Rolling Transition and the Role of Intellectuals

Utilizing a new and original framework for examining the role of intellectuals in countries transitioning to democracy, Bozóki analyses the rise and fall of dissident intellectuals in Hungary in the late 20th century. He shows how that framework is applicable to other countries too as he forensically examines their activities. Bozóki argues that the Hungarian intellectuals did not become a ‘New Class’. By rolling transition, he means an incremental, non-violent, elite driven political transformation which is based on the rotation of agency, and it results in a new regime. This is led mainly by different groups of intellectuals who do not construct a vanguard movement but create an open network which might transform itself into different political parties. Their roles changed from dissidents to reformers, to movement organizers and negotiators through the periods of dissidence, open network building, roundtable negotiations, parliamentary activities, and new movement politics. Through the prism of political sociology, the author focuses on the following questions: Who were the dissident intellectuals and what did they want? Under what conditions do intellectuals rebel and what are the patterns of their protest? This book will be of interest to students, researchers, and public intellectuals around the world aiming to promote human rights and democracy

Mainstreaming the Far Right: Cultural Politics in Hungary

In the following I will discuss the influence of the far Right on the formation of symbolic politics of the Fidesz government in Hungary. This phenomenon will be interpreted in the context of the Hungarian political regime as a whole

Rolling Transition and the Role of Intellectuals

Utilizing a new and original framework for examining the role of intellectuals in countries transitioning to democracy, Bozóki analyses the rise and fall of dissident intellectuals in Hungary in the late 20th century. He shows how that framework is applicable to other countries too as he forensically examines their activities. Bozóki argues that the Hungarian intellectuals did not become a ‘New Class’. By rolling transition, he means an incremental, non-violent, elite driven political transformation which is based on the rotation of agency, and it results in a new regime. This is led mainly by different groups of intellectuals who do not construct a vanguard movement but create an open network which might transform itself into different political parties. Their roles changed from dissidents to reformers, to movement organizers and negotiators through the periods of dissidence, open network building, roundtable negotiations, parliamentary activities, and new movement politics. Through the prism of political sociology, the author focuses on the following questions: Who were the dissident intellectuals and what did they want? Under what conditions do intellectuals rebel and what are the patterns of their protest? This book will be of interest to students, researchers, and public intellectuals around the world aiming to promote human rights and democracy

Contradicting Political Dynamics: Democratic Backsliding in Hungary and the Role of the EU

Two years ago we started to investigate the ever-widening grey zone between liberal democracy and dictatorship, and applied the findings of the scholarship on hybrid regimes to the characteristics of the Orbán regime in Hungary.1 In this article we continue our analysis in the light of recent events: the 2019  national elections, the Sargentini Report in the European Parliament, the tension between center-right parties and Fidesz in the European People’s Party (EPP).  When categorizing political systems, we cannot overlook their external embeddedness, and the extent to which outside forces influence the political system itself. Just as it is more difficult for an authoritarian regime to democratize if it is surrounded by other authoritarian regimes, it is also more difficult for a democracy to regress to dictatorship if that democracy is a member of an alliance of democratic states

Osztály, állam és függőség az európai félperiférián

Scheiring Gábor rendkívül gondolatgazdag, számos új nézőpontot felvető, provokatív könyvet írt a magyar demokrácia elhalálozásáról. Ritkán olvasni magyarul ennyire átgondolt, igényes, jól strukturált munkát, amelyben az elméleti és empirikus részek egymásra épülve erősítik az írás fő állításait. A szerző az Orbán-rezsimet – egyezően a hazai és nemzetközi politikatudomány domináns álláspontjával – versengő vagy választásos önkényuralmi rendszernek tekinti, és ebből következően a hibrid rezsimek körében helyezi el (vö. Levitsky–Way, 2010; Schedler, 2005; Schedler, 2015.). De ez a könyv kevésbé szól a már előrehaladott állapotban lévő Orbán-rezsim természetéről (ehhez lásd például Scheiring–Szombati, 2019) mint inkább kialakulásának okairól