Civil Movements in an Illiberal Regime: Political Activism in Hungary 9789633866238

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CIVIL MOVEMENTS IN AN ILLIBERAL REGIME

CIVIL MOVEMENTS IN AN ILLIBERAL REGIME Political Activism in Hungary

Dániel Mikecz

Central European University Press Budapest–Vienna–New York

© Dániel Mikecz, 2023 Published in 2023 by Central European University Press Nádor utca 9, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 E-mail: ceupress​@press​.ceu​​.edu Website: www​.ceupress​.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher. The publication of this book was supported by the Centre for Social Sciences Budapest. ISBN  978-963-386-622-1  (hardback) ISBN   978-963-386-623-8 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mikecz, Dániel, 1981-author. Title: Civil movements in an illiberal regime: political activism in Hungary/Dániel Mikecz. Description: Budapest; New York: Central European University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023031340 (print) | LCCN 2023031341 (ebook) | ISBN 9789633866221 (hardback) | ISBN 9789633866238 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Political participation–Hungary. | Protest movements–Hungary. | Political parties–Hungary. | Political activists–Hungary. | Hungary–Politics and government. | BISAC: POLITICAL SCIENCE/General Classification: LCC JN2165 .M55 2023 (print) | LCC JN2165 (ebook) | DDC 323/.04209439–dc23/eng/20230801 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023031340 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023031341

Contents

List of Tables

vi

1 Introduction

1

2 The Context of Activism: Civil Society and Political Participation in Hungary

4

From Civil Society to Civil Movements  4 The Political Opportunity Structure of the Hungarian Illiberal Regime 11

3 Protest and Politics after the Illiberal Turn

44

4 Patterns of Activism in Hungary

83

New Waves of Protest and Political Participation after 2010  49 Structural Contrasts between Civil and Political Action  66 Institutionalization Processes  73 Civil Ethos Activism  91 Experience-oriented, Altruistic Activism  102 Advocacy Activism  152 Exclusive Political Activism  159 Populist Political Activism  172

5 Conclusions

184

Bibliography 191 Appendix 217 Index 231



List of Tables

  2.1 NGOs by activity in Hungary in 2017   2.2 Political participation in Hungary, Poland, Germany, and Slovakia   2.3 Participation trends and movement practices   2.4 Gender distribution at demonstrations   2.5 Age of protesters   2.6 Education level of protesters   2.7 Protesters’ place of residence   2.8 “When did you decide to participate in the demonstration?”   2.9 Organizational participation of protesters 2.10 Political participation of protesters in the last 12 months 2.11 “Have you participated in recent years in . . .” 2.12 Left/right self-classification of protesters 2.13 Satisfaction with the functioning of democracy   4.1 Patterns of activism in Hungary   4.2 Factors affecting the resonance of the civil society master frame   4.3 “What are the tasks of NGOs?”   4.4 The political role of NGOs   4.5 Factors affecting the civil society framework   4.6 Elements of claims   4.7 Subject actors, asylum groups, number of claims   4.8 Forms of claims   4.9 Addresses of claims 4.10 Issues of claims 4.11 Subjects of the claim 4.12 Morally justified interpretative frameworks 4.13 The presence of morality on the levels of issues, forms, and frames during the claims-making process 4.14 The role of morality in the practice of solidarity movements 4.15 The logic of collective action in the case of university occupation 4.16 Types and functions of free spaces 4.17 Themes of the programs of radical right music festivals



18 19 31 36 36 37 38 38 39 40 41 41 42 86 97 98 99 100 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 132 133 143 146 169

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

Essentially, two major popular narratives exist when it comes to social movements and political protest in East Central Europe (ECE). On the one hand, the relatively low level of political participation in ECE justifies the “weakness of civil society” (Howard, 2003) and the “lack of democratic traditions” (Bunce 1995) theses, which also imply that political protest has low or no impact in these countries. On the other hand, opposition movements in ECE are also seen as potent democratic challengers from time to time, such as those involved during the democratic transition in 1989, or the colorful revolutions in various Eastern European countries. Since the early 2010s, Hungary has become a bad example of democratic backsliding and illiberalism. Nevertheless, there have been reactions to the illiberal transformation of the constitutional, legal framework, the political system, and culture of the country. Civil society initiatives, protests, and social movements have been organized by different actors to avoid these transformations, raise awareness to alternative interests, or to express a general criticism of the governments of Viktor Orbán. Civil society organizations were not merely the organizers of such initiatives, but also the target of the illiberal regime’s actions as certain NonGovernmental Organizations (NGOs) were stigmatized as foreign agents. This book is the result of synthesizing several years of research and analysis on Hungarian social movements and protests. It draws on the literature and theoretical concepts of social movement studies, civil society research, and political participation. The research material used is drawn from a variety of studies on protests, movements, and participatory trends, organized by a typology of



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Introduction

patterns of activism. The foremost aim of the book is to explore the changes that have taken place in the field of civil action and political activism in the 2010s. In the discussed period, in parallel with the loss of electoral support and credibility of left and liberal parties, grassroots initiatives, social and political movements, and NGOs gained increasing importance in public and political will-building. Furthermore, on the governing right, voter mobilization was not limited to election campaigns, but the Fidesz party implemented top-down mobilization through instruments such as the national consultation and the Peace March. Accordingly, the book is divided into three chapters. The first chapter aims to understand the context of activism in Hungary. It shows how the concept of civil society developed historically and how the civil society concept influenced the idea of protest and social movements. The first chapter also presents the illiberal political opportunity structure, including political culture, the impact of social media, and the sociological background of activists. The tendencies of political activism in Hungary since 2010, that is since the first supermajority of Viktor Orbán, are discussed in the second chapter of the book. The aim here is to present the post2010 protest waves and political conflicts between institutionalized political actors and social movements, bottom-up initiatives, and also the institutionalization attempts by political parties and other agents. Their general goal was to channel discontent to gain electoral support, while the low trust in political parties, general partydealignment, and the anti-political feature of the civil society concept limited the success of these attempts. Moreover, the low level of political participation and the decreasing significance of organizations contributed to the limited success of institutionalization. The third chapter analyzes the above-mentioned processes, new phenomena, and trends of political activism in Hungary with the help of a typology of activism involving the beneficiaries, the direction of action, the institutional context, and the scope of participation and involvement. Accordingly, the book distinguishes between civil ethos, transactional, experience-oriented, altruistic, exclusive, and populist activism. The book presents each type of activism in detail using empirical data, including questionnaire-based protest

Introduction

3

research, public opinion polls, and content analysis. The book thus aims to provide a coherent framework for understanding political activism and the dynamics of protests and social movements in an illiberal regime.

