From neoliberal disembedding to authoritarian re-embedding: The making of illiberal hegemony in Hungary. Relying on Polanyi & Gramsci, the article analyses the socio-economic roots of illiberal populism in Hungary.
Abstract
This article presents and empirically substantiates a theoretical account explaining the making and stabilisation of illiberal hegemony in Hungary. It combines a Polanyian institutionalist framework with a neo-Gramscian analysis of right-wing hegemonic strategy and a relational class analysis inspired by the political economy tradition in anthropology. The article identifies the social actors behind the illiberal transformation, showing how 'neoliberal disembedding' fuelled the rightward shift of constituencies who had erstwhile been brought into the fold of liberal hegemony: blue-collar workers, post-peasants, and sections of domestic capital. Finally, the article describes the emergence of a new regime of accumulation and Fidesz's strategy of 'authoritarian re-embedding,' which relies on 'institutional authoritarianism' and 'authoritarian populism'. This two-pronged approach has so far allowed the ruling party to stabilize illiberal hegemony, even in the face of reforms that have generated discontents and exacerbated social inequality.
Keywords
Authoritarian populism, authoritarian re-embedding, countermovement, Hungary, illiberalism
Cite as: Gábor Scheiring and Kristóf Szombati. 2020. 'From neoliberal disembedding to authoritarian re-embedding: The making of illiberal hegemony in Hungary', International Sociology, 2020, pp. 1–18, Frist published 18 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580920930591
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