State Populism in Rural Hungary*

Abstract

Our concern in this contribution is to ask what the special features of populism in Hungary are, where government and the largest opposition party can be considered populist. The study aims at analyzing motivations, interests, benefits, and profits of populism in fragile Hungarian regions. The main part examines three peculiar features of state populism: the rural support for stabile political and social structures; early-born conservative social policy, which freezes and preserves social inequalities and pacificates social conflicts; and selective social policy that has made a strong difference between "worthy" and "unworthy" poor, thus, contributing to ethnic-based conflicts and emerging prejudice. The Hungarian case shows that poverty and social inequalities, disintegration, hierarchical local power structure with dominance of economic-political oligarchy, weak participation, monopolization of local and non-local media, and racialization of poverty are enabling factors of populism.

Motivations of Subsistence Farming in Hungary: Analysis of a Multi‐Factored Phenomenon☆

“…The Brand of Nánás, as an evolving local brand, contributed to the positive image of subsistence farming by linking local food, local cultural heritage, and subsistence farming to each other. The Brand has played a key role in strengthening local identity and self‐awareness, reinventing traditional peasant values, with local food production and hard‐working at the forefront, helping the social reintegration of self‐sufficient farmers whose activities met the expectations of the local public (Czibere and Kovách 2021). These results show that subsistence farming is influenced by discourses, economic, and social policy factors as well.…”

Survey of wild boar hunter interactions with pig farming in central Europe

“…Their standard of living will decrease, and their dependence on backyard farming will turn into fateful. Populist regimes, such as the re‐elected Hungarian government, seek to neutralise the dissatisfaction of the lowest social strata (Czibere & Kovách, 2021 ). Therefore, the forthcoming economic crisis will not provide leeway for the authorities to efficiently control grey pig‐farming industry and to mitigate the epidemiologic risk.…”

Exclusionary Mechanisms of Social Policy Redistribution in Hungary

“…The other end of the continuum was the ethnic neighbourhood, where the Roma and the non-Roma populations lived together harmoniously in the same settlement. However, selective social policy mechanisms can contribute to ethnic-based conflicts and prejudice in rural Hungary (Czibere and Kovách, 2021).…”