Eva J. Zemandl received her Ph.D. in political science from Central European University in 2017 and recently completed her term as a postdoctoral fellow with CEU’s Center for European Union Research. She specializes in Hungarian politics and public administration as well as European integration. I am pleased to publish this excellent analysis of Viktor Orbán’s long-range political plans.
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In their recent article in Foreign Affairs on “The End of the Democratic Century,” Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa paint a disturbingly unpredictable if not dystopian view of the upcoming years. They claim that the future world order will take one of two forms: “either some of the most powerful autocratic countries in the world will transition to liberal democracy, or the period of democratic dominance that was expected to last forever will prove no more than an interlude before a new era of struggle between mutually hostile political systems.” It is an unsettling claim, and one may be tempted to dig their hand in the sand. But while Foa and Mounk stay at the macro level, it is evident that tectonic plates are also shifting at the micro level on the streets. Departing from their well-documented observations, I argue that this hostile struggle will not only play out in the theater of multinational relations. Importantly, it is preceded and conditioned within countries and is already converging across borders in the hearts and minds of likeminded people in Europe and in the echo chambers of social and conventional media bubbles. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, owing to his political acumen and the allure of his nationalist agenda, is a key protagonist in this emerging socio-political order of—what I will call—transnational tribalism.
The last eight years in Hungary serves as a harbinger of what is to come on a transnational scale. From a bird’s eye view, Orbán and his Fidesz-KDNP political coalition won a landslide victory on April 8 for the third time in a row. Take a closer look and you are confronted with a tangible civil war longtime in the making. Hungary’s civil war is a localized manifestation of the “European civil war” (liberal vs. illiberal democracy) recently prophesized by French president Macron. The European political theater is ironically lending well to the rapid spillover across borders of this hostile struggle; it is after all an integrated political, economic, and social space in a context of unprecedented transnational communication. So far, the battle is the entrenchment of societal attitudes between, on the one hand, nationalism and protectionism—often articulated and represented by populist leaders—and integration and openness, on the other. More fundamentally, it is playing out as a life and death struggle between and within countries regarding illiberalism/ authoritarianism versus liberal democracy.
This renegotiation of power and ideas has been gradually emerging in the wake of the end of the Cold War, globalization/Europeanization and free movement, and persistent crises (GFC, migration, severe climate change, the rise of terrorism networks which transcend borders). The status quo of liberal democracy, western capitalism, and “Brussels” is being rhetorically and substantively questioned across the EU by multiple political and social currents. By now, the conventional wisdom seems to be that people are feeling generally anxious, out of place, unsettled. The comfort of returning home is attract and thus so are politicians who can credibly offer nationalistic solutions which are sold as ironing out the failures of European integration and globalization.
Orbán is definitely a politician of the times. As a Hungarian political actor once remarked to me, he has a “fantastic feeling for the atmosphere or the wish of the people.” Orbán has carved out an alternative vision—the restoration of Europe as it once was. That is, an idyllic and whitewashed Christendom—appearing at odds with the views of Pope Francis himself, but constructed as a political project in its own right. For Orbán, this has meant effectively but gradually instituting what he cleverly referred to in 2014 as “illiberal democracy” or—amid great furor over the authoritarian implications of such a notion—what he has recently relabeled as “Christian democracy.” There are strong hints that he has been positioning himself as the avant garde leader of a political project of nationalism and illiberalism across Europe. He knows what hasn’t been said and that it needs to be said. If no one else, then he will push the envelope. But never a hasty move. It must be carried out carefully, gradually, subtly. This is the magic bullet of his success, and he is quick to put the lid on hasty moves and statements made by his subordinates. Orbán is always on the lookout for the slightest shift in the winds. But now with his (contestable) two-thirds majority he again garnered at the national elections in April, Orbán may very well be in the coveted position of commanding the winds to blow in the direction he thinks is the most politically viable for the European Union. Meanwhile, his country has effectively descended into a civil war between tribes.
