Beyond Liminality? The Kulturkampf of the Early 2000s in East Central Europe

Abstract

The essay gives an overview of the rise of radical neoconservative discourses in East Central Europe in the wake of the seemingly successful completion of the transition agenda, culminating in NATO and EU accession. It describes the main directions of criticism aiming at the “liberal consensus,” held to be dominating the ideological frameworks of these countries in the 1990s. Offering the metaphor of Kulturkampf as a heuristic model to interpret the interplay between political claims and the battle for hegemony in the public sphere, it revisits some of the central battlegrounds of contention: that of memory politics, the critique of political correctness, and the debate around the reception of Western institutions and intellectual paradigms. Taking a closer look especially at the Polish, Hungarian, and Romanian discussions, the essay also identifies some of the most important ideological references of the “neoconservative revolution” envisioned by these ideologues, such as decisionism, the radicalization of the majoritarian principle toward a plebiscitary understanding of democracy, the reliance on the voluntary activism of an uncivil society, and, finally, a paradoxical antielitist sort of authoritarianism. All in all, while the most spectacular manifestation of this phenomenon is no doubt in Hungary after 2010, the essay argues that it should not be considered a local anomaly but rather a more general and, to a large extent, systemic problem of the postcommunist “transition societies,” which had a very clear image of the short-term trajectory to follow in order to reach the European framework but had far fewer ideas, let alone social consensus, of the type of democratic culture they wanted to create as a result of the transition.

A Tale of Two Revolutions: Hungary’s 1956 and the Un-doing of 1989

“…According to Trencsényi, Orbán's mnemonic policies discredit the consensus politics and (supposedly un-patriotic) liberal democracy of the transition period. 79 Since the early 2000s, FIDeSZ's goal has been to disallow plurality of opinion and to establish the cultural hegemony of "a new, positively formulated notion of patriotism." 80 In 2010, Viktor Orbán called his impressive re-election as prime minister a "voting booth revolution."…”

Civil society, radicalism and the rediscovery of mythic nationalism

“…There is mounting evidence though that since the turn of the millennium, in many post‐socialist countries and in Hungary in particular, civil society has emerged as the main arena in which the symbolic repertoire of a new nationalism is articulated (Feischmidt et al. ; Trencsényi ). As the cultural anthropologist Margit Feischmidt () suggests, it is not the state that plays the decisive role in recasting Hungarian nationalism but civic actors, far‐right political groups and their media outlets backed by a vigorous industry that has turned nationalist identity politics into a profitable business.…”

“…As several scholars (Feischmidt ; Trencsényi ) have suggested, radical nationalist groups have been very adept at using online and social media to create an alternative public sphere to share and disseminate their ideas and activities. I used this insight in my empirical research to reconstruct the landscape of radical civic activism and compile the list in Table .…”

“…Civic Circles quickly became empty vessels for Fidesz's political propaganda and dwindled. However, many civic organisations that were founded as a result of this effort to redraw the boundaries of the political but were not the product of Fidesz's post‐election astroturfing strategy have actually continued to grow in earnest (see also Trencsényi ). It is therefore important to underscore that Jobbik emerged separately from and remained independent of the Fidesz‐led Civic Circles movement, becoming a political party in 2003.…”

The Analytical Perspective of Refugee Protection and Civil Society

“…It is important to mention that this perspective denounces Putnam's social capital thesis and all neo-Tocquevillean theories by claiming that when democracies are fragile, higher levels of democratization can lead to illiberalism (Molnár, 2016). Accordingly, in the case of migration and refugee protection, the three perspectives are adaptable; for example, in the case of post-socialist countries 'civil society has emerged as the main arena in which the symbolic repertoire of a new nationalism is articulated' (Molnár, 2016: 170, quoting Feischmidt et al, 2014, and Trencsényi, 2014. Nonetheless, the aforementioned factors are allied to a country's migration policy, especially in the European Union.…”