Viktor Orban is leading Hungary away from the rule of law and human rights — but with popular support. How? Here's everything you need to know.

Abstract: Hungary was once praised as an example of successful democratisation and EU integration, but now has joined the ranks of ‘liberal’ nations backsliding into authoritarianism. Many commentators blame Orbán and his anti-migrant, anti-EU populist rhetoric, but ignore the underlying causes in particular the failings of market reforms in the country, high unemployment, low wages, spiraling household debts, and a nationalist capitalist class resentful of the advantages giv

Blaming citizens for their alleged populist or anti-democratic turn is misleading. Without the active involvement of the economic elite, both foreign and domestic, authoritarian capitalism could not have emerged in Hungary. The fierce anti-migrant hate campaign was the most visible sign of the length to which Orbán was prepared to go to ensure his majority. Since 2010 Orbán has been using the momentum created by popular anger at the failures of liberal policies to build up hi

To understand the emergence of authoritarian capitalism in Hungary, this paper digs into the contradictions of liberal economic policies.

The study calculates population attributable risk fraction (PARF) of cancer deaths from smoking and alcohol in Russia, Belarus and Hungary.

Panel discussion: Speaking truth to power: Media capture, disinformation, and democracy. Indiana University Bloomington

“Illiberalism in Hungary: The Socioeconomic Roots in Comparative Perspective”, Public Presentation at the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington, D.C

Background Research on the health outcomes of globalisation and economic transition has yielded conflicting results, partly due to methodological and data limitations. Specifically, the outcomes of changes in foreign investment and state ownership need to be examined using multilevel data, linking macro-effects and micro-effects. We exploited the natural experiment offered by the Hungarian economic transition by means of a multilevel study designed to address these gaps in th

Prolonged state ownership was associated with protection of life chances during the post-socialist transformation for women.

Eastern Europe underwent dramatic economic and demographic changes in recent history with skyrocketing mortality rates in the 1990s.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Hungarian capital Budapest yesterday, calling for the Hungarian president to veto controversial new legislation that could see the closure of the Central European University — one of the EU’s best respected institutions.

Background Population-level data suggest that economic disruptions in the early 1990s increased working-age male mortality in post-Soviet countries. This study uses individual-level data, using an indirect estimation method, to test the hypothesis that fast privatisation increased mortality in Russia. Azarova, A, D Irdam, A Gugushvili, M Fazekas, G Scheiring, P Horvat, D Stefler, I Kolesnikova, V Popov, D Stuckler, I Szelenyi, M Marmot, M Murphy, M McKee, M Bobak and L King.

The rapid pace of privatisation was a significant factor in the marked increase in working-age male mortality in post-Soviet Russia.

As the world awakens from the shock of Donald Trump being elected, liberals and people on the left have started to draw the conclusions. Class plays a crucial role in the rise of illiberalism. You just have to ask the right questions to realise how. Restoring class analysis and class politics is the first step towards combating illiberal politics. Apparently, it takes some time until the elite learns that economic frustration is a seedbed for illiberalism. For decades, econom

The crisis of the Left, a post-communist peculiarity until just a few years ago, has become critical all over Europe. If the Left wants to avoid returning to the 1930s and becoming insignificant in European political history in the coming decades it has to be thoroughly overhauled. Creeping unemployment, increasing inequality, a tumbling international currency system, Western democratic leaders weaponless against illiberal politics emerging throughout Central and Eastern Euro

The article describes the study Protocol of the PrivMort Project, a multilevel cohort study measuring the health impact of economic change.

The ascent of right-wing hegemony in an increasing number of countries in Europe is forcing progressives to rethink their agendas and strategies. For years it appeared that conservative authoritarianism is a peculiarity of a few unruly post-socialist countries of the old continent. In a post-Brexit age, with Norbert Hofer in Austria and Marine Le Pen in France close to power, it has become evident that progressive politics needs to change throughout Europe. East Meets West At

The paper analyses the tensions between dependent financialisation and democracy building on Polanyi's work utilising the case of Hungary.

Abstract With the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of illiberalism in the aftermath of the global financial crisis we need a theoretical framework that links modernization, crises and the fate of democracy. In my paper I attempt to show that Polanyi’s thinking represents such a framework. I focus on Polanyi’s historically informed political economic analysis of the tensions between liberal finance and liberal democracy. In the first section I reconstruct

Progressive politics needs bold new visions that can be contrasted to current processes of erosion, such as the idea of the basic income.

A Lesson About Class for the Left In response to Trump’s election, restoring class analysis and class politics is the first step towards combating illiberal politics. Apparently, it takes some time until the elite learns that economic frustration is a seedbed for illiberalism. For decades, economic critiques of financial globalisation and socially disembedded economic liberalism were marginal until the 2008 financial crisis turned our views mainstream overnight. Now, the West

Hungary Today: A Retrospective on the Past Quarter-Century. A conference organized by the 25-year-old Foundation for Political History and the Social Theory Workshop of the Institute of Political History, Budapest

This chapter summarizes the theory and evidence regarding Mass Privatization programmes in the post-communist environment.

This article provides a Weberian-class-based and international-political-economy-inspired account of de-democratization in Hungary.