Hungary

Date range: 1990-2020

Case notes

Independent Smallholders’ and Peasant Party

The Independent Smallholders’ and Peasant Party (Fiiggetlen Kisgazda Pirt, FKgP), sometimes called just the “smallholders” party, was the most popular party in the brief democratic period before the Communist takeover in 1945. In its post-communist reformation its main mission was to re-privatise rural land back to the peasants from whom it had been confiscated under the previous regime (Ilonszki and Kurtán 1992, 423), taking the character of a sectional agrarian party (Körösényi 1999, 66). Under the leadership of József Torgyán it won almost 12% in the 1990 election and formed a coalition with the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) in the first post-communist government of Józef Antall. After this government disappointed the party’s aims of rural land redistribution Torgyán left the coalition and the party split (Lomax 1995, 132). Thereafter Torgyán consolidated his hold on the party in opposition and led it to win 9% and 13% in 1994 and 1998 respectively. It then featured as a junior partner in the Fidesz government of 1998-02, during which further internal splits and corruption scandals saw its decline into irrelevance by 2002 (Sitter 2011, 253).

The party has been frequently considered populist in the literature due to the what Enyedi calls its “radical protest-party strategy” (Enyedi 2017, 178). In his “anti-elite approach” (Körösényi 1999, 45), Torgyán used highly inflammatory rhetoric against his political rivals, whom he accused of “selling out the country” (Batory 2002, 532). For example, at one rally in Budapest he called the leaders of the governing parties “disgusting pseudo-liberal worms and vultures that have inundated [our] country” and that “as spring is coming, it is time for Hungarians to launch a de-worming campaign” (cited in Nagle 1997, 44). Similarly, when the government did not punish former communist leaders for “crimes against Magyardom” Torgyán “tried to whip up a hysterical campaign against the government for its readiness to compromise” (Fowkes 1999, 27). In contrast to this elite, Torgyán offered “easy solutions” to the country's problems (Oltay 1995, 748). We’ve therefore coded FKgP 3 on OTH_POLCLASS.

Torgyán and the FKgP “pushed a radical anti-foreigner, Hungarian nationalist politics” which increased in the years of IMF-imposed austerity budgets (Nagle 1997, 44), at which time the party accused the government of subservience to international financial institutions (Lomax 1999, 116). We’ve not seen evidence of anti-foreign “others” in the party’s discourse before this period though, so we’ve coded it 2 on OTH_FOREIGN in 1998 only, and 1 before this. Despite its right wing-nationalism, sources did not reveal significant hostility towards ethnic “others” (OTH_ETHNIC = 1) or hostility to migrants (OTH_IMMIGRANTS =1). Some sources have noted that the party engaged in “economic populism” (Rosůlek 2011, 77; Fowler 2004, 100), however this seems to be a reference to the politics of land redistribution than class-based grievances against business or the wealthy (OTH_ECONOMIC = 1). Likewise, we’ve seen no evidence for anything on the OTH_MILITARY variable (= 1).

Although it did not have a clear ideological position (Körösényi 1999, 66), most studies of the 1990s Hungarian party system place the FKgP on the right (Fazekas and Fekete 2018, 135), the “centre-right” (Rosůlek 2011, 69), or “conservative” side of politics (Z. Kovács 2001, 258; Körösényi 1999, 32), and it is usually positioned in the “Christian nationalist” camp (Enyedi 2017, 197). Many sources claim that the party was “radical” (Körösényi 1999, 66; Rosůlek 2011, 77; Fowler 2004, 84), but this appears to relate more to its populist theatrics and accusations than its ideological stance. Hence we’ve labelled it R on LRPOSITION.

As the FKgP had a long lineage to the pre-communist era, in its first election it could not be considered a leader-dependent party. However, by the 1994 election, internal purges and reforms changed this. Under the “demagogic” leadership of Torgyán (Lomax 1999, 116), the party could be better defined “by personal appeal of its charismatic leader than by its political programme” (Enyedi 2017, 178), and under a party constitution passed in 1991, as party president Torgyán had total control over it (Lomax 1995, 131; Fowler 2004, 108). When the party’s parliamentary faction split in 1991, it was clear that the majority of its members backed Torgyán and at the 1994 elections none of the anti-Torgyán MPs were returned (Fowler 2004, 84–85). We’ve therefore coded the party 2 on CHARISMA in 1990 and 3 from 1994.

Despite its advocacy for reforming the constitution (to recall MPS and disband the Constitutional Court among other things) (Körösényi 1999, 45), Rosůlek has noted that the party was loyal to democracy (Rosůlek 2011, 77), and hence we’ve coded it 1 on LIBDEMNORMS. As the party was a coalition member in the first post-communist government from 1990, we’ve coded it 1 on INSIDER in 1990 and 2 afterwards.

Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP)

The Party of Hungarian Justice and Life (Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja, MIÉP) was founded by former playwright István Csurka. Prior to this Csurka had been the leader of a radical right populist faction of the ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) (A. Kovács 2013, 223). Csurka was ejected from the MDF in 1993 after publishing his notorious ‘A few thoughts’ tract the previous year, which was laced with neo-Nazism and antisemitism in its accusations against the political status quo (Szôcs 1998, 1100; Lomax 1995, 128). The name of the party was selected to mimic the “Hungarian Life Movement”, an inter-war fascist group. The MIÉP had little success in its first election in 1994, but entered Parliament on a 5.47% vote share in the 1998 election. Its vote slipped below 5% in 2002, after which it created a coalition with Jobbik for the 2006 election, in which only received 2.2%.

Csuka’s political narrative was that there had been no real political change in the post-communist era, and that Hungary continued to be ruled by a “dwarf minority” (Rosůlek 2011, 82) of “anti-Hungarians” (A. Kovács 2013, 223) and foreign interests (Lomax 1995, 128). He campaigned in a way that pitted true Hungarians against a clear set of self-serving political enemies (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 134; Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 9). In his own words, this enemy was the “small circle of liberal and un-Hungarian people out to destroy the nation, who deliberately loot the coffers and occupy all key positions” (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 9). This elite, a continuation of the old communist elite, was alleged to have consciously betrayed the nation (Szôcs 1998, 1100) (OTH_POLCLASS = 3).

