Logiques d’(in)sécurité en Hongrie. Gouverner par le droit et par l’exclusion dans un régime illibéral

Nation, Nationality, and National Identity: Uses, Misuses, and the Hungarian Case of External Ethnic Citizenship

“…Subsequent developments like labeling critiques of the government (the opposition, NGOs, people affiliated with gender studies, migration research, or Central European University etc. [34]) as not part of the nation or traitors of the nation greatly reinforce the exclusive reading. The new national identity, captured here as the identity of the authors of the Fundamental Law, helps us unearth the underlying vision of those in power, a question we will get back to later in this article.…”

“…The status of the nation in the Fundamental Law is more restrictive than the two previous examples, clearly maintaining the primacy of the titular nation [14,34,38,40]: 'WE, THE MEMBERS OF THE HUNGARIAN NATION, at the beginning of the new millennium, with a sense of responsibility for every Hungarian, hereby proclaim the following' (EMPHASIS in the original). Unlike in the Slovak case, however, we don't have the reference to minorities, which gives away the fact that the nation is indeed understood as the ethnonational community.…”

“…We have seen that at the time of the 2010 expansion, the issue became less divisive, the Parliament adopted the rule by a virtual consensus, and a strong majority in the public supported the move. 34 What remained more divisive is the extension of voting rights to non-resident nationals. Should belonging to the Hungarian nation and being a Hungarian citizen include the right to vote as well, should the boundaries of the political nation follow the expansion?…”

“…33 For a summary of the various views, see the scholarly reactions collected in [5]. 34 In a 2010 poll, 58% of the respondents were satisfied with the measure 'introducing dual citizenship'. In 2017, 68% supported 'dual citizenship' [78,79].…”