Orbán’s carefully tuned and evolving political discourse has served to further divide a country whose very identity is both rooted in a tribal heritage, but who’s served in the last twenty-five years or more as a member in the western club of liberalism and integration. The post- election political landscape in Hungary has virtually divided the country along two bitter halves. One half is the 49% who voted for Orbán, the populist and “strongman” who has revised Hungary in his own image. According to the latest poll by Publicus Intézet, the top three reasons people voted for Fidesz were: (1) they solved the refugee problem (28%), (2) they live better (22%), and (3) they have always voted for Fidesz (16%). It is however a question the extent to which Hungary’s electoral system—crafted by the second Orban/Fidesz-KDNP government after 2010—can be deemed fair and to what extent electoral fraud and cheating actually occurred. Nevertheless, the significance of Orbán’s support among the Hungarian electorate is not only non-negligible, but he appears to be gaining the admiration of anti-immigrant voters and advocates across Europe. The other half is the 51% who voted for an array of opposition parties best characterized as a herd of cats. These voters are profoundly embittered, angered, but now more united and demonstrating (literally) an unprecedented motivation to oust Orbán and his increasingly repressive regime.
Even in this context, Orbán is currently the political leader best poised to advance his slow-cooking European revision on the streets and in the halls of Europe. To understand how Orbán has reoriented the discourse to his advantage, one should at least go as far back as the second Orbán administration (2010-2014). Orban’s speeches and statements (here’s a sampling) reflect the allure of a revolutionary spirit and the resurrection of nationalist (even nativist) sentiment in a country where historical narratives have perpetually trapped the national consciousness in a state of victimhood. Orbán has been gradually constructing an “illiberal” revision of Europe where nationalism becomes almost transcendental, where an idyllic and seemingly divine nation-state and the social unit of the family out shadow the rights of the individual. But he has done so by disarming his enemies—both people and ideas. Too often under-emphasized is how Orbán has repeatedly claimed a revolutionary victory by legitimizing the annihilation of liberalism —both in terms of party-political choice and state organization which he often (intentionally) conflates. While playing the game of discrediting and delegitimizing the political left—whose parties have as much themselves to blame—Orbán has been turning up the heat very slowly in his advance to the sort of rightwing radicalism previously attributed to the radical far right Jobbik party.
Upon their landslide electoral victory in 2010, Orban’s Fidesz party authored and embarked on a project of nationalism and Christian conservatism, which appealed to a disenchanted electorate on the heels of both political and economic crises (the Left’s demise and post-2008 global financial crisis, respectively). Orbán and the party interpreted the victory as “a mandate for a radical transformation” – as spoken by György Schöpflin, member of Fidesz and the European Parliament’s European People’s Party. The notion that the Fidesz victory and second administration itself constituted a “revolution” in the “voting booths” – that the nation had “pulled itself together” are rooted in a history of repeated foreign political and economic domination. Orbán plays on this victimhood, blaming the forced political and economic systems of communism, liberalism or neoliberalism. It is an important detail that these are all necessarily associated with the political left. From 2010 to 2014, Orbán artfully invoked the notion of revolution—the victory of his conservatism and nationalism over liberalism: “Let it remind you that for the last twenty years we fought with muscle, pain, and sweat [. . .] And after twenty years, when everybody had had enough of discord, of the old comrades, we stuck together and in April 2010 we made a revolution, a constitutional revolution. So that everyone in Europe can hear loud and clear, we cried to the world, that Hungarians no longer need communism, nor socialism, we no longer need the Left’s costume party [. . .]” (Translated from Hungarian by this author from an article originally appearing in the now shuttered Magyar Nemzet on 30 March 2014, “Orbán Viktor beszéde a Fidesz választási nagygyűlésén”).