The MIÉP was “xenophobic” (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 8), “ethno-radical” (Egedy 2009, 49), and neo-Nazi (Markus 1998, 12), to the point that ethnically-based politics was “the essence of its ideology” (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 9). In particular, it relied on a staunch antisemitism (M. Szabó 2006, 9; A. Kovács 2013, 223; Pirro 2014a, 256; Lomax 1999, 120; Chinatera-Stutte and Pető 2003, 6), which was evident in Csurka’s 1992 tract (Lomax 1995, 128). In addition to claiming that the former communist regime was controlled by Jews (LeBor 2008, 35), Csurka alleged that the post-1989 regime was loyal to international Jewish interests that aimed to “Palestinize” Hungary” (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 134). According to some analysis, this was an outgrowth of the late communist era, in which anti-semitism was a default form of protest (Szôcs 1998, 1097). In addition to this, Csurka and the MIÉP were hostile to Roma, opposition to whom was evident in the party’s platforms and manifestos (Pirro 2014b, 616; Kenes 2021, 17). All of this is easily sufficient to code the party 3 for OTH_ETHNIC. We’ve seen no mention of immigrants in the scholarship on the MIÉP, probably because this was not a major political issue in Hungary in the 1990s (OTH_IMMIGRANTS = 1).

That Hungarian politics and the Hungarian state was totally controlled by foreign entities attempting to “recolonize” Hungary (Kenes 2021, 5) was a constant theme in Csurka’s narrative (Chinatera-Stutte and Pető 2003, 6; see also Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 15; Lomax 1995, 128). Political rivals were deemed by the MIÉP to be “serving as the Hungarian outpost of international financial circles” (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 135), and forming “vassal governments” (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 9) of those interests. While this foreign other was often kept vague, Csurka and the party were explicitly opposed to the financial bodies like the IMF (Murer 2015, 84) and the EU (Kenes 2021, 5). In some phrasings, this was a plutocratic conspiracy controlled from London, New York, Brussels and Tel Aviv (Agocs and Agocs 1994, 79; Murer 1999, 23). In the words of Kovács:

The tensions caused by economic and cultural globalization were portrayed as a conflict between cosmopolitan and national interests, joining international integration as a loss of national sovereignty, and the social consequences of the economic and political transition as the result of being at the mercy of colonial masters (A. Kovács 2013, 223).

We’ve coded the MIÉP 3 on OTH_FOREIGN.

There is an overlap between this anti-foreign narrative and hostility towards economic and financial powerbrokers. Csurka and the MIÉP have identified “thieving capitalists” (Murer 2015, 83) and “Big Money” (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 16) as enemies of the Hungarian people, and developed a narrative whereby global capitalist organisations have set out to “ruin” Hungary (Murer 2015, 82; see also Kenes 2021, 5). While this aspect of its rhetoric is somewhat thin in the scholarship on the party, we’ve labelled it 3 on OTH_ECONOMIC based on the evidence available, although this could be revisited. We’ve seen no evidence for anything on the OTH_MILITARY variable (= 1).

The MIÉP is usually classed as “extreme right” (Palonen 2010, 14), or “ultra-right-wing” (Lomax 1999, 117). Its policy framing and criticism of capitalism had some left-leaning traits (Szôcs 1998, 1101), but according to Bozóki and Kriza it did “not seek solutions to problems in the domain of social and welfare politics, instead, it consistently looks to answers steeped in racial and ethnic tint” (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 9). Hence we’ve coded it FR. Csurka has been called a “heavyweight” in his status as a leader and an intellectual (Szôcs 1998, 1105), who exerted “dominance” within the party and the far right more generally (Dániel Mikecz 2015, 106). According to Bozóki and Kriza, “Csurka exerts a completely determining influence on [the parliamentary MIÉP] … his authority in MIÉP is unquestionable and his weekly ‘orientations’ serve as signposts for the party faithful on political and ideological issues.” (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 8–9). We’ve therefore coded the MIÉP 3 on CHARISMA. Given that Csurka was a major faction leader in the governing MDF party from 1990, we’ve labelled the MIÉP 2 on INSIDER

Csurka and the MIÉP were anti-liberal (Chinatera-Stutte and Pető 2003, 6) and anti-democratic (Kenes 2021, 5; Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 16). Csurka made vague threats of violence if his enemies attempted their grand plans (Chinatera-Stutte and Pető 2003, 6) and MIÉP rallies were often attended by skinheads (Murer 1999, 36). Csurka also rejected media criticism on the grounds that the media was controlled by Jews (Murer 1999, 17), and he rejected the results of elections and the legitimacy of elected governments (Bozóki and Kriza 2008, 16). We’ve therefore coded the party 3 on LIBDEMNORMS

Fidesz

The “Alliance of Young Democrats” (Fiatal Demokratak Szovetsege, ‘FIDESZ’) is a former dissident youth movement from the late communist period that transitioned into a mainstream party in the 1990s (M. Szabó 2011). The party has been in power twice in its history, between 1998 and 2002, and 2010-present, both times under the leadership of founder Viktor Orbán. The party’s second stint in power started in the context of both the financial crisis and a host of scandals within the previous socialist government (Rydliński 2018, 96), an environment which saw Fidesz win a two thirds majority in Parliament (off a 53% vote). The party has gone on to win twice more in succession, albeit not with the same vote share as 2010. Since the 2006 election the party has officially served in an electoral alliance with the historical Christian Democratic Party (KNDP).

