… Because the homeland cannot be in opposition: analysing the discourses of Fidesz and Law and Justice (PiS) from opposition to power

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Ernesto Laclau’s theory of discourse, hegemony, and populism, this paper analyses the development of the discourses of Fidesz in Hungary and Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland from opposition to power with a focus on how authoritarianism is articulated, especially in relation to populism. The post-foundational discourse analysis finds that populism takes on an authoritarian expression only in certain discursive combinations, mostly with nationalism, while authoritarianism follows a range of different logics (populist and non-populist alike), including nationalism and social welfarism without populism (PiS) or what Laclau refers to as institutionalism (Fidesz).

KEYWORDS:

• Authoritarianism
• Hungary
• nationalism
• Poland
• political parties
• populism

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Endre Borbáth, Simon Tunderman, Mihai Varga, Florian Wittmann, Julius Wolz, two anonymous reviewers, and colloquium participants at the University of Bremen and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center for their comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Orbán (2018a) addressed opposition politicians who had joined the protest in particular, while emphasising the distinction between individuals being in opposition qua individuals and claiming the name of “the homeland”: “If you are a politician, you have to serve the country; even when you lose, even when you win, you have to serve, you have to stand where the people place you, but from there you have to serve. They always try to twist things around, but I continue to hold my opinion that the homeland cannot be in opposition. You can be in opposition, but the homeland never.”

2 “World citizens” is a literal translation of világpolgárok, which also means “cosmopolitans.”

3 What is meant, of course, is “liberal” (an apparent slip of the tongue, verifiable with recordings of the speech).

4 In line with recent literature that links populism to the discursive production of crisis (Moffitt 2015; Stavrakakis et al. 2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Seongcheol Kim

Seongcheol Kim is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Kassel. This article was written during his stint as Research Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, where he remains a guest researcher in the Center for Civil Society Research.