Chapter 2 THE CONTEXT OF ACTIVISM: CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN HUNGARY

From Civil Society to Civil Movements Civil society is an intermediary space between the state and the private, which offers room for interpersonal, yet public interactions, bottom-up initiatives, and oversight of decision makers. Official organizations such as bodies of the state are not part of civil society, neither are kinship or informal personal relationships. Traditionally, business was deemed also part of civil society, but later the two were distinguished. The term not-for-profit expresses this distinction. Furthermore, in many cases, civil society represents citizens’ interests vis-à-vis economic organizations and not merely the state. Nevertheless, the liberal concept of a small state is in accordance with the idea of service provider civil society organizations. The concept of civil society is closely related to the idea of the Enlightenment and the emergence of the bourgeois class (Keane and Merkel 2015; Tilly 2004; Tarrow 1993). Such concepts have contributed to the development of civil society as an independent social sphere from the state (John Locke), separation of powers between the state and a social network (Montesquieu), the minimal state (Thomas Paine), civil society as a historical product of civilization processes led by the state (Hegel), and the associations as “schools of democracy” (Tocqueville). In Hungary, the need for civil society and broader social participation has historically emerged along the lines of modernization efforts in particular. In the Hungarian Jacobin movement and later in the reform era, independence from the state meant independence from the centralized Habsburg monarchy. The driving force behind this development was the liberal, middle-class nobility



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(Köpeczi 1989). On the one hand, the counties were used as national self-governing bodies for national aspirations of autonomy, and on the other, the founding of associations, clubs, or the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was supported by magnates such as István Széchenyi. Under dual monarchy, the right of assembly and association was not regulated by law, but by decree, allowing for arbitrary approval procedures that placed these rights under the jurisdiction of the counties. Because of the selective approval process, cultural associations were also used for political activity, for example, by the agricultural proletariat and ethnic minorities. This resulted in the particular popularity of literary associations, which served both to spread literacy and to develop civic consciousness (Gyáni 2010). Legislation was not introduced until 1938, and the practice of arbitrary approval procedures for associations continued in the inter-war period. In the inter-war period, a new phenomenon was the so-called folk movement, which sought national autonomy and the reduce of social inequalities through a specific Hungarian Third Way, which was committed to neither the Nazi nor the Communist regimes (Borbándi 1989). However, the master frame of civil society is not linked to national autonomy, but to independence from and control of the political sphere, an idea inherited from the democratic transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. Adam Michnik was the first to articulate the need for autonomous organizations and initiatives to challenge the party-state by creating an alternative society to the formal communist structure. According to Michnik, in communist Poland, both revisionist socialists and evolutionists followed the wrong path: the revisionists imagined the humanization and democratization of the system through the communist party on the basis of a revisionist Marxism. While the Catholic pragmatists—or, as Michnik described them, the evolutionists—wanted to gain relative independence for the Catholic Church and the intelligentsia. They wanted to build a movement on this semi-autonomy, which they envisioned as the leading political force after the dissolution of communism. Both ideas looked to political reform from above, aiming to push the communist party into a more liberal position or to persuade them to give greater freedom and autonomy to the noncommunist elite (Michnik 1985). Michnik reversed this relationship

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when he proposed to turn to the workers rather than the party elite. This different approach, the “new evolutionism” as Michnik put it, was ultimately aimed at forcing political reforms out of the communist system by the working class. The Catholic Church also continued to be an important player, as the gradually transforming Church became an important supporter of civil liberties. At the same time, the strategy, in the prefigurative mode, was oriented towards the present, aiming to build a “framework of democratic socialism,” not necessarily an institutionalized, legal structure, but an everyday community, a set of human interactions. This community can be developed through “defiance” (Michnik 1985). György Konrád, an ardent supporter of Polish Solidarity, described the strategy in terms of anti-politics, which was very similar to the idea of the new evolutionism. Anti-politics refers to everyday activities outside the political sphere. The power of anti-politics derives from the moral and cultural weight of civil society, which can constrain the political sphere and political power (Konrád 1984). In this respect, civil society is the non-institutionalized part of the checks and balances. Konrád’s vision went beyond the communist system, as he saw civil society and anti-politics as an important tool for extending democracy, even if the institutional context had already been democratized. Citizens should exercise political participation in the workplace and in the local community. In this sense, Konrád’s concept is similar to that of democracy in the new social movements in Western Europe. The actions of anti-politics include various initiatives and experiments, such as starting a new research project, an independent publication, a cultural enterprise, or a business (Konrád 1987). According to Konrád, anti-politics could rely on small producers and economic labor communities within companies, that is, the emerging second economy and the basis of the second public sphere, that of samizdat literature. However, as Elemér Hankiss has noted, the second economy and the second society complemented the formal society by accumulating additional resources into the system and thus satisfying material needs to a certain extent (Hankiss 1988). In Czechoslovakia, a similar concept emerged, although the communist regime left less room for economic or intellectual autonomy. In his political essay, Václav Havel presents the idea of an existential

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revolution, which includes, among other things, the “moral reconstruction of society,” the renewal of interpersonal and individualcommunity relations, and the assumption of responsibility (Havel 1985). The political consequences of the existential revolution are indirect. Through moral renewal, new communities and structures could be developed, supporting interpersonal trust, integrity, and coherence between communities. Semi-institutionalized, shortterm, multi-faceted structures and organizations could act to solve particular social problems and alleviate various tensions. These ideas—later conceptualized as civil society—all refer to autonomous spaces of community interaction, free from the interference of the official, communist system. Barbara Falk argues, with reference to Hegel, Tocqueville, and Arendt, that the concept of civil society can be used to link dissident strategies to Western political and philosophical thought. This also meant that the region could “return to Europe,” to the West, where it had always belonged (Falk 2003). The concept of civil society also suggests that action should not be directed towards the state. On the one hand, this strategy prevented involvement in open conflict with the communist regime, which inevitably led to Soviet intervention, as in 1956 and 1968. On the other hand, a civil society more in tune with post-Marxism represents a move away from state-centered Marxism. The concept that a parallel society or a field of autonomous interactions could gradually overthrow the communist system by delegitimizing it has also emerged in academic analysis (Arato and Cohen 1992; Ekiert and Kubik 2001). The concept of civil society thus became a quasiideology in 1989. Before political parties could be legally organized, political dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe expressed their critique of the regime through movements and umbrella organizations. In Hungary, a green movement, the Danube Circle, organized against the Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros Dams, and the advanced studies college movement served such a function. At the same time, during the period of regime change, the “age of circles,” political round-table discussions, and forums were also held in formal institutions such as the Patriotic Front or the KISZ. The concept of civil society was also linked to the protection of human rights in the Helsinki process. The US Helsinki Watch, which monitors the implementation of the human rights clauses

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of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, was established in 1978. This concept and the human rights discourse eventually became a quasiideology in 1989, and the regime changes in Eastern Europe, including the democratic transition in Hungary, helped to reinvent the concept of civil society in the international academic community. One of the results of this was Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato’s Civil Society and Political Theory. The concept of civil society also signaled that the theoretical and action frameworks developed by Central European dissidents linked them to the Western European tradition (Falk 2003). In Hungary, political science, which sought to cultivate politics in a scientific manner, free of ideological indoctrination, had appeared already in the 1980s. The study of civil society and social movements began in Hungary in this period as well. The challenge of the era was to learn about Western theories and scientific concepts and to introduce these to a professional audience. However, the lack of a pluralistic democracy and rule of law framework, which would have provided the opportunity to research the likes of electoral behavior or the party system, was a very strong constraint on the pursuit of independent political science research. It was precisely because of the lack of an institutional framework that oppositional political aspirations took the form of movements. However, the opening up of political opportunity structure and increasing protest activity did not result in a spectacular strengthening of movement research within domestic political science. The initiator of social movement studies in this period was almost single-handedly Máté Szabó, who in the 1980s had already written on the results of international movement research on the new green and social movements in the West (1984a, 1984b) and on domestic environmentalist efforts in comparison with Western movements (1989). It is particularly striking that while Attila Ágh writes about the new social movements from a macro-sociological perspective, in terms of the changes affecting Western societies (1987), Máté Szabó analyzed the new social movements in more detail in his response article, using the specific middle-level theories and concepts of movement research (1987). The research of social movements is dealt with by several disciplines, such as political science, sociology, cultural anthropology, social psychology, and economics (Andretta 2013). Thus, the research of

