“The stolen transition” - Conspiracy theories in post-communist and post-democratic Hungary

Abstract

Similar to Poland, Hungary also experienced a peaceful transition from communism to democracy and market economy. The Hungarian Round Table Talks were organized in 1989, following the successful Polish model. While the Round Table Talks were similarly crucial in Hungary and in Poland in paving the way for institutional and political changes, and concluded in a very successful manner for the opposition parties, conspiracy theories similar to those seen in Poland (see Soral and Kofta in this issue) are proliferating in Hungary as well. The article argues that the rejection of the “compromises” around the transition is due to the very nature of populism: it likes black-and-white, Manichean logic. This article briefly introduces the process of the Round Table Talks and summarizes the literature’s findings on the general social psychological impacts of the transitions. Transitions always provide fertile ground for conspiracy theorizing as they are unexpected even with widespread consequences that fall beyond the control of most members of a society. But in Hungary, these conspiracy theories have been politically exploited in order to fuel discontent towards the democratic institutions - and in this way, they were instrumental in the “second transition”, the illiberal de-democratization after 2010.

Adjusting to the canon

“…Furthermore, this profile showed a diverse composition of the communicative memory, including both negative (e.g., FIDESZ Victories) and positive (e.g., Accession to the EU) and both national (e.g., Political System Change) and international events (e.g., Global Economic Crisis). Interestingly, the two most contradictory and canonical events (the 1989 Political System Change and the 1956 Revolution) were average positively evaluated comparing to the other class, contrary to their ambivalent evaluation consistently found in other studies (La´szl o et al, 2002;Kova´cs & Pa´ntya, 2012Csert} o et al,2019Liu et al, 2009, Krek o, 2019.…”

Of tinfoil hats and thinking caps: Reasoning is more strongly related to implausible than plausible conspiracy beliefs

“…Firstly, endorsement of conspiracy theories should be more likely in unsettling contexts where the short-term benefits of explaining away unpleasant information (i.e., alleviating anxiety) outweigh the future costs of holding beliefs that do not generalise. Consistent with this, conspiracy theories often emerge during times of societal crisis (van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017), for instance wars or regime changes (e.g., Byford & Billig, 2001;Krekó, 2019).…”

The complex relationship between conspiracy belief and the politics of social change

“…The idea that social changes may encourage conspiracy belief among those most threatened by those changes is an old one nations' transitions to democracy and a market economy over the last 30 years [12].…”