Exactly when Fidesz should be counted as populist by our definition is debatable. According to numerous sources, the party was a mainstream liberal party in the 1990s (M. Szabó 2011, 47), and studies of Hungarian politics in this era do not suggest any populist characteristics (see for example Fowler 2004; Hanley et al. 2008). Its 1998 election slogan was “[do] more than change the government, but less than change the system” (Egedy 2009, 47), and while in government 1998-02 it was a progressive pro-European party (Palonen 2009, 329) whose policies were not very different from the other parties (Palonen 2010, 11). According to numerous sources, the party’s defeat in 2002 was the trigger of its major rhetorical shift towards populist discourse (M. Szabó 2011, 50), at which point Orbán “transformed his rhetoric” and adopted “anti-elitism” (Palonen 2018, 314), claiming that the new government was the product of “electoral manipulation” at the expense of ordinary Hungarians (M. Szabó 2006, 1; Halmai 2018, 299). While some sources claim that the party fully embraced populist anti-elitism in the 2010 elections (Farkas 2018), or that this rhetoric picked up after its 2006 defeat (J. Szabó 2020, 30), we’ve followed the preponderance of the literature (see for example Palonen 2009, 324–25; Enyedi and Róna 2018, 252) to conclude that 2006 was the first election in which Fidesz engaged in populist rhetoric by our definition, and hence it is included in the dataset from this point.

After its embrace of populist rhetoric, the party has been defined as “anti-system, anti-establishment” (Palonen 2009, 323) and “anti-elitist” (Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 3). Within Orbán’s populist rhetoric, the elite are considered to be the entirely of the political establishment (Halmai 2018; Csehi 2019, 1016). This included former communist figures (the party’s original target) (Egedy 2009, 50), who were called “forces from the past” (Hegedüs 2019, 413) or simply “them” (M. Szabó 2011, 57), accused by the party of converting political power to wealth after the 1989 transition (Csigó and Merkovity 2016, 2), and plotting a communist restoration (Csehi 2019, 1016). In 2006, the leaking of a speech by Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány admitting to dishonesty in the previous campaign triggered mass protests which prominently featured Fidesz (Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 12). The party was equally scathing of economic liberals, to the extent that it labelled the political class a “clandestine conspiracy of Communism and Capitalism” (M. Szabó 2006, 10). Once in power, NGOs and civil society groups critical of the government were consistently positioned within the political class (J. Szabó 2020, 32), particularly after the 2015 migrant crisis (Etl 2022, 5). These groups were considered corrupt foreign agents “attempting to enforce foreign interests upon Hungary” (Csehi 2019, 1016). In time this “other” would be defined by the party as a shadowy but powerful class of the international “elite” loyal to no nation but hostile to Hungary:

Their faces are not visible, but are hidden from view; they do not fight directly, but by stealth; they are not honorable, but unprincipled; they are not national, but international, they do not believe in work, but speculate with money; they have no homeland, but feel that the whole world is theirs (cited in Csehi 2019, 1019)

Against this threat from the political class, Orbán styled himself and Fidesz as the only true representative of the nation (Bozóki 2012, 12), and in J. Szabó’s words, “the only one capable of defending the people” (J. Szabó 2020, 32). In fact, after losing in 2002, Orbán rejected the idea that he and Fidesz were in “opposition” on the grounds that the “nation cannot be in opposition” (Bozóki 2012, 12). For this reason we’ve coded Fidesz 3 on OTH_POLCLASS from 2006 onward.

Despite pursuing generally neo-liberal policies (Ádám 2018, 12), the financial elite have been a key element of the “elite” opposed to the ordinary people in Orbán’s populism. Ideologically, Fidesz has encouraged anti-capitalist sentiments at home (Bozóki 2012, 18; Enyedi 2016, 15), specifically by denouncing “speculative capitalism” as being an anti-Christian system through which “ordinary and trustworthy people always [turn] out as losers” (Hegedüs 2019, 414). The party has specifically opposed “liberal capitalist elites” (Hegedüs 2019, 413), “bankers” (Batory 2016, 290), “new aristocrats,” “opulent millionaires,” “loafers” and “swindlers,” for their exploitation of the Hungarian people (Enyedi 2016, 14). It seems that this rhetoric only really picked up in 2010 in the context of the financial crisis (Hegedüs 2019, 414). It also seems that it was particularly foreign financial institutions that were targeted in this way (Csigó and Merkovity 2016, 4), and after assuming government in 2010 the party enacted taxes specifically targeting multinational firms (Ádám 2018, 13), which were represented as ways to hurt banks and multinationals while sparing ordinary people (Bozóki 2012, 17). Nonetheless, domestic collaborators and beneficiaries of this global capitalist elite were also key enemies of the people in the party’s language (Csehi 2019, 1016; Enyedi 2016, 14). The dates and range of coding the party for OTH_ECONOMIC are difficult to determine, but on the balance of secondary evidence we’ve coded it 1 in the 2006 election and 3 from 2010.

According to Palonen from 2002 onward the party’s representation of the “people” was in framed in ethnic terms (Palonen 2009, 329). It has employed ethnocentric ideas against external “enemies” (Fabry 2019, 175), specifically targeting several non-ethnic Hungarian “others” such as Roma, Muslims, Africans (L. Fekete 2016, 40), who have been targeted with “institutionalized racism” by the Fidesz government (Fabry 2019, 167). Against the ideals of multi-culturalism, Orbán has stressed the need to maintain ethnic homogeneity, as “too much mixing causes trouble” (Fabry 2019, 175). This ethnocentrism has included an antisemitic element (Becker 2010), which according to J. Szabó subtly “shapes current political propaganda of Orbán’s regime” (J. Szabó 2020, 32). This is often alleged to be a driving factor in the government’s fierce opposition to Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire George Soros (Kalmar 2020), who became a major element of the “elite” (Csehi 2019, 1017), and was accused of orchestrating the 2015 migrant crisis for profit (Kalmar 2020). The 2015 migrant crisis (see below) acted as a catalyst to sharpen the government’s rhetoric against ethnic others (Hegedüs 2019, 412), to the point that it started to match the more extreme Jobbik party in its ethnic nationalism (Palonen 2018, 317). We’ve therefore coded the party 2 on OTH_ETHNIC 2002-14, and then 3 after the migrant crisis (2018).

