Research on Populism in Hungary There is a certain irony that in Hungarian discourses, by the time populist politics became the rule, the notion of populism had passed its zenith as a conceptual tool to make sense of politics. Academic and intellectual circles used populism as an ultimately negative key phenomenon to explain the ills of Hungarian politics in the 2000s, the decade preceding the Fidesz takeover. In this respect, an article by two well-known political analysts is evocative; in the 2006 Yearbook of Hungarian Politics, they called 2005 the "year of populism" (Juhász & Szabados, 2005, 2006). In the online database of social science publications, we found 18 articles about populism in the period between 2000 and 2004, 45 between 2005 and 2009, and 35 in the last five years. Even among publications since 2010, only a few articles refer to the post-2010 Fidesz government. The extreme right-wing opposition to Fidesz, the Jobbik party, is not referred to as "populist" or "more populist" than other parties in the Hungarian literature. Most academic articles about populism are theoretical, interpretive, or historical. Only a few empirical studies exist that would offer a systematic analysis of populist communication.

The European Parliament elections in 2014 ended in momentous gains throughout the continent for several groupings that have explicitly questioned the form, and even the very existence, of the European Union (EU) itself. This growth in discontentment presents a potentially formidable challenge to the integrationist agenda that has hitherto largely prevailed in Brussels. The orthodoxy that states could achieve so much more by working closely together is now under threat. So it perhaps somewhat paradoxical that what are often labelled 'Euroskeptics', or self-identify as 'Eurorealists', have exploited the European Parliament (EP) as a major campaigning platform from which to express themselves. Moreover, these parties have achieved representation and thereby gained practical resources that have in turn helped them further mobilize support within their respective member states. Perhaps one of the few comforts for adherents to what was once the seemingly hegemonic Europhile consensus that still dominates the Council of Ministers and European Commission is that the various skeptical forces ranged against them are ideologically divided and agree on little save their desire to hasten the end of the Euro, the European Union or both. Commenting on politics during the mid-1990s Andreas Schedler described the then emerging 'Anti-Political Establishment' (APE) as a 'spectre… haunting contemporary party politics' (1996: 291). This phenomenon included the developing Eurosceptic forces within EU member states. Since then 'APE' parties have become an established feature within the EP and it is noteworthy that the anti-integrationists have also used this forum to try and influence the domestic political agenda in their respective states. The Parliament has proved useful in helping these parties gain leverage and representation in their countries' 'first order' or governmental elections. Many of these politicians share what Schedler characterized as largely right wing affinities that provide a rallying point for a melange of disaffected voters, disgruntled conservatives, overt nationalists and covert racists (ibid.).

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Within the framework of our empirical research, we have sent an email to every member of the Hungarian Parliament. We wanted to know how many representatives would answer our letter within a one-week period. As a next step, we listed the answerers, the composition of parliamentary groups, gender, age and the way of how the representatives got into the National Assembly in the election (from single-member districts or from party list). On the basis of this, we could outline the profile of the responding representative. The typical answers came from women who are members of the opposition, and who are between the ages of 30-39. The least responses came from the members of the governing coalition. As a final point we concluded that Hungarian representatives do not differ significantly from their colleagues in the Western countries.

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