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movements is not part of mainstream international political science, which partly explains why it did not become a more dominant research trend and toolbox within domestic political science after the regime change. Other reasons include the legal-institutionalist approach of emerging domestic political science and the influence of international transitology. The institutionalist approach is reflected in the presentations and studies of the 1991 conference on the taxi blockade and its related volume (Csapody 1991). Public and academic debate about the weakness of civil society in Eastern Europe, including Hungary, and its consequences, also arose from the assumption that an active civil society is a precondition for a stable democracy. In such debates, Ralf Dahrendorf’s thesis that six months is enough for constitutional changes, the establishment of new political institutions and of a new electoral system was often quoted. Six years may be enough time to create a functioning economy, but civil society may require sixty years (Dahrendorf 1990). The state’s dominant power and civil society’s weakness and limited autonomy have appeared in theoretical reflections as early as the 1980s as a consequence of the preeminence of politics over social subsystems in the Luhmannian sense (Pokol 1983) or of insufficient structural differentiation between the political state and society (Ágh 1989). Twenty years after the democratic transition and five years after EU accession, there was a brief discussion in the Hungarian Political Science Review about the phenomenon of weak civil society and low political participation in comparison to their international counterparts (Róbert and Szabó 2017). That this period saw also an emergence of disillusionment after EU enlargement and a spectacular strengthening of the Hungarian radical right-wing movement contributed to the pertinence of this debate. The lead article argues that communism did not create a model of homo sovieticus, but that the interrupted bourgeois development has led to a strong etatist mentality and a lack of solidarity between social groups, of tolerance, and of the creativity needed for mobilization. Furthermore, the fact that NGOs were basically financed from the public rather than by private sources is not conducive to overcoming etatism (Szabó 2009). Parallel to the institutionalization and NGOization of civil society, research on civil society as a nonprofit sector has emerged within Hungarian

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social science. Since the early 1990s, several volumes have been published by the Sociological Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Nonprofit Research Group, dealing with nonprofit management (Harsányi 1997), general characteristics of the nonprofit sector (Kuti 1996, 1998), local social policy (Széman and Harsányi 1999), corporate social responsibility (Kuti 2005), and volunteering and charity (Czike and Kuti 2006). Autonomous civic action has thus not only influenced the sphere of civil society in public discourse but in academic research also. While nonprofit research depoliticized this sphere, the public discourse that identifies movements as “civic” promotes its confrontation with power precisely on the basis of its strong normative content. Social movements, which are essentially based around conflicts, thus appear in a civil society guise. On the other hand, the Western European concept of movement society, extends movements to civil society, since it considers general interest articulation and protection to be a movement. While movement research is concerned with conflict, civil society research is concerned with the autonomous sphere between state and market (della Porta 2014a). However, since the two concepts are not easily separable—primarily at the level of individuals, but also at the level of organizations and resources—and since the civil legacy of the democratic transition of 1989 is present in both academic and scientific discourse, it is appropriate to examine activism. The fourth chapter of this book will capture and group together the different types of mobilizations presented in the third through an examination of political activism. It should be stressed, therefore, that the book examines civil society not through its formal or informal institutions, but through political action, in this case activism. Activism in the literature of social movement studies refers to concrete action itself and includes all the political activities that activists carry out in the movement. It includes protests, decision-making forums, and cultural events associated with the movement (Saunders 2013). Before presenting the ideal types of activism, however, we will take into account the political opportunity structure of the illiberal regime and how social movement mobilization is defined in this context in order to understand trends in political participation.

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The Political Opportunity Structure of the Hungarian Illiberal Regime According to the classic political process model, the emergence of political resistance is influenced by factors such as the level of organization, collective trust in political action and the system of political alliances (McAdam 1982). The latter is in fact the political opportunity structure, which refers to the openness and closedness of the political system and elite groups. Empirical research has shown that more protests occur in semi-open, semi-closed systems (Eisinger 1973). Sidney Tarrow defines the political opportunity structure as “the consistent but not necessarily formal, continuous or nationally perceived signals to social or political actors that may encourage or discourage them to use their internal resources to create social movements” (1996). However, the relationship between political system, context and social movements is not one-way (McAdam and Tarrow 2018). Not only do institutions and formal processes shape the chances of social movements, they also influence the system, as it is often a transformation of the system that is their primary goal. However, in Hungary, the assessment of the political structure of the political landscape should be discussed in the context of the hybridization described after 2010, that is the systemic changes that weakened the democratic nature of the Hungarian political system (Gyulai 2017), and contributed to the emergence of a specific Fidesz regime that was characterized by the weakening of constitutional guarantees and counterbalances with authoritarian-paternalistic elements (Körösényi 2015). Hybridization, however, has not been accompanied by an increase in dissatisfaction with the government and economic performance, and political participation beyond the institutions has not generally increased. Consistent with hybrid regimes, the level of political participation beyond the institutions, such as participation in protests, signing petitions, and engaging with politicians, is low, in addition to the general level of electoral participation (Szabó and Oross 2019). Although an assertive political culture, that is one that distrusts politicians and political institutions and is prepared to accept conflict, is also emerging in Hungary, the Fidesz government enjoys the loyalty of the majority of the social strata that are capable of participation (Szabó and Gerő 2020).

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The political discourse on the political role of NGOs in the period under review was ultimately triggered by the democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe. The Visegrad countries were once seen as the forerunners of democratic transition in Central and Eastern Europe. However, since the mid-2010s, the Hungarian regime of Viktor Orbán in particular, and the Polish government led de facto by Jarosław Kaczyński, have both turned to an illiberal model of democracy. The democratic reintegration of the Visegrad region has become a central topic of academic analysis and public discourse in Europe and North America. As early as 2007, Ivan Krastev noted that the liberal consensus had ended with the emergence of a populist Zeitgeist in East Central Europe. According to Krastev, this “populist revolt” was directed against the coalition of the post-nomenclature and the liberal elite, and against neoliberal economic policies. The populist forces promised the Central and Eastern European demos to give back their voice and sovereignty (Krastev 2007). Opinion makers and researchers focus mainly on the new decrees and measures of the second Orbán government. These include the new constitution or Fundamental Law, the new media law, and the limited powers of the Constitutional Court (Scheppele 2013; Kornai 2015). Others also try to explore the social and economic background of illiberalism (Krastev 2016; Greskovits 2015). According to these explanations, the social roots of democratic backsliding can be traced back to the 2008 financial crisis, the disappointment after EU accession, the generally high expectations of democratic transformation, and the low performance and low social mobility of elite groups. The question of intervention and counterbalance is also a recurring issue in the context of democratic reconstruction. The European Union is often seen as an actor that can stop and reverse illiberal tendencies. In Hungary, EU intervention or stricter supervision of the government by the Commission is a recurring demand in the opposition’s public sphere, and the EU is also a reference point at demonstrations, both visually and in chants. In fact, the EU contributes indirectly and unwittingly to the democratic reintegration of the region (Bugarič 2014; Bozóki and Hegedűs 2018). Beyond the various EU institutions, it seems that civil society, as the natural “immune system” of democracies, can be a source of resistance.

