Democratic Decline in Hungary

András L. Pap is Research Professor and Head of Department for Constitutional and Administrative Law at the (formerly Hungarian Academy of Sciences) Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies, as well as Professor of Law at the Faculty of Economics at Eötvös University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary. For 25 years, until its closing in 2025, he was Adjunct (Recurrent Visiting) Professor in the Nationalism Studies Program at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest and Vienna.

"Fittingly described by the author as ‘a diary of a constitutional scholar,’ this book offers an important critical account about key constitutional and political developments that shaped the emergence of ‘illiberal democracy’ in Hungary in 2010-11. The analysis reflects an impressive breadth of knowledge coupled with deep commitment to the principles of liberal democracy. The book should be of great interest to scholars, students, and policy-makers interested in the future of democratic government in post-Cold War Europe."Zsuzsa Csergő, Queen’s University, Canada"Pap’s fascinating and timely Democratic Decline shows how defensible laws and democratic processes can be used to construct illiberalism. Most interesting is how the Hungarian 'System of National Cooperation,' an ideology that puts the national above the political community and has parallels with other European populisms, impacts an incredible range of policies that serve to privilege Christian, middle-class families and protect the state against individual rights claims."Stephen Deets, Babson College, USA"As one of the first and most corrosive expressions of the antiliberal Zeitgeist proliferating across today’s world, Viktor Orbán’s "illiberal democracy" should be of concern to every politically responsible citizen in every struggling Western democracy. To understand what is at stake, no English-language work is more timely and more illuminating that András Pap’s original and biting analysis of Hungary’s plunge into constitutional antiliberalism." Stephen Holmes, New York University School of Law, USA

• IntroductionPart I. Chronology and explanations: what happened in Hungary in 2010–2012Chapter 1. Democratic U-turn, the chronology of building an illiberal democracy 1. Meanwhile in Hungary: An illiberal democracy in the making2. The legislative juggernaut3. Dismantling rule of law guarantees4. Expanding the electorate and gerrymandering5. And the new constitution…6. Constitutional partnership or cemented clientelism?7. Immediate responsesChapter 2. Causes and explanations1. Values and political culture2. Orbán and his strategy: The rhetoric and politics of the "dark side"3. A little help from the constitutional structure…4. Economic hardshipPart II. The microfabric of the Hungarian illiberal democracy’Chapter 3. Illiberalism as constitutional identity1. Terminology and conceptualization2. Illiberalism and the emergence of a new political community: The System of National Cooperation3. Illiberalism and the System of National Cooperation4. Illiberal democracy as constitutional identityChapter 4. Intimate citizenship and value preferences in the new constitution1. The SNC as a workfare state2. The SNC as a Christian state3. Family in the SNC4. Equality of intimate citizenship in the SNC5. Reproductive rights in the SNC5. Paternalism and essentialism in the SNC6. ConclusionsChapter 5. Illiberal multiculturalism: deceptive premises, misguided policies1. Illiberal transnationalism: The nation and the constitution in internal and external homelands2. Illiberal multiculturalism: The nation and the minorities 3. ConclusionChapter 6. Communitarians, dignity, and privacy: personhood and transparency in the System of National Cooperation1. Communities as primary agents of dignity 2. Liberal instruments for illiberal objectives: privacy as a tool to obstruct public accountability and to protect the dignity of government institutions and officials3. Privacy as a tool for ethnic discrimination and marginalization4. Concluding thoughtsChapter 7. Closing RemarksIndex