The Hungarian Far Right E-Book

Péter Krekó

• Herausgeber: ibidem
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Explorations of the Far Right
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 403

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This timely book examines far-right politics in Hungary—but its relevance points much beyond Hungary. With its two main players, the radical right Jobbik and populist right Fidesz, it is an essentially Eastern European, European, and global phenomenon. Jobbik and Fidesz, political parties with a populist, nativist, authoritarian approach, Eastern and pro-Russian orientation, and strong anti-Western stance, are on the one hand products of the problematic transformation period that is typical for post-communist countries. But they are products of a “populist Zeitgeist” in the West as well, with declining trust in representative democratic and supranational institutions, politicians, experts, and the mainstream media. The rise of politicians such as Nigel Farage in the UK, Marine Le Pen in France, Norbert Hofer in Austria, and, most notably, Donald Trump in the US are clear indications of this trend. In this book, the story of Jobbik (and Fidesz), contemporary players of the Hungarian radical right scene, are not treated as separate case studies, but as representatives of broader international political trends. Far-right parties such as Jobbik (and increasingly Fidesz) are not pathologic and extraordinary, but exaggerated, seemingly pathological manifestations of normal, mainstream politics. The radical right is not the opposite and denial of the mainstream, but the sharp caricature of the changing national, and often international mainstream.

Leseprobe

ibidem Press, Stuttgart

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Our approach in the book

What are we talking about? The concepts

The supply and demand model

The support base of far-right parties

Supply-side theories

Demand for the ideology of the far right in Hungary

A tool for measuring social demand for the far right: The DEREX index

Prejudice and welfare chauvinism

Right-wing value orientation

Social demand for the far right in Hungary, 2002–2015

The assessment of the DEREX

Who are Jobbik’s voters?

Jobbik’s performance at the polls: Ups and downs

Who are Jobbik’s voters?

Where do Jobbik’s voters come from?

Supply side: Far right on the political field

From marginality toward relevance

The regime change and the far right: Return to the limelight

The first attempt at establishing a far-right party

The rise and fall of MIÉP

The early history of Jobbik

2006: The birth of today’s far right in Hungary

The pressure from the right to reorganize

The far right taking a leading role

Transforming the agenda

The communication of the reorganizing far right

The structural consequences of events in the fall of 2006

Crisis of crises: Consolidation of the far right

Economic crisis

Crisis of government—and governance

The crisis of Roma integration

The Jobbik-Fidesz relationship

Fidesz: Transformation from liberalism to national populism

Dismantling of liberal democracy and the central field of force

Jobbik’s strategic shift: From extreme to mainstream (“cute campaign”)

The interaction between the two parties

Jobbik’s worldview

Intellectual background: Conspiracies everywhere

Jobbik’s ideology

Jobbik’s symbolic policy

Self-definition

Jobbik’s concept of “nation”

Jobbik’s concepts of enemy

Jobbik’s concept of “state”

Concept of history and the most important historical symbols

Jobbik’s foreign policy

Jobbik’s relations with Iran

The Eurasia concept and Jobbik’s connections to Russia

European network of pro-Russian parties

Historical context of Russian-Hungarian relations

Current relations between Jobbik and Russia

Jobbik’s public policy programs

The “seven chieftains plan”

The 60-step program

Further sectorial programs

The place of minorities in the program

Jobbik’s organizational background

The structural division of today’s Hungarian far right

Jobbik’s organization building and the Guard phenomenon

Jobbik’s subcultural background

Alternative politics—“Civil character”

Alternative media

Alternative culture

Appropriation of the “Roma issue”: “Taboo-breakers” against “Gipsy crime”

The proliferation of the term “Gypsy crime”

The shifting meaning of the term “Gypsy crime”

A short detour: Developments after 2010

The politics of speaking out

Political strategies against the far right

Lack of political strategies?

The Hungarian strategies (or lack of) from an international perspective

The crisis of the media in covering the far right

Governmental strategies

Possible strategies for the future

Concluding remarks—Hungary: Taken hostage by the far right?

Appendix

Detailed methodology of the DEREX index

Bibliography

EFR Explorations of the Far Right

Copyright

Preface

Hungary has made a lot of headlines in the international media over the last ten years. The reasons for this international interest are twofold: the Hungarian far right and the illiberal tendencies in the country. Needless to say, the two phenomena are strongly interconnected. In this book, we try to explain why.

In April 2015, an unprecedented event happened in Hungary: during the mid-term parliamentary elections, Jobbik—the Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, Jobbik), once the most extreme ultranationalist party in European parliaments, gained its first ever individual mandate, in a district in Tapolca, western Hungary, where previously Viktor Orbán’s governmental party Alliance of Young Democrats (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, Fidesz) had enjoyed strong support. This victory was indicative of Jobbik’s spectacular political successes. Jobbik has had a meteoric rise in the last ten years. A political party established in 2003 that barely gained 2 percent votes in 2006 during the parliamentary election collectively with Hungarian Justice and Life Party (Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja, MIÉP) gained 15 percent votes in 2009 during the European Parliament (EP) elections and received 17 percent votes a year later during consecutive parliamentary elections. Then, in the 2014 parliamentary elections, Jobbik gained 21 percent of the votes (excluding votes outside Hungary), and in the summer of that year, at the EP elections, Jobbik took over the position of the second largest party—and has continued to hold it since then. Jobbik’s politicians hope that a continuation of this trend will play a major role in the party’s further rise to power.