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Indeed, since the mid-2000s, civil activism has changed in Central and Eastern Europe and in Hungary. Social movements and grassroots initiatives have moved beyond the traditional frameworks of civil society in the region, and urban social movements have introduced new forms and issues of collective action (Jacobsson and Saxonberg 2013; Sava 2015). As will be presented in the third section, grassroots initiatives have also gained new momentum in Hungary. Certain measures of the second Orbán government provoked a reaction from civil activists outside the fragmented liberal and left parties. Civil society and social movements also emerged in the public discourse as a counterweight to democratic backsliding because since Fidesz’s resounding electoral victory in 2010, the political left had disintegrated and continued to struggle with a lack of credibility in the mid-2010s. In the following subchapter, the book will first examine Hungarian political culture, which defines political participation. After that three significant phenomena of Hungarian politics and society from the perspective of the political opportunity structure will be analyzed in greater detail: the change in the law on assembly, the tendencies of political participation in the light of digitalization, and the sociological background of activism.

Political Culture in Hungary A common assumption about Hungarian political culture ever since the 19th and early 20th century is its delusionalism, its sudden initiation of political goals, which is yet accompanied with a low degree of willpower (Körösényi 1999). From time to time sudden political action aimed to promote national sovereignty and modernization occurs, often failing, and political culture will transform to a lesser degree, a process which the Hungarian political scientist Csaba Gombár describes as “velleity” (1989). Skepticism in political action and non-participative attitudes are also the result of the painful experience of the suppressed revolutions of 1848 and 1956. The popular, conservative historian of the interwar period, Gyula Szekfű identified partisanship in his seminal work, the Three Generations in 1920 as one of the main reasons for the decay of the Hungarian Kingdom and a cause of the 1919 revolutions, which

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preceded the Treaty of Trianon, where the country lost two-thirds of its former territories (Szekfű 1920). The journalist Ferenc Herczeg even coined the term Turanian curse in 1904 to describe this polarization, which can be alleviated by a charismatic leader in the face of external threats (Herczeg 1904). Partisanship as a negative feature is interrelated with antipolitical, antiparty attitudes, and the civil society ethos, that is, the juxtaposition of party politics and civil society action. István Bibó, a prominent Hungarian lawyer, politician, and political theorist of the 20th century, held the late emergence of the bourgeois class as one of the main reasons for the peculiar political culture in Central Europe, which includes not just Hungary, but the whole Central European region East from the Elbe river as well (Bibó 2004). The delayed modernization led to the aforementioned modernization struggles, where the final goal was to catch up with the West (Szabó 1989). Examples include the reform era, initiated by enlightened aristocrats and the economic reforms of the 1960s. Reform became a catch-phrase for the progressive technocrat intellectuals in the late 20th century, whose group had been in a central position in the modernization efforts. Modernization in the Hungarian context intended to follow Western production methods, social norms, and culture. Nevertheless, the pressure to follow the West brought to life the aforementioned folk movement, which was a literature genre and also a political movement, aimed at following a genuine Hungarian way of modernization and promoting the creation of a new intellectual class of peasant origin (Fricz 1997). The folk movement defined themselves in contrast with the group that would later be known as the urban intellectuals—hence the name of the folk-urban conflict debate. At the time of dual monarchy in the late 19th to early 20th century, the new, urban, bourgeois class had a German, Jewish background, consequently the creation of a new intelligentsia of peasant origin had an ethnic dimension as well. After the regime change in 1989, the conflicts between the right wing conservative Magyar Demokrata Fórum [Hungarian Democratic Forum] (MDF) and the liberal Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége [Alliance of Free Democrats] (SZDSZ) have been interpreted as the revival of the folk-urban debate.

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According to Bibó (2004), in the countries of Central Europe, including Hungary, an important feature is the uncertainty of the national frameworks in light of multi-ethnic empires, such as the Habsburg and Ottoman in the region. Consequentially, the national community has a constant existential fear. The “death of the nation” was a recurring topic in 19th-century Hungary. For contemporary intellectuals, the so-called Herder-prophecy, which claims that Hungarians will disappear since they are the minority beyond Slavs and Vlachs in the Hungarian Kingdom, was a common reference point (Gombocz 1997). The “death of the nation” appears even in the second national anthem of Hungary, the “Szózat” (Appeal). Bibó (2004) concludes that the permanent fear of losing not just national sovereignty, but the national, cultural, ethnic identity as well, leads to the contradiction of democracy and nationalism. In Hungary the collapse of the non-democratic, multiethnic Habsburg empire led to the dissolution of Historic Hungary. As Körösényi notes (1999), sociological inquiry could also identify these features of Hungarian political culture. The prominent Hungarian sociologist of the 20th century, Elemér Hankiss and his colleagues analyzed the values of Hungarian society between 1930 and 1980. They found a divergence similar to that in the modern era between the communist bloc, the semi-periphery, and the Western, core countries since the 1970s in terms of production. Eastern Europe, including Hungary continued to prioritize traditional heavy industry, while in Western Europe the third industrial or digital revolution changed production and employment. According to Hankiss, while Hungary experimented with melding planned and market economy since the late 1960s, a so-called negative modernization could still be observed, that is an extreme individualization in society and a pursuit of material benefits, while independence and autonomy are absent (Hankiss et al. 1982). The individualization and the relative individual autonomy was supported by the communist Kádár-system as well, as backyard farming, entrepreneurship under the roof of state owned companies, or in other words the second economy had been tolerated by the regime as well as in accordance with the credo of communist General Secretary Kádár “those who are not against us are with us”

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(A Magyar Szocialista. . . 1962). Small liberties, that is the relative autonomy in private and cultural matters and the higher standard of living compared to other countries of the communist bloc, or the small opportunities presented by individual advocacy have been described as goulash communism (Nyyssönen 2006). In general, distinct historic features of Hungarian political culture, which can be traced back to the heritage of the 19th and 20th century, were still prevalent after the democratization and up to today, in the 21st century. There is a general demobilization in society, as political participation beyond elections is low compared even to other East Central European countries. Hungarians generally solve their life difficulties through individualized solutions as opposed to from collectivized solutions to their difficulties. Zooming out from the private sphere, we can zoom in and observe on the macro level also. Hungarians care less about international issues, consume less news from abroad, and wish to isolate themselves. Additionally, due to the decreasing number of ethnic Hungarians in the Carpathian basin, that is the geographical location of pre-WW1 Hungary, demographics is a central issue of politics, although mainly on the right. The anti-immigration sentiments in Hungarian society can be traced back to the fears from the “death of the nation,” the shock of the Trianon Treaty, and the end of Historic Hungary, due to the low number of ethnic Hungarians since then. Also, as the intellectual folk-urban debate is part of the broader rural-urban political cleavage, the content of national culture and identity is a central issue in politics. As the Hungarian political scientist, Ervin Csizmadia noted, a constant question posed in Hungarian politics is whether Hungary should follow Western patterns of modernization, or elaborate a distinct Hungarian way of social, political organization of the state and the political community (Csizmadia 2017). The rejection of simply copying the Western model supports the emergence of third-way movements, which are seeking a particular Hungarian or East Central European model of modernization. Such a model would be inherited from 20th century political culture. This is why Viktor Orbán’s narrative about the declining West can resonate well in Hungarian society. Nevertheless, the civilizational decline of the West can be found in German cultural philosophy as well (see Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West).

