are an indication of the spread of autocracy in Africa (generally) and the Sahel (specifically). The paper which is anchored on the resource curse theory argues that the Sahel is rich in natural resources that when not properly managed breed corruption and increase the chances of conflict and the likelihood of military takeover. More so, faced with weak institutions, autocrats take advantage of abundant resources to increase patronage networks at the expense of development and democratic growth. The paper found that the rise of illiberal regimes is on the rise in Africa; suggesting a wave of autocracy. This is evident in the spate of autocratic and highly defective democracies in the region; one-party dominance; re-emergence of military coups; and circumvention of term limits. It is therefore concluded that electoral autocracy is on the rise in Africa and is a common phenomenon in the Sahel. This is given impetus by weak institutions which makes it difficult for rulers to utilize resource wealth for human capital development. To this end, the paper adopts a qualitative approach that relies on secondary data sourced from peer-reviewed journal articles, government reports, briefs and internet sources.

Liberal Democratic Mayors in Illiberal Regimes: Budapest’s Challenges

ABSTRACT While Karácsony’s win as Budapest’s Mayor seemed a significant breakthrough in challenging Hungary’s illiberal populist regime, opposition mayors in populist regimes are understudied, so the nature of the breakthrough was unclear. As illiberal populist regimes are as dense vertical networks, to expand liberal democracy, opposition mayors make governance networks more horizontal by increasing information, expanding participation, limiting the ruling party’s rent-seeking and clientelism, and (re)creating social solidarity. Central governments try to counter these efforts. Karácsony’s progress and challenges in Budapest illustrate this network model.

Gender, Militarized Masculinity, and Hungarian Illiberalism

Abstract The article explores how gendered relations of power and masculinity are articulated in the Hungarian illiberal government’s rhetorical, legal, and spatial marking of borders and surrounding right-wing discourses in relation to categories of “East”/“West.” After the Hungarian government declared and gradually normalized its illiberal regime, particularly in response to the European refugee crisis in 2015, it passed various anti-migration, anti-gender, and anti-minority laws and policies in the name of defending Hungarians against both the influence of the “feminine” West and the “hyper-masculine” Eastern Other seeking refuge in Hungary. This article examines how the Hungarian government constructs the illiberal state, negotiates its geopolitical position, and propagates illiberal values as “masculine” to articulate and assert its sovereignty against spheres of the “feminized” international, particularly against the West. In parallel with these processes, subnational competing discourses of masculinized sovereignty emerged between the Hungarian government and the mayor of Ásotthalom. By utilizing an intersectional analytical framework, this article maps how these competing discourses of masculinized sovereignty operate at the national and local levels, against the unfolding of the 2015 humanitarian crisis and its aftermath.

Prison Elite: How Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg Survived Nazi Captivity by Erika Rummel

