Category: Hungary

Hungary’s illiberal victimhood narrative stifling freedom, limiting dissent

     

A change in control at Budapest’s 1956 Institute, prompted by Hungary’s illiberal premier Viktor Orban, is part of a wider trend of stifling academic freedom and limiting public dissent, creating… Read more »

Challenging illiberal democracy’s ‘post truth’ world. Is the tide shifting?

     

Illiberal regimes have had a good run, but perhaps the tide is shifting. “Protesters poured into [Hong Kong’s] streets for a second Sunday despite the suspension of a controversial bill to expand… Read more »

How the EU can solve its authoritarian creep

     

A union built to protect democracy faces authoritarian creep. Its leaders are divided over the best response, The Financial Times reports. The anti-democratic tilt in some EU states is an… Read more »

Misapprehension of liberalism? ‘Viktator’ Orban is following Putin playbook

     

The European parliamentary elections, which will take place later this month, offer Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the chance to build a right-wing populist coalition across Europe, according to Kim Lane… Read more »

Debunking ‘enduring myth’ that EU’s eastern member states less favorable to democratic values

     

A new analysis challenges the “enduring myth” that the European Union’s eastern member states are less favorable to the democratic values set out in Article Two of the Treaties of… Read more »

Polarization a key factor in democracy’s ‘alarming’ decline

     

The latest Freedom in the World report – compiled by more than 100 experts and drawing on data from 209 countries – describes an “ominous” global erosion of democratic values… Read more »

Democracy in retreat: ‘ominous’ decline around the world, says Freedom House

     

Democracy is undergoing an ‘alarming’ decline around the world, according to the latest annual survey from Freedom House.* The country-by-country report – Freedom In The World 2019 – paints a… Read more »

Poland’s ‘democratic spring’ exposing illiberalism’s fatal flaws?

     

The divisive nature of Central Europe’s quasi-authoritarian governments precludes consensus-building, and has so weakened academic freedom and independent institutions that creative policy responses to economic challenges are being stifled. As… Read more »

Understanding Central Europe’s illiberal metamorphosis

     

To understand Central Europe ’s illiberal metamorphosis, bear in mind that the region’s political imperative for almost three decades was “Imitate the West!” That process went by different names –… Read more »

From Hungary to EU: Orban exporting ‘alternative to liberal democracy’

     

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 »