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Turbulent history also amplifies this anti-Westernism, particularly the Trianon Treaty and the lack of Western direct aid during the 1956 revolution. These negative experiences also create a culture of victimhood. Anti-political sentiments define civil movements, while victimhood, anti-westernism, and demographic concerns are central features of bottom-up and also top-down right wing mobilization.

The Right to Assemble and the Political Opportunity Structure A key element of political opportunity structure is the legal regulation of the right to assemble. Before the first democratic elections in 1990, the right to associate and assemble was newly regulated. The 1989 Acts II and III were adopted by the last National Assembly of the Hungarian People’s Republic to ensure a legal transition in accordance with the agreements reached during the National Round Table negotiations. Both acts, like other legal provisions of the regime change, were aimed at a democratic minority in order to create a framework acceptable to all parties. Act II on the Right to Associate guaranteed that any natural or legal person, organization, or community could establish and run a civil society organization. Under Act III, the right to assemble could be exercised in the form of peaceful assemblies, demonstrations, and marches. Its scope did not cover campaign events, church, cultural, sporting, and family events. Event organizers had to give only three days’ notice to the police in charge. The authorities could only ban an event under the grounds that it would have impeded the smooth running of representative bodies or courts, or that it would have unduly disrupted traffic. The police capitalized on the latter to ban demonstrations. However, the regulation of association and assembly in Hungary was in line with international law, such as the UN International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights. After 1989, the number of NGOs grew rapidly. In 2017, there were 61,151 nonprofit organizations in Hungary, of which almost onethird were foundations, and the remaining two-thirds were associations and nonprofit companies. The most common fields of activity were leisure, hobbies, culture, sports, and education (Table 2.1). This

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Table 2.1 NGOs by activity in Hungary in 2017 Activity

%

Leisure, hobbies Culture Sport Education Social care Urban development Professional, lobbying Health Environment Public safety Economic development Research Religion Civil protection, fire fighting International relations Legal protection Politics Multi-purpose donations, nonprofit associations

15.7 15.2 15.2 13.0 8.8 5.1 5.1 4.2 3.3 3.3 2.6 2.1 1.9 1.5 1.2 0.9 0.5 0.4

shows that civil organizations were mainly active in alternative, nonprofit services. Activities with a greater potential for political conflict (social work, professional and economic advocacy, environmental protection, legal aid, human rights, and politics) accounted for only 18.6 percent of all NGOs in Hungary. The large number of civil organizations suggests that Hungarian society is very active. However, beyond voter participation, participation is low and organizational activity is not very common (Table 2.2). According to the European Social Survey data, the most common form of participation was making contact with politicians. The rarest form is political party activity, which is practiced by about 1 percent of the adult population. Political participation tends to be higher in election years, including the critical elections of 2010, which resulted in a transformation of the party system (Róbert and Papp 2012). International comparisons show that Hungarian citizens are less active compared to German citizens, but political participation

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Table 2.2 Political participation in Hungary, Poland, Germany, and Slovakia Form of participation (last 12 months)

HU 2010 (%)

Contacting a politician, 11.9 government, or local government representative Been active in a political 2.6 party or other political organization Participated in the 6.6 work of another organization or association Signed a letter of protest, 2.8 a petition Participated in a lawful 2.7 public demonstration Deliberately not bought, 6.1 boycotted products

HU 2018 (%)

PL 2018 (%)

DE 2018 (%)

SK 2018 (%)

6.0

9.0

18.9

10.7

0.7

2.8

4.7

2.0

2.7

7.4

30.9

7.6

3.6

14.3

38.0

26.8

2.2

6.3

9.4

6.6

3.1

5.8

39.5

5.7

is even higher in other postcommunist states, like Poland and Slovakia. Higher Polish participation may be due to greater social activism before the regime change. However, this is contradicted by the fact that Slovakia also has higher levels of political participation, but without the mass movements that Poland has experienced. The lower participation figures in Hungary can also be linked to the demobilization strategy of the Kádár regime. According to the Kádár social contract, the system ensured a higher standard of living compared to the region, as long as individuals refrained from public and political participation. The policy of “those who are not against us are with us” has thus ultimately led to the Hungarian people finding solutions to their problems through individualized solutions instead of collectivized solutions. However, a comparison of 2010 and 2018 Hungarian data shows a downward trend. We can

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therefore observe a demobilization process, that is a return to the tradition of individual advocacy in the 2010s. The new act on assembly came into force on 1 October 2018. However, the Minister of Justice László Trócsányi wrote about the reform of the Assembly Act in Figyelő in July 2016. The law had to be amended because the Alkotmánybíróság [Constitutional Court] (AB), found a constitutional violation by omission, because it did not specify in the act what happens when the right of protesters to assemble conflicts with the right of residents of the protest site to privacy. The AB found a constitutional violation on the basis of a 2014 petition. One of the activists of the Koppány group, which protested against the evictions of mortgage debtors, complained in their petition that the police had refused to allow a demonstration in front of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s house because of his innate right to privacy. The court later upheld the police’s decision. Although protest forms have indeed been changed since 1989, it has been partly in reaction to the authorities and the courts, which are guided by the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Minister of Justice also referred to the emergence of protest camps, spontaneous demonstrations, and protests outside private homes. Protest camps were a form of demonstration that had already been used in the past, but the Arab Spring (Tahrir Square), the Occupy Wall Street movement (Zucotti Park), the Spanish M-15 or Indignados movement (Puerta del Sol), the 2013 Turkish (Gezi Park), and the 2014 Ukrainian events (Maidan Square) have led to the widespread use of protest camps lasting several weeks or months. The creation of these camps and the maintenance of the infrastructure is also facilitated by social media, as it virtually duplicates the camp, facilitating organization and communication. In Hungary, after the radical right-wing protests of autumn 2006, the protest camp on Kossuth Square is the most well-known. But the same method was used also by the defenders of the Zengő in 2004– 2005 and later again by the City Park protesters in the mid-2010s. Protest camps as a form of demonstration has thus become widespread in international protest practice. This should have been accompanied by a regulation that recognizes the legitimacy of the protest camp as a form of protest.