However, it would be premature to call this prophecy: tensions within Jobbik and policies of a radicalizing Fidesz implementing Jobbik’s program have hindered party support since then. While it seems that Jobbik will remain a major player in the Hungarian political scene, an electoral breakthrough at the 2018 elections will be difficult.

The Hungarian far right is the rule and the exception at the same time: the rule because it fits to the features of the “Populist Zeitgeist” and because it is an essentially European and Eastern European phenomenon. Its original revisionist, anti-Semitic ideology built on a strong nostalgia toward the 1920s and 1930s, along with its soft irredentist rhetoric and harsh critique of the political transition in 1989–1990, makes it similar to many far-right organizations in the region, from the Bulgarian Attack (Ataka) to Marian Kotleba’s People’s Party Our Slovakia (Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko). The way the party tries to turn more moderate is following European cookbooks. Gábor Vona, the leader of the party since 2006, has done his best in the last four years to moderate the party and bring it to the “mainstream” of the European populist radical right, using recipes from, among others, parties in France and Serbia. The most extreme party of the European scene before Golden Dawn (Laïkós Sýndesmos—Chrysí Avgí) emerged with a strong heritage from the Hungarian fascist movements and gradually became the centrist challenger to an increasingly authoritarian and chauvinist Fidesz from 2013 onward. And this is a completely open move: Gábor Vona openly admitted recently that he “took the spirit of the party” (Vona, 2016a), betraying its original principles, to make a centrist, modern conservative force capable of governing from an extreme one: a real “mature adult” from a rebellious “adolescent.”

As a result of this policy, which leads to a leadership challenge in the party that Vona could overcome, Jobbik can be, in the long run, an exception to the rule (see, for example, Minkenberg, 2015) that radical-right parties in Eastern Europe are more volatile, and have lower life cycles than the mainstream parties. Jobbik can rather become more similar to their Western counterparts in France, Austria, and the Netherlands, for example, parties that are integral parts of the party system for decades. Jobbik became an important part of the political system, a relatively stable middle-size party. And its quick moderation makes it an exception for one more reason as well. The strategy to become a soft, mild centrist party obviously paid off until 2014 and 2015; it became problematic afterward—with the beginning of the refugee crisis. While in most of the European countries—let’s take Austria, Germany, France, Slovakia as examples—radical-right parties could rise at the expense of mainstream governmental parties, in Hungary the case was the very opposite. Fidesz, with its law-and-order policy steps (e.g., raising a fence on the southern border of Hungary) and strong xenophobic rhetoric (running billboard campaigns against refugees and initiating a referendum against the mandatory refugee allocation mechanism with very harsh anti-Brussels and xenophobic tone) could gain popularity, while Jobbik rather lost support as it could not, and did not want to, exceed Fidesz in radicalism. But the simple fact that right-wing radicalism could become even more mainstream clearly shows that there is massive social demand for it in Hungary.

In this book, overviewing the available literature, but mainly relying on accumulated knowledge and analyses of Political Capital Institute on the subject, we make an attempt to explain the “demand,” or social, and “supply,” or political, factors responsible for the rise and popularity of Jobbik, the leading force of the genuine Hungarian far right after the regime change. When analyzing Jobbik’s policies and politics, we cannot ignore the domestic political context in general and Jobbik’s relations to current governmental party Fidesz in particular: how Fidesz influenced Jobbik and vice versa. We think that the general simplifying explanation that Jobbik pushed Fidesz more to the extreme position is simplifying and misleading. What we can see instead is that the problems with post-transitional Hungary and the general disillusionment from the democratic ideals and Western models and approaches, hand in hand with political opportunism, led to very similar political and policy approaches in both parties. While they definitely had an impact on each other, their direction was not determined by each other. Furthermore, we highlight the international context of the Hungarian far right. Jobbik and Fidesz, political parties with a nationalist, authoritarian approach, a pro-Russian orientation, and strong anti-Western stance, are products of the problematic transformation period that is specific to postcommunist countries. But they are products of a general “populist Zeitgeist” on the West as well, with declining trust in representative and international institutions, politicians, experts, and the mainstream media and rise of politicians such as Heinz-Christian Strache, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, and Donald Trump as a consequence. The rise of this “Populist Internationale,” as Anne Applebaum calls it, is a consequence of a strong anti-intellectual revolution and deep feelings of a “center-periphery” conflict. This perceived dichotomy behind the resurgence of populist forces all over the world that can manifest itself in many forms (capital vs. countryside, urban vs. rural, elite vs. people) seems to be much more important than the objective socioeconomical status. And this tension is a strong driving force of political conflicts in Hungary as well.

The story of Jobbik and Fidesz will not be told as separate case studies, but as representatives of broader Central European and European trends. Telling their story from this perspective, we will rely on Cas Mudde’s (2007) pathological normalcy thesis. Populist radical-right parties such as Jobbik (and increasingly, Fidesz) are not pathologic and extraordinary, but instead the opposite: seemingly pathological manifestations of normal, mainstream political tendencies and attitudes. The radical right is not the opposite of the mainstream. This is a sharp caricature of the mainstream.