At the same time, he has also avoided or previously retrieved hasty moves that would appear to ignore the democratic will—understood in the more restrictive sense as majoritarian politics. No, his supporters consider Hungary as a modern European country. So, for Orbán it was a matter of articulating and advancing a completely newfangled Europeanism that could be sold as the triumph of (then-moderate) political conservatism over the supposedly uncontested reign of liberalism—which he cleverly conflated with the political left in his infamous Tusnád speech of 2014 (i.e., “The fact that in English [illiberal] means something else is not my problem. In the Hungarian context, the word liberal has become negative”). That is, liberalism however conceived is an evil which must be stamped out: “the strength of American soft power is in decline and liberal values today embody corruption, sex and violence [. . .] discredit America and American modernization.” The implication is that illiberal democracy is an expression of the will of the conservative majority in Hungary, whereas “liberal” democracy—and here it is conceivable to assume he means “liberal” ideas of tolerance and political correctness—is in both moral and economic decline and therefore no longer credible.
Orbán would cast Hungary as a member of the western world, but a member whose citizens would not sacrifice their hard won and cherished national sovereignty. At a time when the fallout from Hungary’s foreign currency loan crisis and broader financial crisis was still hurting a significant portion of the country’s middle- and working-class households as well as small businesses, the notion of taking back control of the country’s economy and destiny resonated widely. Thus, Orbán lays the claim that Hungarians have been wronged by external forces—in the form of foreign interference in domestic affairs and foreign ownership of national assets, “push[ing] their market logic in an uncompromising way” (as one Hungarian political expert once commented to me).
Orbán cast his Conservative-Christian ruling government as the righteous emancipators, thanks to the support of its deserving electoral base and “Peace March” activists, who “protected our national sovereignty against the international financial‑world, Brussels bureaucrats and big international companies operating in monopoly” (Orbán during an interview in the pro‑government newspaper Magyar Hírlap). But Orbán was always clever; he could at once play on the population’s (often conflicting) sense of collective victimhood and generally pro-European sentiment: “Hungary is part of the Western alliance system, NATO and the European Union. There is no doubt about this, nor will there be during our administration. We are, however, members of these alliances and not hostages [. . .] “In the European Union elections we must tell Brussels loudly and resolutely: respect the Hungarians!” (Orbán speaking after taking his oath of office for the new parliamentary cycle in 2014). It appears that his fourth administration will largely stay this course.
Thus, Orbán branded a palatable form of nationalism, which did not come across as isolationist but rather as the revival and strong show of self-esteem. Upon Orbán’s second consecutive win, he unmasked the nature of his revolution and radical transformation in his oft-cited and well documented Tusnád speech in 2014. He declared the intention to organize a new form of state organization – an “illiberal” state order. What Orbán did was morally elevate the national community, to include ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries, and the Hungarian nation-state above that of the individual. Orbán could cast the conservative Hungarian nation as the ultimate manifestation of divinity and righteousness: “Thank you to everyone whom it concerns; to Providence, to the voters, to Hungary’s legislators and at such times we must also thank those who turned against us and provided an opportunity for good to win the day regardless, because after all, without evil, how could the good be victorious?” In other words, with the invocation of God, Orbán drew a clear line that summer between who is and isn’t Hungarian.
All this was uttered before Orbán found the magic elixir in the form of the refugee and migrant crisis of 2015. By the fall of 2014, a wave of massive street demonstrations seemed to suggest that the electorate was disenchanted with Orbán’s newly declared illiberalism. Orbán and his governing coalition were sliding in the polls. Then came the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris, and Orban’s nationalism broke through the final barrier which may have otherwise prevented a further slide to the right. The pro-government daily, Magyar Idők, hinted in an interview with Orbán in December 2015 – that perhaps “the Hungarian solutions [for example, the border fence and hardline measures against immigration] can be finally considered acceptable.” Orbán’s response: “We would have been happy if the majority of our EU partners from the beginning would have agreed with the Hungarian government’s thinking on the situation. If it had happened like this, there would be a couple thousand actual refugees in Europe right now, rather than one million migrants.” The insinuation is that Hungary’s leaders were right all along – that Orbán is the credible defender of Hungarians and Europeans. And thus his brand of illiberal democracy could no longer be considered the stuff of fringe politics.
