Democracy for Losers: Comment on Bálint Magyar
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Description
Using the mafia analogy to illuminate the predatory injustices perpetrated by territorially anchored political states echoes an ancient and venerable tradition. Still popular today, as the influential writings of Charles Tilly demonstrate, the analogy goes back at least to Saint Augustine: “Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention.” Bálint Magyar uses the mafia state analogy masterfully to classify and dissect the government of Viktor Orbán, with special emphasis on the way “the plunder is divided.” Rather than trying to criticize or correct his penetrating look into contemporary Hungarian politics, which I am in no position to do, I will concentrate on his remark that the post-communist mafia state in Hungary is “not ideology driven.” There is a good deal of truth in this claim, and especially in the notion that the regime’s worldview is eclectic, erratic, internally inconsistent, and instrumental to wealth accumulation by regime insiders. Without aspiring in any way to refute this highly original use of the mafia state analogy, I nevertheless think something important can be learned by focusing more explicitly on the instrumental role of ideology in bringing about and sustaining the Orbán system, a role that the “mafia state” metaphor does not encourage us to explore. Nothing I say is meant to diminish the role of clientelism, cronyism, nepotism, and self-dealing in building and sustaining the current system. Orbán and his circle can no doubt be understood as kleptocrats whose methods of rule are quixotic. They have managed to seize the heights of power only because they were able to rally and sustain significant public support. This support cannot be explained, as Bálint Magyar is the first to admit, by focusing solely on their criminally corrupt behavior. This is what he means when he describes the post-communist mafia state as marked by a “gap between the real nature of power and its required legitimacy.” In explaining the public legitimacy it has managed to garner, we should also look closely at the way Orbán describes the world to his supporters, a task made all the more urgent by the fact that his perspective on past developments and current trends is plausible and is spreading rapidly beyond Hungary. Given that classical mafia networks and groupings are sustained partly by patriarchal, traditionalist, and tribal allegiances and often resort to quasi-religious symbols and rituals, the blanket assertion that the post-communist mafia state in Hungary is “not ideology driven” may distract needlessly from some less scandalously acquisitive dimensions of the system Orbán has built. I will explore the ideological underpinnings of Hungary’s mafia state by reexamining Orbán’s notorious and eye-opening July 26, 2014, speech in Băile Tușnad, Transylvania in which he reaffirmed his commitment to building an illiberal state in Hungary. It was an audacious and politically resonant speech. The era of liberal democracy is over, Orbán announced, suggesting that the train of illiberal democracy already had left the station and that those who refused to clamber aboard will be left miserably behind. Those of us who are haunted by thoughts of a relapse into the cultural climate of 1930s Europe are acutely aware of the dark side of anti-liberalism. But we should not allow historical memories and current anxieties to dominate the way we understand the disturbingly broad appeal of Orbán’s anti-liberalism. He is consciously inverting our anxieties, stressing the dark sides of liberalism, and doing so with considerable political success. Rather than dismissing such talk as mere propaganda designed by a criminal elite conspiring to delude the unthinking masses, we need to understand what he and his supporters have in mind. As my reference to the 1930s was meant to suggest, there is nothing new about anti-liberalism. On the contrary, anti-liberal ideology developed in tandem with liberalism itself. It found its first great historical expression in the theorists of the French and German counter-Enlightenment. But the flame of an incendiary ideology is only politically dangerous when public emotions become exceptionally flammable. Today, around the world, authoritarian, xenophobic, and even racist public sentiment seems all-too-easy to ignite by anti-liberal grown-ups playing with fire. What I want to try to explain, using the Hungarian example, is why.
Source Publication
Brave New Hungary: Mapping the “System of National Cooperation”
Source Editors/Authors
János Mátyás Kovács, Balázs Trencsényi
Publication Date
2020
Recommended Citation
Holmes, Stephen, "Democracy for Losers: Comment on Bálint Magyar" (2020). Faculty Chapters. 787.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/787