In this book, we do not aim to give an extensive overview of the literature on the far right. We only use the existing literature to give a theoretical framework for our investigation. Also, our approach is not entirely value neutral. When talking about players and policies of the far right, we talk about solutions that often openly go against political values and human rights standards, the pillars of Western civilization.. We do think that authoritarian, nationalistic populist rhetoric and policies are posing a threat to liberal democracies and social peace.

We never thought that the far right and their ideology should be banned or silenced. But political forces and rhetoric that aim to capitalize from the sharpened social conflicts need special attention—because they can provoke violence. But making a distinction between the political force and its voters remains important. Voters’ views may differ in many ways from the policies of their party of choice—and this is the case of Jobbik as well. Jobbik’s supporters are often more moderate on many issues than Jobbik party members (Bíró, Boros, and Varga, 2012). For many, Jobbik is like a political Rorschach test on which they can project their disillusionment, political desires, and hopes. Furthermore, voters with extremist attitudes don’t necessarily vote for the far right; they frequently support mainstream parties.

As it is mentioned above Jobbik changed its political and policy stance substantially in the last few years, as parts of a strategy to gravitate towards the mainstream—while we can observe an opposite trend regarding Fidesz. These two trends might highlight the most dynamic tendencies of the last decade in Hungarian domestic politics, causing significant change in voters’ attitudes as well. But it also means that analyzing the far-right in Hungary is like shooting to a constantly and quickly moving target. We analyze, for example, Jobbik’s political programs and manifestos written in 2010 and 2014, but some of these elements have already been softened and moderated by the party. But we think it is still important to give a retrospective analysis of Jobbik’s symbolic politics and policies as well, for two simple reason. First, they are deeply rooted in the Hungarian nationalist and far-right traditions (e.g. Paksa, 2012), therefore their relevance goes beyond the party. Second, the moderation strategy is mainly coming from the party leader, Gábor Vona. If he is being replaced as the party leadership in the coming years (e.g. as a consequence of worse-than-expected election results), a hardliner can take back the party and bring back the more radical political line. While party positions can change relatively quickly, the traditional ideology of the Hungarian far-right and its topics seem rather ethernal.

 

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the help and support of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung office in Budapest. We extend our appreciation to Jan Niklas Engels and János Molnár for their support and recommendations—and also for their patience. We are grateful to founders of Political Capital Institute, Zoltán Somogyi and Krisztián Szabados, for their encouragement and support for these researches from the very beginning. We also thank Csaba Molnár, László Róbert, Kálmán Kiss, Gergely Gimes, Bulcsú Hunyadi, Lóránt Győri, and Patrik Szicherle, former or current analysts at Political Capital Institute, whose research served as the foundation for chapters of this book. Our intern, Pálinkás Réka, was of utmost help organizing the literature. Katya Dunajeva helped a lot in improving the text during the months he spent at Political Capital. Pál Salamon helped with the translation of some chapters. All errors and omissions remain the responsibility of the authors.

Our approach in the book

What are we talking about? The concepts

As such the concept of the far right is not suitable for a description of consistent and inert political phenomena; instead, it simply attempts to define a set of dynamically shifting ideas, groups, organizations, parties, and other political actors and practices sharing a number of common features. Consequently, a precise definition of our topic is a daunting task. However, we are far from being alone with this predicament; a review of European professional literature shows that twenty years ago Cas Mudde in his study “The war of words: Defining the extreme right party family”(1996) considered in detail the difficulties of applying various terms and definitions, while Elisabeth Carter in her book The Extreme Right in Western Europe plainly referred to a “deluge of terminological experiments” (2005, p. 21). In other words, political science has yet to come up with proper terminology describing the political phenomenon in question. We have no established terminology in respect of Europe, let alone global developments taking place outside our continent.

Of course, one can ask whether it makes any sense to squeeze all far-right or “right-radical” (by their own definition) political ideas, players, and practices into a single label when they themselves do not constitute a uniform and consistent category. Political phenomena regularly lumped into this category are rather diverse and may show a wide range of differences across time and place alike. In the cases discussed here, an unusual level of heterogeneity can be attributed to the fact that great emphasis has been placed on country- and region-specific developments. While the European far right represents an increasingly international phenomenon (see, for example, Vejvodova, 2014), all political players, in the need for targeting their own constituency, have to deal with local answers for social problems, which means that in developing their programs and policies, specific conditions of their country come to play an important role.