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Spontaneous protests spread in the mid-2000s, in connection with the advent of the internet and mobile phones. After several national and Strasbourg court rulings, on 27 May 2008, the Constitutional Court ruled on the 1989 Act III on the right to assemble. The new ruling extended the right to assemble to peaceful events, with organizers now permitted to give less than 72 hours’ notice, as well as to unorganized spontaneous protests. As such, late notification alone—if the event which precipitates the demonstration is unforeseeable—is not in itself a reason to ban the event. Spontaneous demonstrations have therefore already been addressed by the Constitutional Court and have also appeared in case law, such as the student demonstrations in 2012–2013 which had not been announced in advance, and were thus not automatically dispersed. Most of the problems with police and administrative practice since the 2006 abuses of mainstream and radical right wing protests were not related to the handling of demonstrations that had already taken place, but rather to inconsistencies in the granting of permits. The police have often refused to allow protests on spurious grounds, such as excessive obstruction of traffic, as in the case of the 2011 anti-China, pro-Tibet protests, or the 24 December 2004, protest outside the then Prime Minister’s house. Other authorities and political actors were also partners in this, as when the Municipality of Budapest tried to prevent demonstrations by farmers in rural areas with signs banning tractors in 2006. More detailed rules on reporting were therefore indeed justified, which could prevent the police from becoming the focus of political battles. An important element of the new legislation was the protection of the privacy of politicians and people at the demonstration sites. However, politicians as persons and not as office holders are at the center of protests because public life, politics itself, is becoming personalized. The politician appears not only in his or her primary function anymore, but as a private person, a known person. Protest forms followed this general political trend. The right to privacy and human dignity are, of course, also the right of the politician, but legislative and enforcement practice must also take into account that, however commonplace it has become in the last 50 years, the assembly, that is peaceful public demonstration, is still an indication of the importance of a public issue for a particular group in

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society. Restricting the use of banners or puppets that mock politicians on the grounds of defamation, or preventing a demonstration by referring to the “tranquility of the inhabitants,” may not at first bother the “silent majority,” but it condemns a disaffected group to silence. Another important aspect is that during this period, the protests outside the politicians’ houses were typically led by the foreign currency mortgage debt movement. In their case, the conflict, their political grievance, was based on the massive increase in repayments on their mortgage. The demonstration in front of the house of a decision-maker and politician they considered responsible is thus not an end in itself, but an expression of the movement’s grievance. Although it does not fall within the narrow legal framework of assembly, it has affected the opportunities of movements and politically active NGOs, and has led to new conflicts between the government and certain NGOs, some of which are funded from abroad (Arató and Mikecz 2015). By the end of 2011, the Hungarian parliament adopted a new civil code. The national NGO support program, National Civil Fund Program (NCA), which is the main source of state support for NGOs, was renamed the National Cooperation Fund (NEA). Government representatives had more influence in the NEA than in the NCA. The role of the fund also changed. While the mission of the NCA was to “strengthen civil society, promote the social empowerment of civil society organizations, and foster partnership and division of labor between government and civil society,” the NEA supports “the functioning and professional activities of civil society organizations, strengthening their national cohesion and helping them to play their role in the fulfillment of the common good” (Arató Mikecz 2015). According to this new concept, organizations that serve the nation as a community could be considered “civil society,” while organizations that are critical of the government and/ or funded by foreign donor organizations are “foreign-funded political activists,” as the prime minister himself put it (Orbán 2014). This approach was also translated into concrete government action when János Lázár, as the then Head of the Prime Minister’s Office of Hungary, initiated a review of the so-called Norwegian Civil Fund payments.

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Tendencies of Political Participation and Digital Communication The dynamics of contemporary activism and protests have been strongly influenced by the spread of digital communication and social media. In Hungary, the spread of social media intensified parallel with the unfolding of the illiberal regime since the early 2010s. The development of electronic communication inspired the idea of using technology to facilitate political participation since its inception. Amitai Etzioni, writing as early as 1972, conceived the concept of Multiple Input Network for Evaluating Reactions, Votes and Attitudes (MINERVA). The idea was simple: while oneway media alienates people from politics, two-way communication, regular interaction between citizens, even in different geographical locations, can revitalize democracy. Etzioni’s concept was to allow citizens to participate in politics in the same way as the ancient polis. With the development of the World Wide Web protocol and the first browsers, the idea of the digital town hall, later promoted by presidential candidate Ross Perot in 1992, or “digital Athens” (Van de Donk et al. 1995), became increasingly popular. In the early 1990s, the internet evolved from a scientific and educational network into a source of information for all and a means of cooperation between different individuals. Primarily because of the decentralized structure of the internet and its many-to-many nature, i.e. the information is accessible from multiple sources for multiple users, sanguine approaches to the democratic potential of digital communication have emerged. These optimistic approaches were partly inspired by the social movements of the time that were critical of globalization. In the Mexican state of Chiapas, the Zapatista rebellion was the first known political movement to make effective use of digital networks (Cleaver 1998). The antiglobalization movement also relied heavily on digital networks (Kahn and Kellner 2004), but the neoliberal globalization they opposed used the very same computer networks (Castells 2010). The decentralized structure, which allowed cheap and fast communication from many to many, effectively served the needs of social movements. Not only was the internet a valuable communication tool for social movements, which are often resource-poor, but

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it also suited the network-based organizational structures that characterize movements (Garret 2006). The internet made communication with supporters and members much easier and cheaper. This form of communication also makes it easier to recruit new activists and to join a movement. Rapid, real-time communication facilitates dialogue and deliberation within an organization and also increases transparency (Mosca and della Porta 2009). Increasing internet penetration has not only triggered optimistic assumptions, but also fears of growing alienation. From a pessimistic point of view, virtual reality, as it was termed at the turn of the millennium, inevitably contributes to the growing fragmentation of society. The sometimes dystopian view is that people will neglect their real social ties and prioritize virtual connections. Empirical studies have not confirmed these fears, but neither have they provided optimistic evidence of citizens’ social and political participation (Gibson et al. 2004). Barry Wellman and colleagues have found that the internet tends to complement other forms of contact and thus social capital (Wellman et al. 2001). Pippa Norris has shown that the internet does not in itself enhance political participation, but that it will be used for such purposes by those who are already to some extent involved offline. Online networks put citizens in an upward spiral, so that those who participate in public life are more empowered as individuals and can really take advantage of the opportunities for digital political participation. The empowerment thesis has thus been confirmed by empirical research, which has shown that the internet has reinforced existing patterns of political participation, but has not substantially altered them (Norris 2000).

