Re-bordering of the Hungarian South: Geopolitics of the Hungarian border fence

Abstract

The Hungarian borders have been at the centre of political and social discourse since the 20 th century. Subject to whichever government dominated at a given time, border policies strengthened and disappeared frequently. During the summer and autumn of 2015, a fence was constructed in effort to discourage migration at the southern borders of Hungary. Building on collective social memory which links Hungary's southern borders with divisionary actions, the government organised a campaign effective in convincing voters that more aggressive border control measures should be enacted. Opposition parties had no effective tools to counter the government's actions; thus, popular support for the government increased significantly. This paper examines how the attention and resources concentrated on the southern borders do not directly correspond to purported objectives. In fact, this paper argues that the issues related to securing the southern border of Hungary are merely used as political resources to achieve domestic political-and power-related goals. Taking into account specific international trends of border research, this work aims to illustrate how the border itself (more concisely, the policy of strengthening the southern border) became a political resource, through the remarkably efficient communications campaign of the ruling Hungarian government party.

“Who Is the Animal in the Zoo?” Fencing In and Fencing Out at the Hungarian-Serbian Border. A Qualitative Case Study

“…These insights show how much the message of the fence, while naming a target on the outside, was at the same time oriented towards the interior, addressing and affecting Hungarian society and, in a way, "closing it into a cage" (for a discussion on the domestic motives and effects of the fence, see also Pap and Reményi 2017). Brown's idea of border walls as "theater pieces for national populations" (Brown 2017, 9) and as an attempt to restore national sovereignty does indeed apply here.…”

Hungarian Border Research as a reflection of European integration and regional transformation

“…Although no longer a normative category in terms of political geographies of borders, the concept of the Thousand Year Borders remains a powerful border narrative, both in Hungarian popular imaginations as well as -but in rather more subtle ways -in political discourse (Hajdú 2018). This is particularly true in the case of neo-nationalist and 'illiberal' instrumentalisations of Hungary's borders as instruments of exclusion (see Pap, Reményi 2017). If this motif is partly one of a nostalgic harking back to the period in European history in which the Hungarian Kingdom constituted a relatively stable territorial formation, elements of a national remembrance of historical injustice, of the Trianon decree in particular, are clearly present.…”

Territory and territoriality: retrospect and prospect

“…While this rhetoric is inaccurate and misleading, the nature of the discourse suggests that countries should increasingly seal themselves off from invasions from 'outside' by those who do not 'belong' there. These arguments are often (misleadingly) bound into security discourses, alongside cultural ones, emphasizing the importance of the border as a device to protect the integrity of the country and its citizens (Pap and Reményi 2017). Territory, terrorism and identity become inextricably entangled in debates calling into question who has the right to be in certain places and who has not.…”