After the 2015 migrant crisis, this ethno-nationalism was coupled with a strong opposition to immigrants, who were represented as cultural threats to Hungary and Europe (Palonen 2018, 317), and an “enemy” of the Hungarian people (Gonda 2019, 606). Orbán and Fidesz claimed that “migration will destroy us” (Lamour and Varga 2020, 342), that the crisis constituted an “invasion” of Muslims (L. Fekete 2016, 40), and that migrants were “waste” (Thorleifsson 2017, 318) hostile to the Hungarian people (Palonen 2018, 316). In government Fidesz installed billboards throughout the country stating that “The People have chosen: The country needs to be defended” to signal its unwillingness to accept migrants (Etl 2022, 3), and imposed laws punishing organizations accused of aiding illegal immigration with jail time (Fabry 2019, 175; Majtényi, Kopper, and Susánszky 2019). While this rhetoric clearly picked up from 2015, Majtényi (et al) make a convincing case that the party’s anti-immigrant rhetoric predates the crisis (Majtényi, Kopper, and Susánszky 2019, 179). For this reason we’ve coded it 2 on OTH_IMMIGRANTS from 2006-14 and 3 from 2018.

Foreign interests and states have been key elements of the “other” and the “elite” within Fidesz’s populist rhetoric. After his 2002 defeat Orbán started blaming opponents who served “foreign interests” (Bozóki 2012, 12), and he consistently alleged that opponents are activists attempting to enforce foreign “interests” on the Hungarian people (Johnson and Barnes 2015, 546; J. Szabó 2020, 31). For example, in 2014, he claimed that:

we had had enough of the politics that is forever concerned with how we might satisfy the West, the bankers, big capital and the foreign press . . . Over the past four years we have overcome that . . . subservient mentality . . . Hungary will not succumb again! (cited in Johnson and Barnes 2015, 536)

While this category was often kept vague, the EU and the IMF have probably been the most important specific “external enemies” in Fidesz’s populist rhetoric (Gonda 2019, 606; Batory 2016, 289; Hargitai 2020, 203; Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 14; Csehi 2019, 1016). Orbán and the party have claimed, for example that: resistance to Brussels today is equivalent to resistance against Vienna and Moscow in previous chapters of the Hungarian nationalist story (Batory 2016, 290); that the EU was a colonial power in its interactions with Hungary (Csehi 2019, 1018); that Hungary was engaged in “a war of independence against the IMF” (Csehi 2019, 1018); and, after walking out of debt renegotiations in 2010, that Hungary would “not accept diktats” from the IMF or EU in the future because they were “not our bosses” (Fabry 2019, 173). Significantly for our coding definitions, numerous sources claim that this has reached the level of considering domestic political rivals to be puppets of these foreign actors (Hegedüs 2019, 415; Johnson and Barnes 2015, 551). In Enyedi’s words, “Ordinary Hungarians were typically not contrasted [by Fidesz] with the Hungarian elite, but rather with the international economic and cultural establishment and their local representatives: the ‘foreign-minded,’ cosmopolitan leftists and liberals” (Enyedi 2016, 14). This is sufficient to code the party consistently 3 on OTH_FOREIGN. We’ve seen no evidence for any rhetoric on the OTH_MILITARY scale (= 1).

While the party has often had some left leaning economic policies (Toplišek 2020, 394; Palonen 2009, 322), it is usually considered to be a right-wing (Csigó and Merkovity 2016, 1) and “conservative-nationalist” party (Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 7). Where it should be placed within the right of the ideological spectrum is somewhat more difficult, as some have considered it somewhat “moderate” (Boda et al. 2015, 876) and “centrist” (Palonen 2009, 325), and others a “hard right” party (Fabry 2019, 165) at various points in its history. On the whole its economic policy is generally liberal (Ádám 2018, 12), and we’ve coded it R on LRPOSITION, although this could be revisited.

Most secondary sources identify Orbán’s political charisma and conclude that it has been a critical element of the party’s image and success (Körösényi 2019; Enyedi 2016, 2016; Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 3; Körösényi and Patkós 2017; Pappas 2016). As a party Fidesz has been “structured around its leader” (Lamour and Varga 2020, 336). In Bozóki’s interpretation, since 2003 he “transformed Fidesz from a democratic to a highly hierarchical, centralized party which is controlled exclusively by him”, and that “Orbán has not simply been an elected representative of Fidesz, it is Fidesz which belong to him and represent him” (Bozóki 2012, 17, 12). Similarly, Antal considers Orbán’s Hungary a case of “leader democracy” (Antal 2017, 11). This is sufficient evidence to code the party 3 on CHARISMA. Given that Orbán served as Prime Minster before 2006, we have coded Fidesz 3 on INSIDER for the entirety of its inclusion in the dataset.

The secondary literature has uniformly considered Fiedesz to be hostile to liberal democratic norms in that it is “authoritarian” (Ádám 2018), “autocratic” (Pappas 2019, 77), and directing Hungary on an illiberal and authoritarian “turn” in power (Bánkuti, Halmai, and Scheppele 2012; Ádám and Bozóki 2016, 104). Ideologically, Orbán has officially declared that “liberalism” was an enemy of the nation in 2014 (Hegedüs 2019, 416), specified a number of philosophical objections to it (which he considered different to democracy) (Scheppele 2019), and declared that his government would serve as a model alternative to Western liberal democracy (Toplišek 2020, 393). In Orbán’s words “the new state that we are constructing in Hungary is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state” (J. Szabó 2020, 31). This shift relates mostly to the constitutional changes which centralised power under the Fidesz government (L. Fekete 2016, 44). After winning a two-thirds supermajority in the 2010 election, Orbán used this control to give his parliamentary majority even more power, “effectively dismantling all checks and balances on executive power” (Ádám 2018, 12), and engaging in “unconventional moves limiting constitutional rights in Hungary” (J. Szabó 2020, 31). Bozóki has called this a “constitutional coup d’état” (Bozóki 2012, 17). In government the party has tried to force out judges opposed to its initiatives (Kornai 2015; L. Fekete 2016), curtailed the power of the constitutional court (Bozóki 2012, 17), and “undermin[ed] the institutional autonomy of the judiciary system” (Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 15). Constitutional reforms allowed Fidesz to nominate judges without parliamentary approval, after which it passed laws that the prior court would have struck down (Bánkuti, Halmai, and Scheppele 2012, 139). Regarding media freedom, government controlled media stations refused airtime for the opposition under Fidesz’s rule (Bozóki 2012, 17), and the government forced hundreds of private media owners to collectivise their outlets under the control of a state-linked entity led by a former Fidesz lawmaker (J. Szabó 2020, 33). The party also stacked state media with politically friendly managers (Bánkuti, Halmai, and Scheppele 2012, 141), and passed a law establishing the new “National Media and Info-communications Authority” with leadership elected by parliament (which was dominated by Fidesz at the time), which had carte blanch to regulate the media and fine journalists and institutions which print content which it deems “improper” content (Fabry 2019, 176). The Fidesz government has also created new security units that have acted as a “private army” for Orbán (Fabry 2019, 176), restricted the opposition’s capacity for mobilisation during elections (Palonen 2018, 315) and engaged in a ‘penal populism’ of adding minimum life sentences to habitual violent offenders (Boda et al. 2015). Before its second stint in government, Orbán criticised the legitimacy of the 2002 and 2006 elections, which Fidesz lost (Ádám 2019, 387). For these reasons many consider Hungary to no longer be a democracy under Orbán (Bozóki and Heged\Hus 2018), and that the party has “washed away” the rule of law and threatens basic human rights (Csigó and Merkovity 2016, 299). For these reasons we’ve coded it 3 on LIBDEMNORMS from 2006.