Social Media and Political Participation Compared to how and who used the internet in the 1990s, social media has expanded the range of content producers and integrated many different functions into a single platform. In terms of political participation, this has meant an increase in the reach of social movements, while platforms—Facebook in particular—have further integrated different grassroots initiatives at a global level. For the global justice movement, the internet has been key in organizing protests against global summits and in building a common

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framework of grievances, goals, and actions. In the case of the post-2011 protests, there were no clearly defined global adversaries for the antiglobalization movement, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the World Bank. At the global level, social media connected protests, which meant that a greater number of activists could learn about the individual grievances and precarious situations of movement members in other countries. Since 1999, the antiglobalization movement has also had a decentralized online media platform, the Independent Media Center or indymedia.org (Kidd 2003). Many of the features of contemporary social media are based on the image, video distribution, and commentary features of indymedia. At the local level, social media can also serve as a source of information and a tool for organizing collective action. As Sarah Anne Rennick has shown in the case of the 2011 uprisings in North Africa, a distinction can be made between the premobilization and collective action phases. In the premobilization stage, social media can be used to engage new audiences and to transmit the grievances and the so-called interpretation frames, which defines the goals and adversaries of the movement. In the collective action stage, a framework based on norms of social justice facilitates mobilization. New hybrid organizational structures also emerge in the collaboration between traditional and social media-based organizations (Rennick 2013). Mobilization through social media, or mobilization where social media plays an important role (Bacallao-Pino 2014), can be used not only for organizational and practical communication purposes. A very important feature of social media is the sharing of multimedia content. Video clips, images, and memes are more effective ways of expressing emotions than simple texts. While emotions are generally considered as obstacles to rational political action, anger, indignation, grief, communal feeling, etc. are very powerful tools for mobilizing social movements (Goodwin et al. 2001; Flam 2005). Thus, Facebook and other social media platforms are also an alternative public sphere in which outraged citizens and supporters of social movements can express their identity, thereby transforming public space into emotional space (Dancu 2015). Without leadership, however, emotional mobilization is short-lived (Bohdanova 2014). Consequently, social media not only

26

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offers new opportunities for social movements through emotional intensity and improved accessibility, but can also challenge the limited engagement of supporters. Social movement activists are aware that social media provides greater visibility and consequently highlights the performative and emotional dimensions of protest. In order to sustain engagement and stabilize the movement, they need to take their followers from social media to the streets to participate in political protests that have a much greater impact on decision-makers than hashtag activism. The next stage of this two-stage process is for protests to grow into a more structured, permanent social movement (Bacallao-Pino 2014). For this two-stage process to be successful, the first stage requires the use of social media to transmit information, organize events, and demonstrate emotions. In the second stage, however, it can be used as a tool to create an alternative communication space and implement participation in a given social movement.

Social Media and Political Participation Mobilization through social media should be assessed in the context of general trends in political participation. Technology should not be seen as only transforming patterns of unconventional political participation. In many ways, social media only reinforces existing trends in politics and society. At the heart of these are the aestheticization of everyday life, the blurring of boundaries between the private and public spheres, and the personalization of politics. All these developments can be linked to the general individualization of societies, which does not necessarily break down human relations but transforms social and political interactions. The structure of social media corresponds to the concept of secondary orality, as conceived by Walter J. Ong, who distinguished between orality and literacy as the main forms of description (Ong 1982). Primary orality was the main type of narrative before the mass emergence of literacy. Its forms included fables, songs, myths, jokes, public, and liturgical discourses. According to Ong, electronic communication, namely telephone, radio, and television, gave rise to a new, secondary form of orality. This new orality is similar to the primary orality for many reasons. It is essentially linked to a

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collectivity, because it has an audience and not just individual readers. Furthermore, as Ong puts it, it has a “sense of community,” as people can enjoy electronic communication together, whereas reading separates them. In the case of the internet and social media, this “sense of community” means that the second orality is also a collective product. For this reason, it is sometimes difficult to trace back to the original authors and the content can be modified and changed, as in the case for online memes. Secondary orality, however, is based on literacy and therefore involves a more considered and self-conscious use, relying on print and writing. Social media’s sense of community also enables the dissemination of political memes, providing a platform for culture jamming, which is the reinterpretation and hacking of the visual representation of large corporations or political organizations. The heightened visuality of social media contributes to the aestheticization of everyday life described by Gerhard Schulze in his work on the experience society (1992). The concept is that the driving force behind individual action is not physical safety or social integration, but the acquisition of good experiences, the living of the good life. This experience orientation, as Schulze puts it, leads to experience rationality, where the subject becomes an object for himself and, in an instrumental sense, social situations are transformed into experience goals. In contemporary experience societies, selfactualization is achieved through the accumulation of experiences. However, the project of self-actualization is not only an option but also a necessity, since social status is acquired through good experiences. There is a risk, however, that the individual will not have good experiences, in which case the self-project will fail. Schulze did not elaborate on the political aspects of the experience society, but unconventional political participation can be seen as an opportunity to gain good experiences. The concept of the experience society cannot be separated from the more general theories of late modernity. The dissolution of family, place, and class-based commitments has allowed individuals to choose their own social groups and expand their identities as consumers of experiences. Schulze himself was a colleague of Ulrich Beck at the University of Bamberg. According to Beck, the dissolution of traditional ties and thus the process of individualization

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is accompanied by standardization (Beck 1992). Instead of family and class, the self is dependent on secondary institutions and agents such as fashion, the market, and mass consumption. Beck is less permissive regarding the autonomy of individuals in their life choices. Although individual life paths are malleable, there are no real alternatives and a lack of adequate awareness (Beck 1992). Individuals become a center of action, where only biographical doit-yourself kits can be relied upon to make individual choices in each situation. Extensive mobility and personal reflexivity gave rise to new social movements, also based on new identities beyond family and class (Buechler 1995; Melucci 1989). It is clear that social media provides an opportunity to present individually elaborated life journeys and to share joyful experiences. In the classical literature on social movements, the concept of expressive action (Turner and Kilian 1987) captures a similar phenomenon. In contrast to the more pragmatic instrumental action, protesters do not have elaborated demands in expressive action, but want to give voice to their emotions, identity, and convictions. This distinction became obsolete once it became clear that social movements have both instrumental and expressive dimensions to varying degrees. The expressive dimension of protest, which shows commitment to decision-makers and the public at large, is directed outwards. Participation, however, as a source of good experiences or a means of enriching one’s life path, is directed inwards, since the goal is the enrichment of the self. However, this enrichment can only be achieved if good experiences are shared with others who will value the experience. Social media is the perfect tool to display, share, and evaluate experiences and individual identities, thus amplifying the expressive dimension of protest. Social media is thus closely linked to the experience-oriented activism discussed in later chapters. The above-mentioned standardization of biographical choices is accompanied by a blurring of the boundaries between the private and the public spheres (Beck 1992). This is the result of the dependence of private life on institutionalized life situations and their standardization, which are managed by systems such as consumption, education, the welfare state, and the media. The distinction between the private and the public was an important development

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of early capitalism, where private affairs meant the conduct of trade and business—without state intervention. Freedom of the private sphere is the freedom of the moderns, which is progressively different from the participatory freedom of the ancients, as Benjamin Constant has noted (1988). Ulrich Beck calls the separation of private and public a “shared citizenship.” A citizen acts in the public, political sphere on the basis of democratic rights, while in private sphere, a citizen acts and defends private affairs and interests in the spheres of business and work (Beck 1992). This dichotomy has been maintained simultaneously by the recognition of class differences, the consequent interventions of the welfare state, and the reliance on scientific and technological progress and innovation. Since the 1970s, however, the transformation of employment and gender relations, and the breakdown of class ties, have destabilized these pillars of the private-public divide. The result has been not only a blurring of the boundaries between private and public life, but also the emergence of new political initiatives outside the institutionalized political system in the field of sub-politics. The new social movements that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s reinforced this process by bringing into political focus issues that had previously been considered private. In particular, the feminist and gay pride movements built majority recognition and revealed hidden structures of asymmetrical power relations in the private sphere. The structure of social media supports the separation of private and public. Facebook’s news feed, for example, features stories and photos shared by friends and family, as well as news and content produced by professional media. To paraphrase Hannah Arendt, John B. Thompson argues that visibility is an important condition for public presence (Thompson 2011). According to Arendt, those who participate in public affairs become visible to others, and political participation is a condition of presence in time and space. With the advent of mass media, however, the latter two are no longer prerequisites for public participation. Modern communication technologies have, as Thompson puts it, created a mediated visibility. Because social media is multidirectional and increasingly based on images and video, it facilitates mediated visibility, blurring the boundary between public and private.