While the topics, rhetorical styles, and ideological cornerstones of the far-right ideologies, in most of the cases, have very similar features, there can be an important difference between how these forces define their enemies (see, for example, Mudde, 2007). While xenophobia as the rejection of the universal stranger is often a central component of far-right dogma and rhetoric, in some places, like Western and Northern Europe, where immigration from the East creates tensions, xenophobia is accompanied with incitement against East Europeans. In the nativist tones of the Brexit campaign, for example, the voices against Eastern Europeans were much louder than the islamophobic ones. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, in many cases for historical reasons, anti-Tziganism and anti-Semitism dominate the nativist discourses—with a new wave of xenophobia as a consequence of the refugee crisis. As a consequence of the rivaling nationalisms and differing enemy images, the European far-right parties are traditionally facing difficulties to creating a broad-based alliance reaching across countries, similar to that established by the continent’s conservative, liberal, green, or left-wing party families. A good example is when a former far-right group in the European Parliament (EP) split up in 2007 when Alessandra Mussolini, a descendent of Benito Mussolini, claimed that Romanians are “habitual law-breakers” and the Greater Romania Party (România Mare) left the group as a response (Spiegel Online, 2007).1 But we can see a more coherent radical-right narrative emerging in Europe as a consequence of three factors: (1) islamophobia is becoming a common denominator as a consequence of the refugee crisis; (2) the European Union (EU), especially since the economic crisis in 2008, is becoming an increasingly important enemy for the far-right parties; and (3) the common friends of populist radical-right parties, such as Russia, are creating the possibilities of a joint platform. While the far-right groups in Europe are getting closer to each other, we cannot see a real pan-European far-right movement: the relatively strong populist radical-right group in the EP, Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) is dominated by Western European political parties, incorporating politicians from Eastern Europe (two Polish members of parliament [MPs] from the ex-party of Korwin Mikke and an expelled Romanian Social Democrat) only to increase the number of member states within the caucus. At the same time, this radical-right group is not lacking its Eastern European models: Viktor Orbán has been cheered as a European leader by politicians of the three most prominent parties represented in the European group: Front National (FN), the Dutch Freedom Party (Partij voor de Vrijheid), and the Austrian Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ).

The fact that one may identify a number of shared theoretical principles pointing to the common origin of otherwise divergent ideologies followed by far-right political forces may still afford a more or less comprehensive definition. In the most general terms, political ideas advocating the primacy of various communities, described as traditional or organic, positioned against the individual and other communities provide a shared theoretical basis. This is what Cas Mudde (2007) labeled as “nativist,” to be the minimal definition of populist radical-right groups. The radical right’s discriminative ideology is based on ethnocentric, cultural, or religious foundations. In other words, a national collectivist ideology is a unifying principle underlying all political phenomena that may be described as far right.

There have been many terminological debates in Hungary as well in the academic and analyst communities about how to call the Hungarian far right (for a summary, see Filippov, 2011). And this is not only a theoretical debate: Jobbik, one of the main subjects of this book, went to court and won several cases against those describing it as a “far-right” party. Jobbik has sued a private television, ATV, for using the term “far right” in a news piece—and finally, a Constitutional Court verdict claimed that this is an opinion that has no room in the news programs (Index, 2016). Also, much effort has been made to distinguish—primarily in the legal sense—“radicalism” from “extremism.” This is based on the argument that radicals accept the political framework of a liberal democracy and challenge it only at the rhetorical level, while extremists aim at its elimination (Norris, 2005; Kurtán, 2007). However, this distinction may be challenged on several grounds:

From the perspective of the institutional system, the rules of a liberal democracy may be accepted not only out of conviction but also under duress (or for tactical reasons); that is, if the democratic framework is sufficiently solid, the far right has no choice but to play by its rules. However, history has shown that political parties with parliamentary seats gained in democratic elections continue to reject the parliamentary system and are unlikely to abandon their extremist views and practices. Let’s just recall the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) or the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party (Nyilaskeresztes Párt) between the two world wars.

With respect to political communication or the dimensions of policy making, and since the publication of Austin’s (1990) theory of speech acts, making a distinction between words and actions has become highly questionable. This means that a party’s policies can no longer be assessed and defined based on its resolutions or agenda alone; in our approach, political action is given a wider interpretation and includes ideas, speeches, statements, and symbols.

Making a clear distinction between the terms “extremism” and “radicalism” is highly questionable from a normative aspect as well: while justified in a legal context, political science can hardly be expected to make a sharp distinction between phenomena with no clear lines of demarcation, where the investigation involves the potential overlapping and convergence of the two terms. In this context, the argument that the term “radicalism” is more likely to meet objective scientific criteria than the term “far right” is difficult to justify. For one thing, the latter may be used in a descriptive way, and the former may also be seen as stigmatizing. Moreover, one does not have to take a neutral position with respect to far-right politics to make an analysis. For instance, following World War II, few analyzed Nazism with cool detachment or empathy. The same can be said about the atrocities of communism. Be that as it may, most of our knowledge of these historical events comes from authors taking a firm position against these systems. Hannah Arendt investigated the totalitarian phenomenon from a humanistic point of view, and yet her obviously “biased” works and the debate they generated helped rather than hindered our understanding of the nature of totalitarian systems. In Hungarian public discourse, from time to time, it comes up that reference to the “far-right” definition is politically incorrect. However, the same can be said if one uses the terms “right-wing radicals” and “national radicals” to describe Jobbik. The only difference is that the former term is used by the enemies of Jobbik, while the latter is used by Jobbik for self-definition.

Occasionally, the following question also comes up in Hungarian public discourse: is the use of the term “far right” justified at all, or should we talk about a “far-left” aberration. The issue is not new; the term “green Bolshevism” had already been used in 1941 with respect to the Arrow Cross Party (Máthé, 2013). There are some who believe that emphasizing the far-left character of the Hungarian far right is justified even today, and they refer to Jobbik’s ideology as “national Bolshevism” (Gerő, 2010). However, the fact that far-right and far-left ideologies overlap at some points does not provide sufficient ground for blurring the distinction between the two ideologies.2 Furthermore, a number of differences may be identified even with respect to these converging points, such as the issue of anticapitalism. As mentioned earlier, (national) collectivism as understood by the right has nothing in common with the phenomenon defined by the left using the same term.