Reviewed by: Prison Elite: How Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg Survived Nazi Captivity by Erika Rummel Laura A. Detre Erika Rummel, Prison Elite: How Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg Survived Nazi Captivity. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2021. 215 pp. It is undeniably true that both academics and the general public have a thirst for stories of resistance to the Nazi machine and that consequently a tremendous amount of media on the topic is produced every year. Historians increasingly endeavor to look at the ways in which Nazism impacted Europe through diverse lenses, continuing to examine stories of Jewish victimization in death camps but also analyzing the lives of non-Jewish people who were oppressed [End Page 128] by German fascism. Erika Rummel's book Prison Elite does just that by looking at the writings of the Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, who was imprisoned by the Nazis after the 1938 Anschluss. This book largely focuses on how Schuschnigg dealt with the conditions of his incarceration and the coping mechanisms he used to survive the experience. The author dives deep into the details of how he found comfort in religion, music, and books. She details how Schuschnigg was initially held in solitary confinement, although she also notes that he was allowed to marry and then receive visits from his new wife in this period. It is undeniable that Rummel has spent a great deal of time with Schuschnigg's writings, which form the core materials consulted for this text. The question this leaves us with is: what will we learn from this material? As she acknowledges, Kurt von Schuschnigg was not a typical prisoner and his treatment at the hands of his Nazi jailers was indeed exceptional. It does, in fact, make the reader wonder if his experiences were so unusual as to be unhelpful in understanding the functioning of the Nazi political machine. Most camp internees lived lives of terror and life-threatening deprivation, whereas Schuschnigg, by the time of his transfer to Sachsenhausen, lived in relative comfort with his family and many privileges. His experiences are somewhat comparable to those of French politician Leon Blum, who was also a VIP political prisoner of the Nazis, but Blum, as a Jewish Socialist, had the specter of the Holocaust hanging over his imprisonment. Is there value in a detailed examination of the imprisonment of a figure who had himself led a dictatorial, illiberal regime and who by all admissions fared well under Nazi incarceration? Additionally, because this text hangs so thoroughly on Schuschnigg's own writings we do not learn why his experiences were so singular. Why is it that the Nazis chose to imprison him rather than execute him? Why did they transfer him first from Vienna to Munich and then on to Sachsenhausen? Why was his family allowed to accompany him on that final move? These are just a few of the questions raised by this account but not answered in any meaningful way. One of the challenges inherent in any examination of this period in Central European history is that Nazism's singular fixation on genocide colors our view of all other contemporary political movements. It is tempting to look at Austrofascism, the clerico-fascism of Slovakia, the nominal regency under Hungarian dictator Miklós Horthy, or any of the other radical right-wing governments to be found in this region in the 1930s and see them as benign compared with the incomparable evil taking power in Germany. As historians [End Page 129] we must resist this urge, however. It is undeniably true that the genocide perpetrated against Europe's Jews by the Nazi regime was unique in its cruelty as well as its pervasiveness, but when we look at the Austrofascist government in isolation rather than in comparison, we see that it was a murderous movement it its own right. Anyone who is interested in the interwar history of Austria must acknowledge the 1934 Civil War as a violent turning point, after which the country was undoubtedly no longer a liberal democracy. Additionally, we need to increase our awareness of the state-sanctioned murders of political opponents, particularly Communists and Social Democrats, under the governments of both Engelbert...

Measures against right-wing extremism in an illiberal populist country: The case of Hungary

Abstract The paper focuses on the question of what it means both conceptually and practically to talk about counter right ‑wing extremism (RWE) measures in an illiberal populist regime while the dominant political ideology or narratives are very close to those of right ‑wing extremists. Through a qualitative analysis of policies in the Hungarian context, the paper explores both the political and the policy scene to understand how the political context and policies identified as counter ‑RWE measures interact. Relying on the categorisation of counter ‑measures, different sets of policies are scrutinised: legal, security, anti ‑terrorism, and public order measures including education, prevention, exit, deterrence, training, and communication programmes. It was concluded that there is a lack of government strategy and policies for countering RWE including almost all relevant policy fields. It was also observed that hate crime incidents have increased under the illiberal regime while at the same time previously strong extremist militant activities have declined. However, as it is argued, it is not due to effective policies but the manipulating political strategy of the incumbent party.

Democracy, Procedural and Social Rights, and Constitutional Courts in Hungary and Slovakia

In democracies, individuals are free to develop their own conceptions of values, and try to persuade others of their viability. However, some of these conceptions carry greater weight than others. In particular, centralized constitutional courts (CCs) authoritatively interpret fundamental values as they are typically entrusted by constitutions to do so. This article introduces a new approach to examine how CCs advance particular value conceptions, via scrutinizing the understandings of procedural rights and social rights by the two formally most powerful in Central Europe: the Hungarian (HCC) and the Slovak (SCC) Constitutional Court. While procedural rights capture the minimum standards of equal treatment, social rights signal more robust readings of democracy which raise expectations of improved well-being. The two jurisdictions offer windows into the working of CCs operating in regimes with a history of authoritarianism—whereas Slovakia is currently a fragile democracy at best, Hungary has regressed into an illiberal regime. The article makes use of new institutionalism, where ideas articulated in the CCs’ case law have a potential to influence the political regimes the CCs are located in. Using a case selection method based on keyword search, its two case studies, covering the period between the 1990s and 2017 and 77 majority opinions show how the SCC seldomly connected procedural and substantive rights to democracy, but this went unnoticed in the broader public. For the HCC, however, the absence of the connections between democracy and justice, especially when interpreting social rights, appears to have contributed to its image as distant from the public, locked in abstract legal discourses. The findings prompt questions about the impact of public perceptions of the CCs on the capacity of actors with authoritarian ambitions to launch successful assaults on the CCs, as well as on the potential of the CCs to prevent these assaults by articulating particular value conceptions.

