Hungary's political backsliding, which has transformed it from a former frontrunner of liberal democracy in the post-communist region to an illiberal and/or authoritarian state, has puzzled political scientists. As a contribution to understanding the problem of Viktor Orbán's leadership and the regime change, we apply Stephen Skowronek's concept of 'reconstructive leadership'. The politics of reconstruction, with an emphasis on the introduction of new standards of legitimacy, and the mobilization of support for new modes of governance, leaves ample room for appreciating the role of political leadership. Through an analysis of three policy areas (constitution-making, macroeconomic-and immigration policy) related to Orbán's efforts at reconstruction, we argue that the Hungarian case underscores the formative role of agency even more than in Skowronek's original conception. Reviewing some possible criticisms of Skowronek's perspective and some recent literature about 'discursive institutionalism' we argue that the Hungarian case makes a vital correction to the Skowronekian concept, suggesting the value of taking a more constructivist approach.

Among the recent literature about leadership and crisis situations two main strands are to be observed: structuralist ones mainly treat political leaders as reactive agents who have relatively little room for maneuver, while constructivist ones put greater emphasis on the opportunities in interpreting crises. Our claim is that there is a third analytical possibility mainly neglected in recent literature that is even more voluntaristic than the constructivist approaches. In this scenario, there is no external shock; leaders do not only interpret, but also "invent" crises. To make our claim plausible, we build a conceptual-descriptive typology of the potential relationships between crisis situations and agency. The typology is founded on Kari Palonen's differentiation between Machiavellian and Weberian types of contingency, but uses his originally conceptual historical argument for analytical purposes. To underpin our theoretical argument, we present short illustrative examples to all three types of crisis scenarios (the structuralist, the constructivist, and the voluntarist one).

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