Movement for a Better Hungary/Jobbik

Jobbik is the successor of the “Right-Wing Youth Association” (Jobboldali Ifjúsági Közösség, JOBBIK) founded by a group of university students in 2002. The following year it officially became a party and changed its name while keeping its acronym to become “Movement for a Better Hungary” (note that the name is actually a play on words as “Jobb” means both “better” and “further to the right”). The new party formed an electoral alliance with MIÉP which received only 2.2% in the 2006 polls (A. Kovács 2013, 224). The following election in 2010 saw the party’s electoral breakthrough on its own, totalling almost 17% and winning the third largest number of seats in Parliament, following a similarly strong performance in EU elections the previous year. This occurred in the context of the economic crisis and a number of high profile crimes involving Roma perpetrators (Enyedi and Róna 2018, 255). Subsequent elections in 2014 and 2018 saw it reach 20% and 19% respectively, each time mobilising partially off its youth support and strong online presence (Kim 2016, 351; Karl 2017). Jobbik is considered by many to be the successor to the MEÍP on the far right (Kenes 2021, 5), and has claimed this itself (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 140). Its influence is widely seen to have pushed Fidesz further to the right in rhetoric and policy (Czibere and Kovách 2022, 738). Gábor Vona became leader of the party in 2006, but stepped down after failing to reach his target performance in the 2018 elections.

A challenge with Jobbik is how to account for its changes over time. Around 2014-16, the party embarked on a cukisagkampany (‘cuteness campaign’) to moderate its image and broaden its appeal (Pirro 2019, 794) Vona claimed to be “killing the soul of Jobbik” in order to mature it” (Hyttinen 2022, 5), aiming to convert it into a centrist “people’s party” (Kenes 2021, 8). As a part of this strategy, Vona offered an apology to those who had been offended by earlier remarks (Metz and Oross 2020, 6), and pledged not to make any more (including burning the EU flag) (Enyedi and Róna 2018, 264). The party then changed some of its policies on the EU (Kenes 2021, 8; Enyedi and Róna 2018, 264), started working with other parties in Parliament (Goldstein 2021, 28), and altered its rhetoric such that its “new slogans are not directed against anyone” (Hyttinen 2022, 14). It’s unclear exactly when this transition began, and therefore when it should be considered to have taken affect. Some say it emerged before the 2014 elections (Kenes 2021, 8), but most analysis suggests it only solidified after those elections (Lubarda 2020, 819–20), and took root in 2016 (Héjj 2017, 88; Metz and Oross 2020, 6), after an aberration back to nativist nationalism during the 2015 migrant crisis (Hyttinen 2022, 5). By 2018, a group frustrated with the transition split to form a rival party, Mi Hazánk (‘Our Homeland’) (Lubarda 2020, 819–20). Despite the change, the preponderance of the literature still considers the reformed Jobbik to be populist (Lubarda 2020, 820), albeit less violent, nationalistic, and ethnocentric, with some going as far as concluding the transition to be merely a “redecoration of a façade” (Héjj 2017, 89). Even Hyttinen, who considers the transition to be significant, considers the reformed party to be “a more flexible right-wing populism” (Hyttinen 2022, 23). Others have noted that: the shift did not lead the party to change its elite or membership (Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 66; Héjj 2017, 89); that changes mainly related to national level discourse, not the actions of local leaders (Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 78); that Vona still made efforts to tie the party to more extreme movements (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 137). We have concluded that the party has remained essentially populist through 2018, and that the changes should not alter any coding decisions for the 2018 elections, although this could be revisited.

Jobbik has been classed as an “anti-system party” (Enyedi and Róna 2018, 252). “anti-elite” (Enyedi and Róna 2018, 256; Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, i), “Anti-corruption” (Pirro 2019, 792) and “anti-establishment” (Enyedi 2016, 17), the latter typified in its presence on the frontline of chaotic protests which followed the leaked speech of PM Gyurcsany in 2006 (Kenes 2021, 6; Kim 2016, 347). The party holistically blamed social grievances on “destructive behaviour of the political establishment” (Lugosi 2018, 223), which it articulated with what Pytlas calls a “conspiracy-like” framing (Pytlas 2013, 170). From its breakthrough 2010 election it specifically targeted “political criminals” (Pirro 2019, 794; Hyttinen 2022, 3) and “political crime” (Kenes 2021, 10), alleging that the political establishment betrayed the nation for its own direct benefit (Pirro 2014b, 617). In Vona’s words “Let’s be straight about it for once: they have deliberately and completely destroyed the country” (A. Kovács 2013, 226). This allegation is levelled against the entirety of the political establishment rather than just a few parties (Kim 2016, 349; Varga 2014, 795–96; Batory 2016, 296; Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 238). In the words of Biro Nagy (et al.), Jobbik “continually alleges that the apparently controversial debates conducted between leading political forces are simply a front to conceal the fact that they are all in league with each other and operate in close-knit networks” (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, 4). As stated in the party’s 2010 Manifesto: “In Hungary the word ‘politician’ is now synonymous with the word ‘scoundrel’… Our goal is not merely the abolition of corruption, it is rather the cessation of the existence of politicians – as lawmakers – as being above the law” (cited in Kenes 2021, 10). One of the elements of this attack on the political establishment was the claim that the post 1989 transition from communism was a “stolen transition” (Enyedi and Róna 2018, 263), and that the old communist elite is still in power (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, 2; A. Kovács 2013, 225–26), in league with other liberal newcomers (Lugosi 2018, 219). While Vona was once linked to Fidesz, from 2010 it too was considered by Jobbik to be part of the corrupt elite (Murer 2015, 87; Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, 2–3; Héjj 2017, 90), becoming by 2014 the core of the “political establishment” (Pirro 2019, 794) only disguising itself as conservative (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 144). Vona claimed Orban only criticised Jobbik because “we do not want to prosecute only the red [Socialist], but also the orange [Fidesz] evildoers” (cited in Varga 2014, 802) This did not change after the party’s moderation from 2016. In the 2018 election for example, it’s posters showed Orbán and other Fidesz politicians with the caption: “they are stealing” (Héjj 2017, 90). In contrast to this elite, the party represented itself as a spontaneous manifestation of the people, in the words of one of its MPs: “The moment has arrived when people yearning for both justice and self-determination no longer await the arrival of change from politics, but rather they themselves effect change!” (cited in A. Kovács 2013, 226). This is more than sufficient evidence to show that the party reached 3 on the OTH_POLCLASS variable.