The Greek Genocide and Smyrna’s Catastrophe: An Overview

Genocide is a crime against humanity which should be universally condemned. Regardless of the time that passes or the scope of the crime itself, there should be no reduction of the importance of a crime against humanity or the responsibility of those who commit genocide. The 20th century is, without a doubt, an era where the crime of genocide appeared and reappeared consistently. The Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Genocide and the Holocaust, constituted important genocides perpetrated by illiberal governments that violated numerous human rights, taking millions of lives and eliminating the history and civilization of cities dating backthousands of years. From World War II onwards, “genocide” was coined as a criminal form of behaviour that constitutes one of the most violent crimes one could be charged with. The Greek Genocide, one of the first genocides of the 20th century, is one of the big crimes against humanity that remains unpunished to this day since a large part of a nation that lived on the territory of the Ottoman Empire was murdered. The Smyrna Catastrophe of 1922 constituted the symbolic end of the Greek Genocide.

Liberal spaces in an illiberal regime: environmental NGOs, state sovereignty and the struggle for nature

ABSTRACT In the post-Soviet period, Russian environmental activists, supported by transnational networks, have contested the Russian government’s environmental policies. Invoking international norms and rules and advocating for the public's, Russian environmentalists in effect have struggled with the state over sovereignty. Transnational discourses, resources and collaborations have promoted a liberal model of environmental governance. However, the Russian political context has grown increasingly illiberal and exclusionary. Based on qualitative fieldwork and analysis of state documents and data, we examine this struggle in periods of constructing and transforming networks that span the global–local interplay where struggles over the non-human world take place.

Dismantling the reception of asylum seekers: Hungary’s illiberal asylum policies and EU responses

ABSTRACT Since 2015, the Hungarian government successfully securitised migration and profoundly changed the country’s asylum system. Through qualitative research and expert interviews, this article demonstrates how reception infrastructure was extra-territorialised, while reception standards were dissolved. This was accompanied by the criminalising of civil society and asylum seeker support groups. The ramifications of this externalisation impact asylum seekers’ rights to a dignified reception in EU member states, and contravene EU citizens’ freedoms. The article discusses these developments within European securitisation European human rights discourses, and Hungary’s illiberal governance. It also identifies weaknesses of common European reception standards in light of illiberal policymaking.

Illiberal Versus Externally Fomented growth model readjustment: post-GFC state aid in the EU’s semi-periphery

Most foreign capital-led, export-oriented Eastern EU member states and the consumption-driven Southern European countries suffered a heavy blow during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008–09. The GFC exposed the vulnerability of these economies to external shocks and raised the need for readjustment of their growth models through state intervention. While the rise of illiberal governments drove readjustment in the East, the main driver was externally fomented in the South. This article focuses on state aid, a particular instrument of industrial policy, which has been a main vehicle for growth model readjustment. We seek to explore whether the provision of state aid in the two European semi-peripheries contributes to long-term post-crisis recovery by promoting competitive investments in two Eastern (Hungary and Poland) and two Southern EU members (Portugal and Spain). Relying on the European Commission’s state aid database, we show that after 2013, in the consumption-driven South, governments aimed to strengthen supply through aid, while in the export-oriented East, they were more concerned about promoting exporting firms. The article thus reveals how state aid may preserve and reinforce existing growth models in the semi-periphery even if strategic aims and rhetoric target readjustment.

The power of digital activism for transnational advocacy: Leadership, engagement, and affordance

Recent literature has underscored the power of digital activism, but few studies have symmetrically examined its impact beyond domestic audiences and among illiberal regimes. The co-occurrence of mass protests in East and Southeast Asia in 2019–2021, when protesters called for help from international communities, offers a valuable opportunity to test the power of digital media. This study uses a data set of 154 million Twitter posts and a time-series model to contrast sets of collective action metrics and connective action metrics with a novel dependent variable—foreign politicians’ responses. We then analyze the directional, intensity, and time-lagged effects of the relevant cue-taking processes. We find that the new metrics are more potent in predicting responses from foreign politicians. Agency- and network-centered metrics also outperform number- and intensity-oriented metrics across the three cases. These findings have implications for the roles of opinion leadership and engagement networks in digital activism.

Liberty, Security, and Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies

Abstract We study a model of the rise and fall of illiberal democracies. Voters value both liberty and economic security. In times of crisis, voters may prefer to elect an illiberal government that, by violating constitutional constraints, offers greater economic security but less liberty. However, violating these constraints allows the government to manipulate information, in turn reducing electoral accountability. We show how elements of liberal constitutions induce voters to elect illiberal governments that remain in power for inefficiently long—including forever. We derive insights into what makes constitutions stable against the rise of illiberal governments. We extend the model to allow for illiberal governments to overcome checks and balances and become autocracies. We show that stronger checks and balances are a double-edged sword: they slow down autocratization but may make it more likely. We discuss the empirical relevance of our theoretical framework and its connection to real world examples.