Many refer to Orbán’s anti-immigration agenda, which evolved into an anti-“George Soros” agenda—weakening, attempting to silence, and delegitimizing critical civil society, Central European University, and political or religious opponents, many of whom had nothing to do with Soros—as a “hate campaign” against immigrants. While the latter is undeniable, let’s face it: the war of ideas concerning immigration and refugee quotas has fundamentally always been a civil war between Hungarians and Hungarians playing out inside the country. During Orbán’s reign, it has become acceptable to declare your neighbor or family member as an enemy of the nation.
The debate over immigration and asylum policy is now black and white, stripped of any opportunities for the serious political deliberation and negotiation between competing factions it inevitably deserves in a democratic setting. Allow this hostile struggle to spill across borders and the 20th century European project regresses into a culture of heated conflict. Orbán’s capacities for political engineering in seemingly insignificant Hungary and at the European level is coveted by heavy-hitting admirers and followers in the likes of Geert Wilders (source in Hungarian), Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Lauren Southern (source in Hungarian), and Steven Bannon. Bannon recently declared that he himself is “trying to be [. . .] the infrastructure, globally, for the global populist movement” and considers Orbán “the most significant guy on the scene right now.” These phenomena and admiration for Orbán’s resolve are now gaining traction in the liberal democratic bastions of Germany, France, and Austria as they have been in rebel Hungary or Poland. Orbán’s domestic politics are spilling over and he knows that other European countries offer fertile ground for his ascendance. While some populist political leaders and opinion-makers supporting Orbán may be licking their wounds from various defeats, they still enjoy a significant following which is threatening more moderate parties and the principles of liberal democracy.
Orbán has to his advantage the political muscle and now the increasing submission of his subordinates and even peers to lead this restless tribe. He knows that the political center is hollowing out—that Europe’s new socio-political landscape is tribalist. On the one hand, Krastev was right back in August—the Hungarian elections were still more than a half year away—that Orbán has to face his adversaries in the European People’s Party (EPP), Pope Francis, and his own people, while Orbán’s hope of a strategic alliance between Washington and Moscow has virtually evaporated and the Visegrad Four is not the impenetrable alliance it is cracked up to be. On the other, while his relations with the moderate and pragmatic Angela Merkel have rotted, Orbán’s solid relations with Germany’s CSU and his further courting of other (rising or surviving) populist leaders and parties in Europe is bearing fruit.
While the European Parliament publishes resolutions and the European Commission issues infringement procedures, he is gradually building a coalition of the willing in the offices of increasingly far right party politics and is admired by non-Hungarian voters alike. Judging by the now more open pronouncements of other European political actors and commentators who admonish against continuously pummeling Orbán with criticism in light of his recently acquired mandate (you can read about that here or here), it would be foolish to deny that the Hungarian PM’s domestic victory has transcended borders and has a real chance to alter the atmosphere. Not to mention, the center right EPP has been sheltering Fidesz despite its slide to the radical right. However, it appears that EPP leaders Manfred Weber and Joseph Daul have finally drawn a red line for Orbán—he must leave the university and NGOs alone or else. But judging by the Prime Minister’s modus operandi thus far, it is highly likely that we will see him employ his guile to disarm or subvert his critical allies. Orbán is a fighter, and the EPP leadership has certainly not taken away the wind from the sails of increasingly far right politics.
There is perhaps one political star in Europe who can serve has his strongest opponent and that is (arguably) the young and comparatively less experienced Emmanuel Macron. And Orbán has proven that he can organize, unite and grow a tribe. He has the accessibility of social media, savvy English-speaking subordinates who know how to sell the narratives, the growing media empire of his close business associates (which also produces material in English), the far and wide reach of a pro-government Russian media which is largely aligned with him, and the potential backing of donors across borders in advancing his project. In addition, Orbán already enjoys the experience of successfully courting supporters across borders. A core element of his nationalist discourses is the construction of the neighboring ethnic Hungarian diaspora as rightful citizens of the Hungarian nation-state. Fidesz enjoys a monopoly both discursively and structurally, through its centralized control of media and accrual of state resources, over its claim in representing the entire “community” of Hungarians living both inside and outside the nation’s borders (that is, the conservative majority). In repeatedly referring to the defense of Europe during the migrant and refugee crisis, he is also constructing a scattered community across borders. His success in positioning himself as the political voice of the so-called Visegrad Four is a testament to his practiced abilities, even if the block is not always showing a united front.