From its foundation Jobbik has been a “nativist” (Borbáth and Gessler 2021), “ultra-nationalistic” (Thorleifsson 2021, 188) “openly racist” (Hyttinen 2022, 3), and “xenophobic” (Lubarda 2020, 819) party with an explicitly ethnocentric idea of the Hungarian nation (Bozóki and Cueva 2021, 111), including ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring states (Lázár 2015, 229) and excluding Roma and Jews (Ádám and Bozóki 2016, 106; Enyedi and Róna 2018, 256). The party’s motto is “Hungary for Hungarians” (Ilikova and Tushev 2020, 329) and its manifestos have shown “strong traces of overt racism” (Lugosi 2018, 225). Hostility toward Roma peoples has been the most important element of this (Ilikova and Tushev 2020, 329; Pirro 2014b, 616; Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 234). Exploiting a number of high profile crimes committed by Roma (Pirro 2014b, 255), Jobbik has mainstreamed the narrative of cigánybűnözés (“Gypsy crime”) (Pirro 2019, 792), and “Gypsy terror” (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 138), to the extent of claiming that Roma were genetically predisposed to be criminals (Kenes 2021, 13; Kyriazi 2016, 2533). More than any other issue, the struggle conflict between the Roma and non-Roma was placed at “the heart of its political struggle” in its breakthrough years (A. Kovács 2013, 225). Roma are also target on welfare chauvinist grounds as lazy and unworthy of state benefits (Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 68), and “parasites” on the nation (Kyriazi 2016, 2534). The party has “called for a policy of forced assimilation” (Pirro 2014b, 616). Though some consider the party in 2010 to be less antisemitic than the MIEP (Pirro 2019, 792; Szabados 2015, 49), antisemitism has still been a core part of the party’s narrative in the era of its electoral success (Murer 2015, 80; A. Kovács 2013, 227; Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 15; Thorleifsson 2021, 197). Speeches my Jobbik MPs, for example, show that many party leaders “consider the Gypsies to be tools in the hands of Zionist conspirators against the Hungarian nation” (Enyedi 2016, 17). Jobbik was originally very favourable to Islam, but made a U-turn on this after the migrant crisis (Thorleifsson 2021; Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017). At this point the party started to engage in anti-Islam narratives about crime and radicalism. “Softening” this nativist rhetoric has been a major component of the party’s image chance since 2014-16 (Ilikova and Tushev 2020, 329; Palonen 2018, 317). According to some analysis this was in response to Fidesz embracing such rhetoric (Hyttinen and Näre 2017). However, while the party began to distance itself from its most radical elements, many of its members did not (Kenes 2021, 15), particularly at the local level (Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 78), and Borbáth and Gessler claim that any shift in this rhetoric was re-elevated by the 2018 election (Borbáth and Gessler 2021, 13). While there may be an argument that the party should be coded 2 on OTH_ETHNIC in 2018, on the balance of evidence we’ve kept this at 3 throughout.

Jobbik has also engaged in “anti-immigrant” rhetoric (Ilikova and Tushev 2020, 239). As with Fidesz, the story here is different before and after the 2015 migrant crisis. Before it, immigration was an “insignificant” issue (Szabados 2015, 54), and Jobbik focused very little on immigration compared to other far-right parties (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 231; Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 72). However a number of sources mention that it warned of the potential threat of migration coming from the recently enlarged EU (Pirro 2019, 792), and according to Szabados it organised a “hate campaign” against Chinese immigrants, whom it accused of stealing jobs, and destroying local businesses (Szabados 2015, 54). Because of this we’ve coded it 2 on OTH_IMMIGRANT in 2010 and 2014. After the migrant crisis, immigrants were elevated to be a key “other” in Jobbik’s discourse (Kovarek et al. 2017, 72), when “Inflammatory imagery, rhetoric and antimigrant sentiments were heavily present in [its] online campaigns, newsletters and internet debates” (Thorleifsson 2021, 195). One Jobbik mayor formed a “migrant hunter” militia and officially banned Muslims from entering his village in 2016 (Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 64), and some have claimed that the party has been trying to out-do Fidesz on anti-immigrant toughness (Szabados 2015, 55). We’ve therefore coded the party 3 on OTH_IMMIGRANT in 2018.

Jobbik has been described as “anti-banking” (Murer 2015, 79) and “anti-capitalist” (Pirro 2019, 792; Kenes 2021, 5). Party leaders have clarified that they are not against the market system totally, but just the “excessive economic liberalism” that Hungary got “lured” into after 1990 (Goldstein 2021, 27), and that they favour small and medium sized Hungarian owned businesses (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, 798). Foreign multinational firms, however, are a key enemy of the Hungarian people (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 238; Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 141), and the party has advocated confiscating assets owned by foreign investors and handing them to Hungarians (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 141). Kovarek describes the party’s narrative thusly: “lobby groups financed by international capital, through their local lackeys, are executing their plot to destroy nations and indigenous values” (Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 68). This hostility is in many instances bound together with the party’s antisemitic discourse (Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 68). It is mainly foreign financial elites who are target here, but some sources refer to the fact that Jobbik “presented the rich elite and the banks… as a threat to society” (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 148–49). We’ve therefore coded Jobbik 3 on the OTH_ECONOMIC variable.

