Jobbik's successes. An analysis of its success in the comparative context of the V4 countries

Abstract

The success of Jobbik, an extreme-right party in Hungary, is unique in its success compared with other extreme right parties in the Visegrad 4 countries of Central Europe. In contrast to parties in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland, Jobbik has managed to make substantial electoral gains and is a major player in the National Assembly in Hungary. This paper discusses five factors that show how the rise of Jobbik was possible. They are: a tradition of extreme right political movements, a party cleavage structure shaped by morals rather than socioeconomics, a specific national electoral geography, the negotiation style of the party and finally its reaction on the crisis of traditional democratic parties. In contrast to the other V4 nations, only Hungary has these elements present. This text explores each of these factors in a comparative context to demonstrate how Jobbik was able to take advantage of Hungarian political conditions in a way that extreme right parties in other Central European nations cannot.

Explaining Electoral Support for the Radical Right

“…By and large, this finding still holds today: In Western Europe, where democracy has become "the only game in town", the vast majority of voters deems openly non-democratic parties unelectable. 4 In other European countries where democracy is newer, however, even overtly extremist parties may be electorally successful (see Ellinas 2013; Ellinas 2015 for Greece, Mudde, 2005and Mareš and Havlík, 2016for Central and Eastern Europe after 1990, and Stojarová, 2012 for former Yugoslavia).…”

Civic engagement, political participation and the radical right in Central and Eastern Europe

“…However, taking stock of the literature on PRR parties, Minkenberg (2017:12) has recently criticized that this scholarship tends to lack a broader theoretical framework or a comparative approach and neglects the extra-parliamentary dimension (see alsoVeugelers and Menard, 2018: 288), such as interactions between parties and their social and political environment. Some of these questions have been addressed in recent work (Bustikova, 2014; Mareš and Havlík, 2016; Minkenberg, 2015; Minkenberg, 2017; Pirro, 2014; 2015; Pytlas, 2015; Werkmann and Gherghina, 2018). Comparing PRR parties in CEE and Western Europe, studies underline the importance of left-wing economic orientation among CEE PRR parties (Bustikova, 2018; Pirro, 2017; Varga, 2018), the role of historical legacies and of territorial revisionism (de Lange and Guerra, 2009; Minkenberg, 2017; Pytlas, 2013) or the prominence of perceived threats from autochthonous ethnic minorities (Bustikova, 2014) as important characteristics of electoral mobilization.…”

“…Werkmann and Gherghina (2018) concentrate on determinants of party competition, such as ideology, leadership and party organizational features. When contrasting far-right Jobbik’s success in Hungary with its regional peers, Mareš and Havlík (2016) find a number of supply-side factors, such as traditions of extreme right political movements, a cleavage structure shaped by ‘morals rather than socioeconomics’ (i.e. the low importance of the left–right cleavage), specific electoral geographies, party styles and, finally, PRR party reaction to the crisis of traditional democratic parties to make the difference.…”

The Electoral Success of the Extreme Right: Is the Presence of a Minority Important?

“…Even with its authoritarian neo-Nazi stance, Golden Dawnideologically much closer to the ĽSNS than the True Finns-was able to capitalise on the de-legitimation of Greek political institutions and to present itself as a socially legitimate anti-system alternative [Ellinas 2015]. Jobbik, as well, was able to take advantage of the Hungarian political situation and the crisis of traditional democratic parties [Mareš and Havlík 2016]. Strong anti-system and anti-corruption stances were presented as a central feature of the ĽSNS in its campaign, and more than 20% of the party's voters indicated the fight against corruption as the main reason for choosing the ĽSNS.…”