Regarding the classification of Jobbik, the opinions are quite diverse. Pál Tamás (2007) considers it as a neopopulist party, which, at the same time, carries certain aspects of neofascism. István Grajczjár and András Tóth (2012, p. 87) say that Jobbik is the representative of a new party family, which managed to turn radical nationalism into a modern ideology that is digestible for the masses but still manages to incorporate those favoring an extremist right ideology. Róna (2014) believes that Jobbik’s antisystem beliefs are an important building block of the party’s policies. He believes that although Jobbik has not questioned the legitimacy of the elections since 2006 and they accepted the court ruling that banned the Hungarian Guard (Magyar Gárda), the reorganization of it under new names and the promise that the Guard would be made part of policing and territorial defense openly question the state’s monopoly on the use of force; therefore, Jobbik confronts the system through the Hungarian Guard (Róna, 2014, pp. 32–33). The antidemocratic acts of party members have not been condemned by the leadership so far, and Jobbik also disapproves of universal suffrage (Róna, 2014). Róna (2014) categorizes Jobbik as an extreme-right party, as it is antidemocratic and opposes the current system in the areas of legality, the obedience of rules, and the state’s monopoly on the use of force. Minkenberg (2015, p. 32) puts the party in the autocratic-fascist, radical-right category, while he categorizes the MIÉP as a member of the milder, ethnocentrist group. Pytlas (2015, p. 32) believes that Jobbik is a representative member of the Eastern European far-right party family, the ideology of which is built upon pre- and postcommunist issues alike, which, on the one hand, puts it on the same platform as its Western counterparts, while, on the other hand, also divides the two blocks.

An important question arises, several aspects of which are to be discussed later: what social groups are susceptible to far-right ideologies and who votes for the parties classified in this category. The left tends to emphasize the role of the lower middle class, while conservative and liberal circles identify members of the working class as the most likely to line up behind the far right. In other words, while the issue divides various schools of thought in social science, it is all but evident that social groups losing their sense of status are the staunchest supporters of the far right.

On our part, we wish not to enter the debate over terminology or discuss the one-dimensional issue of social base and, based on the arguments set out earlier, would simply indicate that we consider the use of the term “far right” as a general concept fully justified with respect to the ideas, players, and phenomena under investigation. At the same time, we think that anyone who is doing research on the radical right nowadays has to realize the imperfections of terminologies and the difficulty of capturing such complex phenomena with one or two words.

The supply and demand model

While in political discourse it is common to trace the recurring ascendance of the far right to a single cause (i.e., economic crisis, immigration, etc.), social science literature appears to provide a plethora of explanations (for an overview, see, for example, Mudde, 2007). Due in part to the large numbers and in part to the rich content, even a classification of the various theories would be a daunting task that goes beyond the ambitions of this book.

Although a research of extremist movements should not differ fundamentally from an analysis of other political trends and players (see, for example, Mudde, 2010), attitude toward the far right is considered to be a particularly sensitive area even within the world of politics. Theories carry not simply scientific but also political relevance, such as the following: Who and what to blame for the tendency? Who are voting for the far right? The different explanations always have ideological and political relevance, and ideologically heated explanations have a tendency to ignore the truth. Just two examples follow: critics of globalization have a tendency to blame the “neoliberal political system” (see Tamás Gáspár, 2015), ignoring Jobbik’s anticapitalist position, and political analysts close to the right-wing Fidesz party try to prove that Jobbik’s voters did not come from the right (Századvég, 2012), despite serious researches that prove the opposite (see, for example, Karácsony and Róna, 2011). However, this should not come as a surprise since the discussed political phenomenon is truly heterogeneous, lending itself to analysis along many criteria. A grand synthesizing theory is missing due to the profusion of country-specific factors.

In the scholarly literature, one finds a number of attempts at classifying theories dealing with the far right. Along scientific disciplines, Hagtvet (1994) distinguishes psychological, historical, sociological, and political explanations, and Knigge (1998) categorizes those into economic, social, and political categories. In Rydgren’s classification (2007), the two major categories are represented by supply- and demand-based theories. Mudde (2007) gave a comprehensive list of the supply- and demand-side factors that can explain the rise and decline of populist radical-right actors. In the latter case, voter attitudes and behavior, along with their assumed preconditions such as crises, ethnic conflicts, and economical problems, are identified as the factors most likely generating social demand for far-right ideas, political actors, and practices. The other approach, focusing on political supply, deals with far-right politics and context, such as the political balance of power, the election system, and the far-right’s leadership, organizational strength, political strategies lined up against them, the power of institutional restraints, as well as the media environment.

We think that in order to understand the far right, the two approaches must be examined side by side. The professional literature is particularly critical of exclusively demand-side theories because they say nothing about the underlying causes of this tight relationship and fail to identify the reasons why similar circumstances lead to the rise of a far-right force in some cases while they do not in others. But even so, most critics seem to acknowledge that there is a close relationship between far-right preferences and specific voter attitudes (Enyedi, 2005; Mudde, 2007). Our position is that the social demand is necessary, but far from a sufficient precondition for a resurgence of a strong far right. It is necessary because in a society where voters are not susceptible to some aspects of the far-right ideology (criticism of the establishment elite, prejudice, etc.), the advocates of far-right policies have little chance of building a substantial social base. While political players, to some extent, can, in a voluntaristic manner, shape the structure of the political system and the demand of the voters (see, for example, Enyedi, 2004), the room of such action is not unlimited. And the existence of a social need for such political forces, rhetorical solutions, and ideologies is definitely not sufficient because right-wing extremism does not automatically create a far-right political supply—or at least not necessarily on the radical-right end.