Jobbik has also focussed heavily on foreign and “colonizing” global elites as enemies of the Hungarian people (A. Kovács 2013, 226). It has articulated a narrative whereby a global elite is attempting to eradicate the nation as the foundation of human community” (cited in Ádám and Bozóki 2016, 109). Vona voiced hostility to Western (particularly American and Isreali) interests and fidelity to Eastern (Russian, Iranian) ones (A. Kovács 2013, 228). While this narrative is somewhat vague (and relates to global capital as well as foreign states), Jobbik has been particularly opposed to the EU and NATO. Party members have burnt the EU flag and threw one from a Parliamentary window (Lázár 2015, 230; Ádám and Bozóki 2016, 110), and according to Bíró Nagy (et al), the party “attributed almost every negative trend in Hungary to the supposed background machinations of the EU.” (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 240). It has accused NATO of “serving American interests unconditionally” (Murer 2015, 93), and developed irredentist positions regarding Hungary’s neighbours (Pirro 2014b, 614). Domestic rivals have routinely been seen as lackeys and representatives of this global elite. In Bíró Nagy (et al)’s words, “Jobbik’s rhetoric has thus right from the start sought to portray national politics as serving international interests” (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, 4). There is evidence that since the party’s 2014-16 moderation its positions regarding the EU have changed (Hyttinen 2022, 11), but as with the prior categories, it remains to be seen whether the party’s general discourse regarding foreign elites had shifted fundamentally in 2018, hence we’ve coded it 3 on OTH_FOREIGN. We’ve not seen any evidence of OTH_MILITARY rhetoric (= 1).

Jobbik has been consistently placed on the “extreme right” (Ádám and Bozóki 2011, 15) “radical right-wing” (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 133), “far right” (Ádám and Bozóki 2016, 99; Kyriazi 2016, 2531), “ultra-right” (Ilikova and Tushev 2020, 328) end of the spectrum, and often considered either “neo-fascist” (Becker 2010, 29) or “blatantly fascist” (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 238) owing to its militant nationalism. However scholars have long noted the gulf between the party’s economic policy and its cultural politics, the former being left-leaning and the latter far right (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, 5). The party claims to advocate “a stronger role of the state in the economy, redistribution of wealth and a revision of privatization contracts” (Pirro 2014b, 615; see also Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 142; Lugosi 2018), and has been notably more economically interventionist in its policies than Fidesz. Despite this, the rejection of the pre-1990 communist economy is a “cornerstone of its identity” (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Varga 2012, 2; see also Dániel Kovarek et al. 2017, 71; Héjj 2017, 84). After its transition in 2014-16, it started to define itself as “centrist” (Lubarda 2020, 819), or “modern conservative” (Kenes 2021, 10). As with the above categories, we’ve erred on the side of leaving its coding consistent rather than changing it for the 2018 election (LRPOSITION = FR).

A handful of texts on Jobbik have noted that Gabor Vona has been a “dynamic” (Tóth and Grajczjár 2015, 136) and “charismatic” leader of the party (Hyttinen 2022, 3), and a “great orator” (Metz and Oross 2020, 6). Sources also note that the party organisation was largely centralised under his control during his tenure (Metz and Oross 2020, 13–14). However, references to the significance of Vona’s charisma and persona to the image of Jobbik are notably rare compared to secondary literature about other populist parties, and some clearly refute the idea that the party is a one-man show (Havlík 2012, 144). While his leadership was clearly important to the party’s success after 2006, we’ve not concluded that this reached the highest level on our CHARISMA coding, and hence we’ve coded the party 2 here. Though Vona was once close to Orban (Szabados 2015, 49), neither he nor Jobbik has ever served in government (INSIDER = 1).

Jobbik has consistently threatened liberal democratic norms. Ideologically, it has joined Fidesz in declaring its opposition to liberal democracy (which they called “refuse imported from abroad”) with a system in which the state is ideologically engaged in the support of the Hungarian ethnic majority (Enyedi 2016, 12). It has also questioned the fundamental merits of democracy (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 232), and many Jobbik leaders “reject democracy entirely” (Enyedi and Róna 2018, 264). Its most significant threat to liberal democratic norms however is its relationship with paramilitary violence (Kenes 2021, 8). In 2007 Vona created the Magyar Gárda, or “Hungarian Guard”, as a paramilitary organisation loyal to Jobbik and active at its rallies (Ádám and Bozóki 2016, 106; Thorleifsson 2021, 188; Szabados 2015, 49). Created to “restore law and order” (Pirro 2019, 793), the group has sported paraphernalia associated with the Arrow Cross fascist movement active in the Second World War (Ilikova and Tushev 2020, 329). It was disbanded by court order in 2009, but has reformed under various new names and long remained linked to Jobbik (Murer 2015, 88; Kim 2016, 348). Jobbik militias like this have demonstrated against alleged “gypsy terror” (Feischmidt and Szombati 2017), throwing bottles and rocks at homes believed to be owned by Roma (Murer 2015, 89). According to numerous studies, the founding of the Magyar Gárda constituted the “real breakthrough” that facilitated Jobbik’s subsequent electoral success (Bíró-Nagy, Boros, and Vasali 2013, 229; see also Varga 2014, 794). This is more than sufficient to code Jobbik 3 on LIBDEMNORMS.

Politics can be different

“Politics Can be Different” (Lehet Más a Politika, LMP) was a green party founded in 2008 by a collection of activists led by András Schiffer. It built on the legacy of prior green movements, especially the Protect the Future movement (Tóth 2015), and succeeded in part due to the left wing void in the political system in the 2010 election where it won 7% of the vote (Daniel Mikecz 2017, 359). In its first term in Parliament the party split on the question of how much to cooperate with the other anti-Orbán parties in the run up to the 2014 election. Some MPs favoured cooperation at the expense of the party’s original anti-party independence, whereas the official party chose to remain non-aligned for the election (see Tóth 2015). Despite losing the former faction, the party maintained its presence in parliament (with 5%) and improved again in 2018 under the leadership of Ákos Hadházy.

