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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2017
In the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, Hungary was long considered one of the “success stories” of post-communist transition to liberal democracy. Yet in recent years the Hungarian government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has pioneered a new conception of “illiberal democracy.” In a July 2014 speech, Orban indeed declared that “the era of liberal democracies is over.” Similar declarations can be heard in other parts of post-communist Eastern Europe. The Hungarian Patient: Social Opposition to an Illiberal Democracy, is a collection of essays by Hungarian social scientists and intellectuals reflecting on both the sources of this emergent illiberalism and the sources of opposition to it. Because it is important for American political scientists to understand the way their colleagues in other parts of the world reflect on the challenges of democracy, and because the Hungarian situation is significant for the future of Europe and the EU, we have invited a wide range of scholars to comment on the book and on its topic—the significance of the emergence of “illiberal democracy” in Hungary and in Europe.
1 This is the key point of the “varieties of capitalism” literature, first laid out in Peter Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
2 In May 2016, at the height of one of the worst rows between PiS and the EU over the former’s continuing violation of rule of law, Mercedes Benz announced a €500 million investment to produce engines in a new greenfield site in Poland. “Daimler plans Mercedes engine factory in Poland,” http://europe.autonews.com/article/20160504/ANE/160509956/daimler-plans-mercedes-engine-factory-in-poland.
3 The social democrats learned, according to Sheri Berman, that states could in fact discipline capital and build up “national” capacities. See The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).