It is also evident that strong demand for right-wing extremism may not simply manifest itself in the emergence of a stronger far-right party, but may also have an impact on other areas of the political and institutional system. For instance, a low level of public trust may erode the democratic system and undermine the legitimacy of democratic institutions. Furthermore, strong antiestablishment attitudes and demand for economic isolation may compromise the investment-friendly climate and encourage those in power to apply excessively protectionist, paternalistic, and discriminative economic policy. Xenophobia may also push all political actors into increasingly extreme positions and incite ethnic conflicts within society and between nations. The Eastern European political landscape provides a perfect illustration of this trend. Usually, far-right parties are weaker here because mainstream (often governmental) parties are incorporating strongly nationalistic, often racist agendas, and generally, there is higher permeability between the radical right and the mainstream right (Minkenberg, 2015). In Eastern Europe, no parliamentary far-right party has such a high support as Jobbik has.

Generally, following the extension of universal suffrage, modern politics has essentially become demand driven, that is, the political sphere is shaped by the electorate and its ballots, and politicians, familiar with voters’ needs, vie for winning votes (Johnson, 1999); it is thus easy to conceive that demand for a high level of extremism will definitely have an impact on the political players and the system as a whole. We give an overview on the demand- and supply-side theories later, without aiming to give an exhaustive taxonomy on all the literature in the field (for a more detailed analysis, see, for example, Mudde, 2007; Norris, 2005).

Theories focusing on the demand side include the anomie-based explanations, relative deprivation, and the modernization losers hypothesis (e.g., Betz, 1993; Jackman and Volpert, 1996; Golder, 2003b). According to the anomie concept, atomized individuals isolated from society are more likely to support ethnocentrist and populist parties and policies. While this explanation is pretty widespread and offered as a standard explanation for fascism and national socialism, it does not enjoy the support of empirical evidence (Rydgren, 2007). Arendt’s (1963) works, on the other hand, underline a very important notion: acts that are regarded to be deviant under normal circumstances can become “normal” under different (extranormal) circumstances, contributing to the “banality of evil.” The relative deprivation and the modernization losers hypotheses both focus on frustration and a sense of threat. The former points to a decline relative to one’s former status or to a reference group, and the latter refers to the theory of Betz (1993), arguing that far-right parties are supported by losers of a transition to postindustrial society. Typically, these assumptions are based on economic indicators, such as the rate of unemployment. However, an analysis limited to economic indicators alone does not provide a conclusive explanation regarding the support for the far right. Generally, “losers” can prefer mainstream opposition parties as well or abstain from vote, and the perception of economy matters much more than the real indicators of economy.

Rydgren (2007) discusses theories of ethnic competition and xenophobia, both concepts mainly related to immigration. While the first focuses on the economic threat attributed to immigrants, such as competition for resources, the second mainly deals with threats involving cultural and national identity. Generally, according to most researches, cultural factors seem to overweigh economic ones.

Lucassen and Lubbers (2012) made an attempt to separate economic and cultural threats and, in most (eight out of eleven) countries, their effort proved to be successful.3 They found that cultural threats provide a much better indicator of support for populist parties, calling into question the common-sense assumption that aversion to immigrants may simply be traced to economic interests and fear of unemployment. Economic factors are not negligible, however: the authors also show that a higher GDP (gross domestic product) corresponds to a lower preference for the far right and a higher level of perceived ethnic threat.

In 2008, for example, Oesch found that in two countries under review the presence of immigrants mobilized support for far-right populist parties not tied primarily to competition for the scarce resources, but to the preservation of national identity and cultural protectionism (Oesch, 2008a). Mudde (2010), looking for an explanation for the fall of the “three last bastions” of tolerance (Denmark, Holland, and Sweden), found that while anti-Islam sentiments have significantly increased in these countries, the overall level of tolerance, surprisingly, remained stable. The paradox may be resolved if one assumes that tolerance is one of the causes behind the opposition to Islam: in these countries, openness, secularization, and women’s rights, among other issues, are top priorities. According to Mudde, these values are perceived to be threatened by Islam, leading to the “intolerance of the tolerant.” This theory also underlines the primacy and importance of symbolic threats over economic ones.

It is not that only immigrants can raise symbolic fears, though. According to Minkenberg (2015), the radical right should be understood as a manifestation of the political rejection of modernity. Modern supranational institutions, threatening the national sovereignty, and leading to the visions of the “death of nation-states” can also be targets of political fears. Minkenberg and Perrineau (2007) explain the support for far-right parties by globalization and tensions generated by EU integration. In their analysis, far-right parties appeal to Euroskepticism and apprehensions associated with multinational Europe. In the new member states, such as in Romania, for example (Sum, 2010), supporters of the radical right tend to be suspicious and ambivalent about the EU institutions. The authors suggest that addressing voters opposed to the EU integration may be a successful strategy for a far-right party striving to expand its base. In their analysis, the main fears are also about losing identity, and not about losing money. Boomgaarden and Vliegenhart (2007) successfully demonstrated that news coverage of immigration issues and not economical ones raised the support for far-right parties.