LMP is occasionally considered non-populist in the literature (Csigó and Merkovity 2016, 2), in part due to its “intellectual style discourse” that was in stark contrast to Orbán and Fidesz (Tóth 2015, 247), and its related image of being “too professional” in the eyes of many voters (Glied 2014, 50). It also engaged after 2010 in a “constructive and halfhearted oppositional role” (Tóth 2015, 248), and included a socially inclusive message that contrasted with the völkisch nationalism of other populist (Lubarda 2020, 824).

Despite this, the description of the party’s message in the literature paints a clear picture of populist discourse as we have defined it. This message was “anti-elitist” (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 136), “anti-party” (Sitter 2011, 260), “anti-establishment” (Dániel Mikecz 2015, 103; Engler 2020; Pirro and Della Porta 2021, 440), and “strongly anti-corruption” (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 138). It claimed that all other established parties were corrupt (Sitter 2011, 260), including those on the left (Daniel Kovarek and Littvay 2019, 574), offering itself (as its name suggests) as a complete renewal of the democratic process in the interests of ordinary people (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 141). The party’s campaigns portrayed a country in ruin due to the ruling elite’s internal power struggles in pursuit of self-interests, hidden behind the mere façade of representative democracy (Tóth 2015, 237; Vratislav Havlík 2012, 150). Despite its professional image, it nonetheless described the political situation in “apocalyptic” terms (Tóth 2015, 237). In Fábián’s synopsis:

LMP’s critique of the existing political, economic and social order is extensive. Most importantly, LMP sees itself as an anti-party, standing outside and above the existing Hungarian political structure that it considers corrupt, self-serving and obstructing the creation of a meaningful democracy (Fábián 2010, 1008).

Alongside its green and progressive policy agenda, the party ramped up its anti-corruption message under the leadership of Hadházy, who was a former Fidesz city councillor who left the ruling party as a corruption whistle-blower (Pirro and Della Porta 2021, 443). In the 2018 elections, for example, LMP campaigns featured slogans that reduced political problems to elite corruption, such as ‘Against stealing: LMP’ or ‘Those who stole are going to jail!’ (cited in Daniel Kovarek and Littvay 2019, 576). We have considered this sufficient evidence to code the party 3 on OTH_POLCLASS, although its professional and occasionally “constructive” image may make a case for this to be 2.

The LMP’s green progressive agenda pitted it against both global capitalism and multinational firms (Fábián 2010, 1008), especially monopolies (Lubarda 2020, 822). According to Havlík, it claimed that the parties that remained in parliament were controlled by economic oligarchs (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 150) (OTH_ECONOMIC = 3). This also had an anti-foreign dimension, with foreign ownership of assets (Lubarda 2020, 823), the EU, and international corporations targeted in the LMP’s discourse (Fábián 2010, 1007). This appears not to have reached the point of arguing that foreign interests control the elite, hence OTH_FOREIGN = 2.

In contrast to other Hungarian populist parties, LMP did not have an ethnocentric definition of the people, their “others,” or the elite. For example, it was notably progressive regarding the integration of Romani into Hungarian society (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 149) (OTH_ETHNIC = 1). Likewise, even after the 2015 migrant crisis significantly impacted the discourse of other parties, LMP “did not take a stand” on migration in the 2018 elections (Daniel Kovarek and Littvay 2019, 575) (OTH_IMMIGRANT = 1). We also could not find any evidence of OTH_MILITARY discourse (= 1).

Positioning LMP on a left-right ideological axis is very difficult. The core if its initial outlook was in green politics, identifying itself as an “ökopárt” (party of ecology) (Fábián 2010, 1007), and its leadership deliberately positioned itself beyond left and right wing viewpoints (Fábián 2015, 332; Dániel Mikecz 2015, 103). In that capacity it has been called “eco-libertarian” (Becker 2010, 34), and “agrarian populist” (Lubarda 2020, 822). However most sources claim that the party’s policies were generally “left leaning” (see Tóth 2015, 232; Glied 2014, 39), in relation to both economic and social policy (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 149), and that it appealed mainly to left-leaning voters in its initial election (Fábián 2010, 1007). Later sources however suggest that the party’s leadership pulled the party to the centre (Engler 2020; S. Fekete and Fazekas 2018, 164), or even the centre-right (Lubarda 2020, 812). Based on the above we’ve coded the party L on LRPOSITION in 2010 and 2014, and CL in 2018.

Numerous sources stress that under Schiffer’s leadership the LMP did not “present charismatic leading figures” that could personify its message (Tóth 2015, 256; Glied 2014, 50; Papp and Zorigt 2016), in part due to its insistence on avoiding centralised leadership structures (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 145; Vratislav Havlík and Pinková 2012, 290). The party’s messaging became somewhat more personalised under Hadházy and the LMP Prime Minster candidate Bernadett Szél (Daniel Kovarek and Littvay 2019, 576), but not to the point of registering on the CHARISMA variable, hence we have coded it as 1 consistently. The party and its leaders have never been central figures in government (Hadházy was only a local representative when he was in Fidesz until 2013) (INSIDER = 1). Party members have occasionally considered their politics as “revolutionary”, but not to the extent of advocating system change (Tóth 2015, 241). In fact the party had a strong “rule of law” focus and joined the fight against Orbán’s illiberal reforms after 2010 (Vratislav Havlík 2012, 149–51) (LIBDEMNORMS = 1).

Not included

Some of the literature suggests that the Hungarian Democratic Forum (Magyar Demokrata Fórum, MDF) was a populist party in its early years (see for example Sitter 2011, 255). However the movement was more of an “umbrella” movement of various factions (Palonen 2018, 313), only some of which appear populist (specifically that of István Csurka which went on to become the MIÉP). Its leader Józef Antall does not appear to have used populist rhetoric himself. Hence we’ve not included it in the dataset.

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