Pro-government demonstrations in Hungary – citizens’ autonomy and the role of the media

ABSTRACT

In the past few years, Hungary has witnessed numerous pro-government demonstrations. Because such demonstrations are typically associated with authoritarian regimes, it is a puzzling question regarding what motivates citizens to take to the streets in support of a government ruling with a two-thirds majority. In order to answer this question, we conducted a survey to identify the factors that contribute to the mobilisation of citizens at these demonstrations. For the sake of comparison, we made a parallel study on the factors that explain the mobilisation of citizens in the case of demonstrations critical of the ruling regime.

KEYWORDS:

• Hungary
• Central Europe
• civil society
• democratisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Pál Susánszky is a PhD Student and researcher at the MTA-ELTE Peripato Comparative Social Dynamics Research Group.

Akos Kopper is the Head of Department of EU Studies at the Institute of Politics and IR at ELTE University, Budapest and Researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Since 2016 January he is associate editor of the Journal of International Relations and Development, official journal of CEEISA.

Gergely Tóth is a senior researcher of the MTA-ELTE Peripato Comparative Social Dynamics Research Group.

Notes

1. Andrea Hossó, “The protest in Budapest showed that most Hungarians still support the government – why was not it reported?”, Daily Mail (27 January 2012). URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2092670/The-huge-protest-Budapest-showed-Hungarians-support-government--wasnt-reported.html

2. On the Orbán government's paradigmatic reforms in all policy fields, see Szikra (2014).

3. MTI, “Leader of Liberals in European Parliament presses for sanctions against Hungary”, politics.hu (11 January 2012). URL: http://www.politics.hu/20120111/leader-of-liberals-in-european-parliament-presses-for-sanctions-against-hungary/

4. We will not investigate the Biographical Availability factors suggested by McAdam (1986), because it seems that such life conditions (retired, employed, students, living in a family) only have an indirect effect on participation (Beyerlein and Hipp 2006; Corrigall-Brown et al. 2009). Nevertheless, we tested these relationships, and have found that they have no direct influence.

5. Usually, demonstrators in democracies aim at regime change and not systemic change. Yet, as in Hungary, the Orbán government changed the Constitution and other fundamental structures of the political system, so calls for regime change are intertwined with calls for systemic change.

6. http://www.hir24.hu/vizioblog/2012/01/03/feltuno-baki-kormany-konform-hirado-operahazi-tuntetes/

7. About the bias of the news on Hungarian TV channels, see: http://www.policysolutions.hu/elemzesek

8. In these studies, two types of strategies were used in creating typologies: either on the basis of theories on civil society (van der Meer, Grotenhuis, and Scheepers 2009) or on the basis of the objectives of the organisations (Quintelier 2008; Somma 2010). We followed the latter strategy.

9. Panel size: 56,000 people.

10. Organised by the Peripato Research Group in the spring of 2014. The survey is entitled: Crises and Social Innovation 2014, and was sponsored by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (The volunteer opt-in panel survey was conducted by GfK.) This is the Hungarian version of the US GFK KNOWLEDGEPANEL http://www.gfk.com/us/Solutions/consumer-panels/Pages/GfK-KnowledgePanel.aspx

11. The Odds-ratio comes from the model with reverse coding of the satisfaction with democracy variable.

12. With a negative coefficient.

13. A caveat is necessary here. Naturally, we cannot see what takes place in people's minds and what actually made them join. Yet, a strong correlation between media consumption and participation may be interpreted as the media's influence on mobilisation. This being said, we acknowledge that media consumption is a two-way process: while the media shapes its audience, it also tries to cater to its beliefs, and spectators tend to watch the type of media closest to their value system and preferences.

14. See Warren, who points out individuals’ autonomy as a precondition of democratic life (2001, 64) or Popper, who argues that the modern individual is a rational being always seeking to make informed judgement, reluctantly taking over ideas from others without critique (Popper 1999, 84).

15. In interpreting our results, one could perhaps also turn to the literature of hybrid democracies (Diamond 2002; Ekman 2009) in order to understand why the regime does not conform to democratic ideals.

16. see: http://www.stop.hu/belfold/median-a-fidesz-szavazoinak-sem-tetszik-a-paksi-orosz-hitel/1213681/

17. These citizens could be compared to Norris's “critical citizens” or “dissatisfied democrats” (see Norris 1999, 2). Nevertheless, we believe that Oakeshott's notion is more to the point, because although here we have “satisfied democrats” as our survey results shows, the problem is exactly that they are difficult to regard as true democrats because of their excessive support for the regime. See Norris (1999).