Despite general findings that economic factors can poorly explain the support for the far right (see, for example, Mudde, 2007), these economic reductionist explanations prevail stubbornly. These explanations can be divided into two groups. On the one hand, consolidation of the far right is tied to a higher level of welfare services, suggesting that high taxes needed to sustain welfare benefits sap the competitiveness of the local economy that, in turn, strengthens the appeal of far-right parties demanding protectionism and slashing of welfare spending. On the other hand, this approach also features a version that accounts for immigration, arguing that during elections the electorate opts for extremist solutions, fearing that migration may overburden the welfare system. One school of thought representing the “universal welfare” concept claims that welfare benefits mitigate global competitive disadvantages, and followers of this theory maintain that, in fact, a high level of benefits works against extremism (Jesuit, Paradowski, and Mahler, 2009, p. 281). We are rather skeptical about explanations on the role of social transfers in reducing the threat for the far right, because, as it happens in the case of Hungary, and in many other countries as well, the myth that the immigrants/Roma receive most of the public funds and are positively discriminated in welfare transfers can easily prevail despite contradicting evidence (see, for example, Marketing Centrum, 2011).

According to some other authors, political disaffection can also work as a driving force for the success of the far right (e.g., Lubbers, Gijsberts, and Sheepers, 2002). They argue that antiestablishment messages and criticism of the entire system make the electorate susceptible to far-right ideas. According to some authors, this is precisely the feature that links otherwise quite dissimilar far-right parties in Europe (e.g., Ivarsflaten, 2008). This hypothesis also explains that the success of far-right parties is not limited to countries with high levels of immigration and high levels of prejudices in the public opinion. As noted by Knigge (1998), an analysis of the far right inevitably covers the concepts of political culture and democracy. In this context, a number of studies have shown that those unhappy with the way democracy is working or who have a low confidence in politicians and democratic institutions are more likely to become supporters of far-right parties (see, for instance, Lubbers, Gijberts, and Scheepers, 2002; Norris, 2005). In his analysis of the Central European region, Tupy (2006) concluded that the spread of corruption and poor economic decisions have discredited the elite and simultaneously increased the appeal of populist parties. Indeed, if one considers Jobbik, it is the most dispirited camp: they are dissatisfied with conditions in the country and the political elite, as well as the institutions of the democratic state (Grajczjár and Tóth, 2010; Krekó, Juhász, and Molnár, 2011; Róna and Sőrés, 2012).

The support base of far-right parties

Closely tied to theories focusing on social demand—and often burdened by ideological debate—is the question regarding which social class or strata constitute the support base of the far right. The political left and the academic representatives (see, for example, Adorno, 1950 tend to emphasize the role of the lower middle class, while conservative and liberal circles and some academics (e.g., Lipset, 1981) identify members of the working class as the most likely to line up behind the far right. In other words, even as the issue is divisive politically as well as academically, one common element behind the explanations is that social groups losing their status (or afraid of this possibility) can become supporters of the far right. The importance of status uncertainty had already been pointed out in research following World War II, and the term “extremism of the center,” coined by Seymour Martin Lipset, refers to this as well (Lipset, 1981). In his view, rightist, leftist, and centrist positions all feature moderate and extremist strains, which may be identified by ideological and social background examination of the group (Lipset, 1981, p. 127). The left may also be characterized by “working-class fascism” or “Peronism,” typically in the underdeveloped and poor countries experiencing rapid industrialization (Lipset, 1981, p. 135). This ideology conveys antiparliamentary and nationalist characteristics, while it supports “class war” by workers. Thus, the primary supporters of this ideology are impoverished industrial and farm workers (Lipset, 1981, p. 130 and p. 176).

Looking at the right, extreme political movements emerge in economically underdeveloped countries, where the traditionally conservative power of the “throne” and “altar” continues to hold sway, as in Francisco Franco’s Spain or in Charles De Gaulle’s France (Lipset, 1981, p. 135). As opposed to extremism in the center and the left, this version of extremism is less inclined to create a new political order, or as Lipset put it, as it is “more conservative than revolutionary.” Instead, this ideology is more likely to remain supportive of the institutional and ideological status quo. The extreme versions of conservative movements are supported primarily by upper and traditional classes, industrialists, property owners, and church institutions (Lipset, 1981, pp. 128–130). However, according to Lipset, “classic fascism” is harbored by the political center in countries with a strong industrial base and a working class, such as Nazi Germany (Lipset, 1981, p. 135). The movement relies primarily on the lower middle class that simultaneously rejects the working class (as well as trade unions and communism), the upper middle class, and the elite (representatives of big business and the former aristocracy).

Classic fascism is antiliberal when it supports the role of the state, and liberal when it rejects big business, the trade unions, the socialist state model, religion, and other traditional phenomena. Simultaneously repudiating big business and the working class, the extreme right’s anticenter struggle attempts to restore the “old middle class.” These movements rely primarily on the frustration of the self-employed urban and rural middle class that see themselves as the “losers of modernization,” with declining social prestige and influence. Most of the support comes from white-collar middle-class workers, anticlerical professionals, and especially, small business owners and farmers (Lipset, 1981, p. 129). Given that Jobbik’s supporters are mainly from the middle class, it can be regarded as a “centrist” radical movement in Lipset’s classification.