This leaves us to wonder how existing nations as we know them will indeed survive in an era of internal and external hostile struggles and especially in a context of unprecedented transnational integration and communication. The real pressing question is: which model of governance will prevail? Will (authoritarian) nationalism prevail over (democratic) integration? As Ivan Krastev asked in an article he authored last August: “But is illiberal Hungary really the future of Europe? And could Mr. Orbán succeed in remaking the Union?” I believe that he can, precisely because Orbán has been very effective at slowly drip feeding Hungarians, while more moderate European leaders have stood by as they lose their political clout. Macron has rocketed in like a shooting star. But is he a match for Orbán? Is he the leader of the other 51%, given that many of his core policy moves in the last year seem geared towards appeasing those who favor more stringent anti-immigration and security laws? Will his third way proclamation that he is neither of the left or the right survive against the inevitable societal ruptures his policy earthquakes may cause? Is he poised to follow a Machiavellian path of his own?
Like it or not, transnational tribalism is indeed upon us. So, this could lead to a number of scenarios—some of which are not mutually exclusive. Politicians and parties pandering to their base are unlikely to reach out to the other side (e.g., Trump), as centrist politics might have once allowed. Although Orbán recently declared that he will “use his two-thirds majority to serve the three-thirds” (source in Hungarian), it is not quite clear what this will entail. The other is that the nation-state increasingly clamps down on dissent and that—in a climate of unquestioned and unrestrained nationalism—its interests will be elevated above that of the individual. In the interest of national security (whether against internal or external threats), opportunities for the proliferation of competing opinions will be curtailed because these may work against the interests of political leaders who use the nation-state as a weapon to hold onto power. An obvious case in point is the increasing centralization under Orbán – of the media, the distribution of EU funds, the judiciary, and the intelligence services, to name only a few examples.
A divided society is easier to control, and if you have the infrastructure and capabilities to string together a tribe of sympathizers across borders, it renders this task even easier. The wave of dissent that brought down communism in 1989 and the fall of the Berlin wall would be virtually impossible in such a context. There may be no collective international pressure against oppression because it becomes acceptable to cast people you don’t agree with as a national threat or enemy. The real question is whether people will remain tolerant of oppressive governance or whether there will there be a backlash given that most of us came of age or have grown up in the democratic century?
Viktor Orbán – like his politics or not – currently has the upper hand. Nevertheless, will he miscalculate and strike the wrong chord? The allure of a strongman slowly taking back your country may be muddied by the painful awakening of many voters, including potential rightwing supporters. All may be quiet on the Hungarian border, but if you perceive that your tax money is being spent in increasingly dubious ways and that your space for dissent is incrementally shrinking, then even the allure of nationalism may fade. The case of the-once radical far right Jobbik and its voters is perhaps a case in point. They more-or-less have become democrats against a government mired in corruption scandals and the Fidesz political machinery which has tried to obliterate the Jobbik threat using rather cunning and fatalistic methods. This is despite Jobbik voters’ quintessentially anti-immigrant and nationalist sentiments. As Elliott Abrams from the Council on Foreign Relations stated in a recent post, “Armenia and Nicaragua remind us that the desire for freedom, and the resistance to tyranny, are never crushed” – or at least not permanently. Perhaps there is reason for the believers of liberal democracy to be optimistic.
Yet, either way, a hostile struggle is cropping up, multitudinous, and doesn’t appear to be showing signs that these renegotiations of power and ideas are settling into a new normal. Quite the contrary, and its outcome is unpredictable. This new era of transnational tribalism is deeply troubling and unsettling, not least of all to those of us who are parents. It is probable that we will see a resurgence of heightened tensions if not outright violence within countries as much as between them before we settle into a new equilibrium—in whatever form(s) and however long that may take.
May 14, 2018