Mediated public diplomacy and peace journalism: International public news agencies on the Syrian crisis

As the liberal international order has been falling, the heteropolar order coupled with politics of uncertainty has been rising. In this context, illiberal regimes of status-seeking powers have realized the value of public diplomacy to promulgate their versions of the “reality.” Those illiberal regimes’ adoption of public diplomacy tools (incl. international public news agencies) has generated discussions on theoretical and practical approaches to the field at the intersection of political science/international relations, media, and communication studies. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to contribute to the emerging literature on public diplomacy of non-Western illiberal democracies. With the assumption that those regimes' illiberal democratic characteristics will be reflected in their public agencies' coverage styles (e.g., monologic, conflictive, and unbalanced), the article raises the following question: How do illiberal democracies utilize international public agencies as public diplomacy channels? To answer this question, it compares framing strategies (peace/war journalism) of the Russian TASS and the Turkish Anatolian Agency public agencies during the Syrian crisis. The findings reveal that those illiberal regimes’ public agencies have reported the crisis as a state-centric monolog in conflict with the West by distrupting the global public good (i.e., peace).

Political constitutionalism and populism

AbstractCriticisms of political constitutionalism's relationship to populism point in two opposed directions. Legal constitutionalists consider it too open to, and even as legitimating, populist politics, whereas radical democrats consider it too closed to popular participation, prompting an anti‐system politics of a populist character. I dispute both these views. Underlying these contrasting assessments are differing conceptions of populism and constitutionalism. This article distinguishes right‐ from left‐wing populism, and limited government from non‐arbitrary rule, as constitutional ideals. Legal constitutionalism typically embraces the first ideal. However, that can be a driver of both right‐ and left‐wing populism, and allow types of arbitrary rule that democratic backsliding and illiberal regimes can (and do) exploit. By contrast, political constitutionalism involves the second ideal and is antithetical to right‐wing populism while potentially friendly to the legitimate demands of left‐wing populism. Nevertheless, the practical reality of political constitutionalism in the United Kingdom (and elsewhere) often falls short of its ideal theoretical potential. Addressing these shortcomings, however, requires strengthening democracy rather than the legal constitution, not least through electoral reform.

Maintaining momentum: Tempospatial orientations among members of the Hungarian Momentum Movement Party towards a new political morale

Providing insight in political reality and morale beyond increasingly illiberal governments in CEE, this paper offers an ethnographic perspective on democratic opposition during the process of de-democratisation. Analysing the motivation and purpose of being politically active based on a limited group of members of the Hungarian Momentum Movement Party, it highlights how relating to past, present and future as well as other Hungarian parties and the West they strive to realise a ‘21st century European normality’.

Wladimir Vogel e l’accoglienza dei musicisti nella Svizzera italiana tra le due guerre

Since the Risorgimento period, Italian Switzerland was known as a place that sometimes welcomed people persecuted by illiberal regimes. One of those who found refuge there during the Nazi-fascist period was Wladimir Vogel, a Russo-German composer who was taken in, first at Comologno (in the Onsernone Valley) and then at Ascona, in the home of Wladimir Rosenbaum and Aline Valangin. Having participated in the Workers’ Music Movement, he had to flee Berlin when Hitler came to power, and until after the war he was given only a Swiss tourist visa, not a work permit. It was a difficult situation, but he was helped by Aline Valangin, who later became his wife. She assisted him in organizing, at Comologno on 14 August 1936, a music course that hosted Willi Reich in a series of classes on twelve-tone music – the first occasion in Switzerland for examining Schoenberg’s method. Having come in contact with the Italian Swiss Radio in Lugano, Vogel was able to present some of his works. From that position, he was able to direct his efforts toward Italy, where he established an important relationship with Luigi Dallapiccola. The most significant initiative took place in Locarno on 12 December 1948, at the preparatory meeting for the First International Congress on Twelve-Tone Music, which was to be held in Milan, 4–7 May 1949, and which Vogel organized in collaboration with Riccardo Malipiero; this was the first occasion for an international meeting of “radical” composers.