Everyday illiberalism: How Hungarian subnational politics propel single‐party dominance

Jakli, Laura; Stenberg, Matthew

doi:10.1111/gove.12497

Cited by 24 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…This is no accident. Fidesz consciously manipulated city council rules and regulations to reduce oversight and fair contestation in municipal politics (Jakli and Stenberg 2021). It then used local resources clientelistically to ensure the support of voters (Mares and Young 2019).…”

Section: Democratic Backsliding From a Local Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Local-Level Democratic Backsliding? The Consolidation of Aspiring Dominant-Party Regimes in Hungary and Poland

O’Dwyer¹,

Stenberg

2021

Gov. & oppos.

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Aspiring dominant-party regimes often institute major institutional and political reforms at the national level to ensure they retain control. However, subnational politics is an important, under-studied, component of regime consolidation. This study uses mayoral races in Hungary and Poland from 2006 to 2018 to examine two factors that may inhibit dominant-party regime consolidation in local politics: the use of two-round, i.e. runoff, electoral systems and strategic coordination among opposition parties. While we find little evidence that strategic coordination can lead to widespread opposition success in single-round systems, we do find that increasing the number of candidates decreases the likelihood of the nationally dominant party winning in the first round while not affecting the second round. As such, two-round mayoral elections may be an important buffer to dominant-party regime consolidation and may provide a training ground for the future opposition.

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Section: Democratic Backsliding From a Local Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Local-Level Democratic Backsliding? The Consolidation of Aspiring Dominant-Party Regimes in Hungary and Poland

O’Dwyer¹,

Stenberg

2021

Gov. & oppos.

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“…On the other hand, Fidesz propagates submission to those in power, emphasizing, e.g., traditional gender roles, which place women in inferior positions to men (Vida, 2019). Most importantly, they require total political submission to the "homeland" and its "people, " crushing subnational capacity for institutional resilience, destroying the independent judiciary, and taking full control of the media landscape (Jakli and Stenberg, 2021;Seongcheol, 2021).…”

Section: The Rise Of the Illiberal Democracy: The Hungarian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The New State That We Are Building”: Authoritarianism and System-Justification in an Illiberal Democracy

2021

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The authoritarian personality is characterized by unquestionining obedience and respect to authority. System justification theory (SJT) argues that people are motivated to defend, bolster, and justify aspects of existing social, economic, and political systems. Commitment to the status quo is also a key characteristic of the authoritarian personality. It can be argued that the social context matters for how an underlying latent authoritarian character is expressed. This means that authoritarian regimes could be expected to lead to increased authoritarianism and stronger system-justification. We investigated this hypothesis in two representative samples of Hungarians, collected before (2010) and after (2018) 8 years of Fidesz’ rule (N = 1,000 in both samples). Moreover, the strong version of SJT argues that members of disadvantaged groups are likely to experience the most cognitive dissonance and that the need to reduce this dissonance makes them the most supportive of the status quo. This argument dovetails nicely with claims made by the political opposition to Fidesz, according to which Fidesz is especially popular among low-status members of society. We found that measures assessing authoritarian tendencies did not change between 2010 and 2018. However, more specific beliefs and attitudes did change, and these effects were especially pronounced among Fidesz supporters. Their belief in a just world and a just system has grown stronger, while their attitudes toward migrants had hardened. Low status was associated with lower levels of system-justifying ideologies. However, low status Fidesz voters justified the system more than high status opposition voters in 2018, lending some support for the strong version of SJT. Our results suggest that beliefs and attitudes of Hungarians have changed between 2010 and 2018, and that political leadership played a crucial role in this.

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“…Autocratization often manifests as undermining judicial independence, restricting media freedom, limiting the ability of the opposition to fairly contest elections, and weakening the informal norms governing free societies (Bermeo 2016;Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018;Curato and Fossati 2020). Such processes are often gradual erosions (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019;Jakli and Stenberg 2020), with the true damage coming from the accumulation of myriad smaller anti-democratic policies. While these are widely discussed in the context of national politics and control of the national executive, subnational tiers of government are also subject to autocratization and are crucial for a backsliding regime to maintain its authority.…”

Section: Subnational Democratic Backsliding and Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Subnational governing units can also be crucial for resource distribution, to reward supporters and maintain long-term political control (Stenberg 2018). Oftentimes reforms made to undermine democracy in subnational politics get less attention, allowing anti-democratic regimes the chance to solidify control at less cost (Jakli and Stenberg 2020). In all of these cases, controlling subnational governments is crucial to ensuring the long-term stability.…”

Section: Subnational Democratic Backsliding and Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since taking power in 2010, the right-wing Fidesz party has consistently pursued policies of democratic backsliding in Hungary, including constitutional reforms, changes to election law, restrictions on the freedom of the press and the academy, and limits on judicial independence (Scheppele 2013;Bíró-Nagy 2017;Krekó and Enyedi 2018, among others). Such backsliding has also extended to subnational politics, where Fideszled city councils altered municipal regulations to reduce oversight and limit fair electoral contestation (Jakli and Stenberg 2020). Hungary's Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has steadily consolidated control over the past 11 years, strategically using populist rhetoric and government funds to ensure success in Hungary's no-longer-fairly contested elections.…”

Section: Hungarymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Calling in "Sick": COVID-19, Opportunism, Pretext, and Subnational Democracy

Stenberg¹,

Rocco²,

Farole³

2021

Preprint

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As governments sought to manage the Coronavirus pandemic, many pursed a temporary increase in centralized authority, a general tactic of crisis management. However, in some countries, centralization in the name of public health was not the only motive. The COVID-19 response coincided with broader worldwide trends towards democratic backsliding and authoritarian consolidation. Some of these efforts happened while the world was preoccupied with responding to the pandemic without concretely referencing Coronavirus; however, in other cases, public health rationales are clearly and explicitly invoked as a pretext for actions that instead aid the consolidation of regime authority. This has been especially pernicious in subnational democracy, where efforts have been made to undermine the ability of opposition parties to fairly contest in local and regional politics. This paper looks at four cases in which political actors either opportunistically used worldwide distraction from the COVID-19 pandemic or explicitly invoked public health while seeking to undermine long-term domestic contestation in their jurisdictions: Hong Kong, Hungary, Uganda, and the United States. We examine the use of public health as a pretext for undermining opposition parties, recentralizing political authority in dominant actors, and inhibiting the fair contestation of elections.

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Everyday illiberalism: How Hungarian subnational politics propel single‐party dominance

Abstract: While numerous studies consider the roles that media consolidation, court-packing, and economic crises have played in Hungary's democratic decline since 2010, none have considered the subnational mechanisms driving illiberalism. This study examines the

Cited by 24 publications

References 29 publications

Local-Level Democratic Backsliding? The Consolidation of Aspiring Dominant-Party Regimes in Hungary and Poland

Local-Level Democratic Backsliding? The Consolidation of Aspiring Dominant-Party Regimes in Hungary and Poland

“The New State That We Are Building”: Authoritarianism and System-Justification in an Illiberal Democracy

Calling in "Sick": COVID-19, Opportunism, Pretext, and Subnational Democracy

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