z ELTE Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpont (MTA Kiváló Kutatóhely) 

Szociológiai Kutatóintézete 

tisztelettel meghívja 172. Jour Fixe eseményére

 

 It’s the Economy – and the Culture: Dual Strategies of Populist Articulation in Hungary

 

Előadó: Cathó Ábel (ELTE TK SZI)

Hozzászólók: Messing Vera (ELTE TK SZI); Boda Zsolt (ELTE TK PTI)

Moderátor: Szikra Dorottya 

Időpont: 2026. április 23. csütörtök 13:00
 

Helyszín: Az eseményt hibrid formában tartjuk meg.

 

Személyesen: Szociológiai Intézet 1097 Budapest Tóth Kálmán utca 4.;  B.1.15

 

Online: Zoom link:

HAMAROSAN

 

Absztrakt : 

The article examines the populist right’s rearticulation process through which Fidesz succeeded in winning over disillusioned masses in areas left behind by the left. In doing so, it seeks to bridge three divides in the literature: (1) “why” and “how” explanations of populist success, (2) demand- and supply-side approaches, and (3) economic and cultural explanations. To achieve these aims, I rely on two types of data and analysis. First, I use electoral data from the National Election Office combined with settlement-level demographic and economic data from the Central Statistical Office, which enables me to track temporal trends in voting behavior and uncover their underlying structural drivers. Second, I analyze how the core narratives of the populist right evolved once in power, drawing on a corpus of 120 Orbán speeches sourced from publicly available archives. My main argument is that rearticulation unfolded in two stages. Between 2010 and 2014, Fidesz consolidated its power by fostering re-employment in areas long affected by low employment and high inactivity following the severe unemployment shock of the early 1990s. This was underpinned by the construction of a new social order, labelled the “work-based society,” and reinforced by popular policy measures such as household utility price cuts. Between 2014 and 2018, complementing the moral (and practical) foundations of re-employment, Fidesz increasingly amplified nativist cultural frames - most notably anti-immigration and anti-liberal narratives - in line with the political preferences of the working class. In this way, the party completed its rearticulation project by forging a fully-fledged and cohesive narrative of racialized economic nationalism. Finally, the article shows how the neglect of public services, particularly health care, may have contributed to a gradual erosion of the party’s electoral base: for the first time, working-class voters appear increasingly polarized along lines of health condition.