Populist radical-right governments in Central-Eastern Europe and education policy-making: a comparison of Hungary and Poland

ABSTRACT

In the European political landscape characterized by the strengthening influence of Eurosceptic, radical-right, and populist parties, Hungary and Poland represent insightful cases for understanding how the populist radical right uses its power in government and acts in full capacity to design education policies. From a systematic comparison of the education policy trajectories taken by Hungarian and Polish populist radical-right governments, we identified three characteristic patterns of populist radical-right education policy-making in the two countries: commitment to a conservative-nationalist agenda through comprehensive, systemic interventions, the implementation of Christian identitarianism through conceptualising public education as Christian upbringing, and finally, the gradual extremisation of the education agenda combined with the growing influence of transnational conservative knowledge transfer centred on the ‘gender wars’. We find that the boundary between far-right nativist and nationalist positions and Christian-conservative standpoints has faded away, and the two governments, which identify as Christian conservative, have increasingly mainstreamed far-right agendas.

KEYWORDS:

• Education policy
• Hungary
• morality politics
• Poland
• populist radical right

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Hungary’s 2010–2014 government cycle offers an illustrative example of the process of appropriation: eight out of ten key points of the far-right Jobbik party’s electoral programme were adopted in an attempt to secure far-right voters for Fidesz (Bozóki 2016; Enyedi 2016). As Jobbik mainstreamed and split up, Fidesz increasingly used the emerging far-right Mi hazánk (Our homeland) party to test voters’ responses to extremist political messages.

2. https://tvn24.pl/polska/przyjdzie-dzien-ze-w-warszawie-bedzie-budapeszt-ra186922–3535336 [@] 11/10/2021.

3. Following a ruling by the Polish Constitutional Court in 2020, the law on ‘Family planning, protection of the human fetus and the conditions of permissibility of abortion’ was amended. Currently, in Polish legislation, there are only two justifiable cases for aborting a pregnancy: when the pregnancy poses a threat to the life or health of the pregnant woman; when there is reasonable suspicion that the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act (Ustawa z dnia 7 Stycznia 1993 r. o Planowaniu Rodziny, Ochronie Płodu Ludzkiego i Warunkach Dopuszczalności Przerywania Ciąży, 2022).

4. https://tvn24.pl/polska/ryszard-terlecki-o-slowach-puknij-sie-w-czolo-to-bardzo-delikatnie-powiedziane-4645482 [@] 21/11/2021.

5. https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/322912-machalek-o-reformie-edukacji-mamy-wychowywac-formowac-czlowieka-ktory-poradzi-sobie-i-w-zyciu-zawodowym-i-w-rolach-spolecznych-w-rodzinie [@] 11/01/2022.

6. https://wiadomosci.wp.pl/barbara-nowak-o-walce-ws-lex-czarnek-jest-bezpardonowa-6738665955539776a [@] 22/02/2022.

7. https://gazetakrakowska.pl/lgbt-to-nie-ludzie-to-ideologia-ludzie-kultury-reaguja-na-slowa-prezydenta-galeria/ar/c13–15028740 [@] 19/11/2021.

Additional information

Funding

The Hungarian data collection and analysis was carried out as part of The increasing role of the church in public education and education policy (NKFIH PD-134398) research project led by Dr. Eszter Neumann.