“The road from Mandalay to Wigan is a long one and the reasons for taking it aren’t immediately clear”: A World-System Biography of George Orwell

McQuade, Brendan

doi:10.5195/jwsr.2015.7

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Critics often claim that world-systems analysis is macro-sociology unconcerned with the narrative and details of concrete historical events and processes. In fact, world-systems analysis can be seen as following the dictum laid down by C. Wright Mills, who talked about the sociological imagination as being one that is able to locate the personal in the broader structural context in which it is located: biography is always world-systems analysis has sought to develop this specific theme as evidenced in the writings of Derluguian, Wilkin and McQuade (Derluguian 2005;McQuade 2015, Wilkin 2010. As Blokker notes in his work on ECE, there is always more than one political culture, there are multiple and overlapping political cultures that can and do transcend nation-state boundaries (Blokker 2008;.…”

Section: Part One: From Liberalism To Illiberalism -The Contested Natmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

Wilkin

2018

JWSR

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This article examines the rise of the political right and far-right in Hungarian political culture. It highlights the contribution that world-systems analysis can bring to an historical sociological understanding of the concept of political culture, with a particular focus on contemporary Hungary. Many commentators are asking: how it can be that 30 years of democratic transition has led to the dominance in Hungary of a politics of intolerance, illiberalism and ethno-Nationalism, as manifested in both the current government, Fidesz, and the neo-fascist party, Jobbik. This paper argues that the correct way to frame the question is to ask: why, given the legacy of authoritarian social and political movements that have shaped Hungary’s modern history, should a stable, liberal, political culture emerge after communism? Instead what the paper shows is that the goals of classical liberalism and a liberal political culture have long been destroyed by three factors: capitalism; the nation-state; and the persistence of traditional and sometimes irrational forms of social hierarchy, prejudice and authority. Hungary’s current Orbánisation reflects an on-going tension between liberal and illiberal tendencies, the latter being part of the foundations of the modern world-system. Rather than viewing Hungary as a dangerous exception to be quarantined by the European Union, it should be recognised that the political right in Hungary is linked to broader trends across the world-system that foster intolerance and other anti-enlightenment and socially divisive tendencies. Political cultures polarised by decades of neoliberal reforms and in which there is no meaningful socialist alternative have reduced Hungary’s elite political debates to the choice of either neoliberalism or ethnonationalism, neither of which is likely to generate socially progressive solutions to its current problems.

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Section: Part One: From Liberalism To Illiberalism -The Contested Natmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

Wilkin

2018

JWSR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“The road from Mandalay to Wigan is a long one and the reasons for taking it aren’t immediately clear”: A World-System Biography of George Orwell

Abstract: George Orwell is one the best known and highly regarded writers of the twentieth century. In his adjective formOrwellian-he has become a " Sartrean 'singular universal,' an individual whose "singular"

Cited by 1 publication

References 7 publications

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

The Rise of ‘Illiberal’ Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungarian Political Culture

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