Scholars emphasizing economic causes of far-right parties’ popularity have also argued that a predisposition for far-right populist messages may be correlated to one’s position in society, notably the fear of finding oneself on the periphery or threatened by that prospect, as suggested by “losers of modernization” expression. This postulation has been demonstrated by a number of empirical studies, and the characteristics of those showing preference for such parties have been examined by a number of authors. In most cases, populist parties’ support base is made up of unemployed and poorly educated young men (see, for instance, Minkenberg and Perrienau, 2007; Lubbers, Gijsberts and Sheepers, 2002; Betz, 1993). In Hungary, the situation is obviously different, as the core electorate of Jobbik voters are rather “winners” and not losers of the society, even if such a huge electorate is difficult to be described with simplifying sociological patterns.

In her 2005 book, Norris made an attempt to compare fifteen countries to study the radical right. According to her main findings, members of the lower middle class, skilled and unskilled workers, were overrepresented, while officeholders were underrepresented. There were clear differences among countries: for instance, the “losers” argument did not hold true in the case of Hungary, Italy, and Israel. Moreover, there were variations with respect to age: in some postcommunist countries young people are supporters, while in other countries members of the older generation are more likely to be supporters. In Hungary, with respect to specific features of the far-right camp, Grajczjár and Tóth (2010) concluded that the appeal of Jobbik may have been helped by the tension between the planned and the achieved social position and the need for status building. Typically, Jobbik’s supporters define themselves as coming from the middle class. Overall, this theory stresses that the populist far-right ideology may be appealing to the losers and the winners alike, which in turn undermines the narrow class-based approaches. We have also found in our research (Bernat et al., 2012, p. 7) that the fear over losing social status is an important fear in the Jobbik camp, which can explain the prejudices of Jobbik’s voters as well:

The middle-class voters of Jobbik may feel that their social status is simultaneously endangered from below, by those who are dragging down the better-off (i.e., the “parasites” who live off state handouts, an ethnicized symbol of which are gypsies), and from above, by a tight-knit liberal and cosmopolitan elite group (symbolized by the Jews), which takes over all positions of leadership in the fields of the economy, finance, culture, the media, and politics, and pushes those who want to become part of this elite downward.

The relevance of explaining electoral support based on class is still the subject of continued debate. Oesch (2008b) maintains that through the separation of social and economic dimensions and the application of a more detailed model made up of more classes, one may demonstrate certain systematic party preferences. In his study, he defined an economic fault line manifested in the social fabric, based on access to resources, and a cultural fault line, based on schooling and receptiveness to cultural diversity. (He found that the social structures of Great Britain and Germany could be best described using traditional terms, while the application of cultural criteria is more effective in the case of Switzerland.) One of the conclusions challenging the standard class-based explanation was precisely the finding that in many cases support for far-right parties comes from social groups with access to fewer resources, primarily workers, who, one would assume, should identify with a left-wing party (Oesch, 2008b).

The difficulty in explaining electoral behavior in terms of party affiliation may be caused in part by the heterogeneity of working and middle classes (Güveli, 2007, cited in Oesch 2008a and 2008b). Even so, radical right-wing parties are often referred to as a new breed of workers’ parties (Arzheimer, 2012; Oesch, 2012). According to Arzheimer, the “proletarization” of the far-right support base may also have to do with the fact that the majority of immigrants are skilled or somewhat skilled workers, posing a threat primarily to workers with similarly low levels of education.

Coffé (2013) focused on gender differences in the support base and found that masculine personality traits were more robust predictors of support for the far-right and radical anti-immigration policies than biological sex. In his view, this is related to the phenomenon of political individualization: individual characteristics (schooling and income status) have become more relevant than socioeconomic factors. Earlier, Kessler and Freeman (2005) arrived at a similar conclusion. While they demonstrated in seven EU member states that young men with less education are more likely to become supporters of far-right ideologies, political attitudes (opposition to immigration and dissatisfaction with the political system) proved to be stronger predictors. As a result, the authors concluded that the latter factors are more important than socioeconomic and demographic conditions.

All this goes to prove that it’s time to move beyond earlier sociological models and shift the focus to attitudes, value preferences, and the supply side, that is, how demand for support of far-right policies is generated. We generally assume that attitudes can better describe and differentiate voters of the far right than economic and sociological explanations.

Supply-side theories

In his overview, Rydgren (2007) divides supply-driven approaches into three major groups: political opportunity structure (POS) theories, literature dealing with the organizational structure, and ideology and discourse of parties. The POS model focuses on such potential sources of support as the election system and threshold, convergence of parties in the political arena, and the role of the elite in the media. In sum, the model looks at the external causes of a party’s success and a given system’s receptiveness to new political variables. In the interpretation of Koopmans and Muis (2009), supply side is represented by political opportunity, while the demand side by various “grievances.” Koopmans supplemented the original POS theory with the concept of visibility: it is not enough to have conditions conducive to the success of a radical right-wing party in place, but it must also be explained why it may take years or even decades for the factors mentioned earlier to bear fruit. Koopmans argues that for this to happen there is a need for “discursive opportunities.” In the case of Jobbik, the rising anti-Roma discourses after two deadly violent incidents (a lynching of a non-Roma teacher by a Roma mob in Olaszliszka in 2006 and the murder of a handball player by Roma youngsters at a disco fight in 2009) can be identified as the main discursive opportunities that helped the party to exploit their messages nationally (Juhász, 2010).