There were sighs of relief throughout the European Union after President Emmanuel Macron beat back a serious challenge in France from the populist far-right champion Marine Le Pen. Then another populist… Read more »
Ukraine is not the only place where the contest between autocracy and democracy is taking place. It is also happening within several European democracies, through elections rather than military conflict…. Read more »
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is poised to win Sunday’s general election by a comfortable margin, though not by enough to secure another supermajority, reports suggest. In a video speech to European Union leaders… Read more »
In his infamous Transylvania speech announcing Hungary in 2014 as an “illiberal state,” Viktor Orban also called Russia—along with China, Singapore, India, and Turkey—a model for Hungarian society. But the… Read more »
Following four-plus years of assault by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, the embattled Polish judiciary may be on its last legs. On 4 February, amid mass domestic and international… Read more »
Conventional wisdom has long held that democratic consolidation is a one-way street and that democratic states, once reaching a certain level of GDP per capita, are immune to democratic breakdown…. Read more »
Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, is often accused of promoting a form of ‘illiberal democracy’, where governance is rooted in the popular support of a majority of the country’s citizens,… Read more »
If we fail to learn from the past, we do so at our own peril. That was one of the messages from the Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei to a gathering… Read more »
There are many similarities between American consultant-turned-ideologue Steve Bannon and Hungarian liberal-turned-ultraconservative Viktor Orban. Both have a missionary mind-set; both are interested in ideas; both are obsessed with what they… Read more »
Hungary’s illiberal leader has built what Paul Lendvai in his new book, “Orbán,” calls a “skillfully veiled authoritarian system,” notes James Kirchick, a visiting fellow at the Center on the… Read more »