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The other general trend in political participation is the personalization of politics. This trend is closely linked to the separation of public and private spheres, which is also facilitated by social media. The literature since the 2000s identifies the weakening of voter attachment to political parties and the increased role of electronic communication, especially television, in election campaigns as the cause of the personalization of politics (Dalton, McAllister and Wattenberg 2000). In general, personalization is associated with the presidentialization of parliamentary systems, whereby political leaders—usually prime ministers—have stronger executive power and more autonomy in relation to party organizations (Poguntke and Webb 2005). Personalization is thus most strongly associated with the increasing role and influence of leaders vis-à-vis political parties in democratic systems (Pakulski and Körösényi 2012). However, the personalization of politics can also be observed at the level of citizens, as it can be understood as part of a development that Zygmunt Bauman calls “the individualization of social life” (Garzia 2011). Free from class and family constraints, people can engage in movement politics through personal action frameworks and dense social networks, reducing the cognitive and material costs of political participation (Bennet 2012). However, collective identity is weaker in the case of contemporary collective action. Participants engage in conflict individually, rather than as members of a collective. In the case of so-called assertive action, political engagement is formed at the individual level, and supporters are directly connected to digital social networks of information, sharing, and organizing. Personalization also affects social movement organizations, as connective action occurs without organizational resources (Bennett and Segerberg 2012). With personalization at the level of citizens, individualized collective action emerges (Micheletti 2003), wherein individuals take political action through everyday practices such as consumption and social interactions.

Trends in Participation and the Hungarian Experience The aestheticization of everyday life, the blurring of the boundaries between the private and public spheres, and the personalization of politics can also be identified in the Hungarian protest experience

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(Table 2.3). In the following, the discussed trends are illustrated through the examples of the internet tax protests, the activities of refugee support organizations and the poster campaign and election boycott of the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party in 2016. The aestheticization of everyday life in this context refers, for example, to the practice of making and sharing culture jamming, that is humorous, sarcastic, or mocking montages. The sharing of funny images and memes on social media is a way of expressing political discontent and a way of representing the individual, the selfproject as described by Gerhard Schulze. For example, many voters shared invalid ballot papers during the 2016 quota referendum, partly in response to the call of the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, on social media, which, in addition to political action and engagement, is an expression of the actor’s sense of humor and cultural status. The cultural joke and its sharing emphasizes the emotional dimension, but this practice is not suitable for making detailed policy demands. During the billboard campaign and the quota referendum, the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party criticized the content of the government’s communication, but they had no political demands. The aestheticization of everyday life can also be observed in the prefigurative actions of organizations helping refugees during the refugee crisis. In addition to helping refugees, the action was directed inwards and aimed in part at enriching the self, at realizing the self-project. Table 2.3 Participation trends and movement practices Aestheticization of everyday life

Creative rewriting of government posters by the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party (culture jamming)

Blurring the boundaries between the public and private sectors

Depoliticized actions by refugee organizations

Personalization of politics

Protests without an organizational background, individually feasible protest actions (donations, sharing on social media)

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While the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party operated in the political sphere—albeit without political pretensions—the refugee organizations were active in the sub-political arena. Accepting donations, communicating with supporters, and organizing support were more important than criticizing the government’s refugee policy. The personal position, the everyday practice, became political, blurring the boundaries between private and public. The stories of volunteers spread on social media became quasi-news, which also contributed to this process. A further example of the blurring of the boundaries between public and private was the internet tax case, which would have been a grievance not against people as members of the collective, but against all individuals in general. The internet tax also symbolized government intrusion into the private sphere, and thus signaled the blurring of the boundaries between private and public. The internet tax protests were organized without traditional organizations, with newly created Facebook groups becoming the main actors in the protests. The emphasis was on individuals rather than organizations, which also showed the personalization of politics. Moreover, the protest action could be carried out by individuals alone, without being closely linked to a group. Protest actions, such as donating money to the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party or sharing pictures of redrawn, hacked posters, are also part of the same trend.

Sociological Background of Activists Beyond the legal framework and the impact of social media, the availability of social groups, which can be mobilized, also defines the political opportunities of social movements. Since 2018, researchers at the Institute of Political Science of the Centre for Social Sciences Budapest have been studying the sociological background and political attitudes of protesters. The data provides an opportunity to compare the sociological background and political attitudes of participants in protests related to each pattern of political activism. Based on the data, the sociological profile of the mobilizable activists can be highlighted along the lines of activism patterns, impact of organization, and the importance of street protests on the opposition side.

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Methodology of Protest Research The research on social movements is very mixed in terms of metho­ dological repertoire due to its interdisciplinary nature. From large scale survey-type measurements of participatory experiences to dense descriptions of movement subcultures using anthropological methods, to visual analysis of banners and movement symbols used in demonstrations, there is a wide range of tools available in movement research. In Hungary, too, researchers use a variety of methods to study social movements and political demonstrations. During the period of democratic transition, opposition movements were not studied using the theoretical and methodological frameworks of movement research. Contemporary, participatory descriptions of opposition movements were provided by samizdat literature and documentation, such as Beszélő, Demokrata, and Fekete Doboz. After the regime change, burgeoning Hungarian political scientists examined individual opposition movements and the democratic transition itself through transitology (Bozóki et al. 1992), historical description (Csizmadia 1995), and the theory of political socialization and political generations (Kéri 1989; Stumpf 1996). In Hungarian political science, the theoretical framework of movement research and, at the same time, its methodology became established through the research of Máté Szabó. Máté Szabó’s research methods were primarily the analysis of the political opportunity structure (Szabó 1993, 1997a) and protest event analysis (Szabó 1997b, 1997c, 1999). In Hungarian movement research, both political opportunity structure (Mikecz 2008, 2012) and the analysis of protest events (Szabó 2008) remain important methods. Similar to the study of protest events, frame analysis also uses the press as a primary source (Páll 1999; Scheiring 2006; Mikecz 2007). Hungarian movement research also includes large sample survey-type analysis (Susánszky, Kopper and Tóth 2016) and in-depth interview-based analysis (Lantos and Kende 2015). Compared to the above procedures, the protest survey method is relatively new in Hungarian social movement research. The essence of this method is that researchers can directly reach participants and thus obtain relevant data on the sociological background, motivations, and participation experiences of the protesters. This

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is obviously not feasible using methods based on press reports. There are exceptional cases where the protest is carried out by a well-defined group or community, in which case a large part of the group can be reached through snowball sampling, mailing lists, or social media. The 2013 university occupation in Budapest was such a protest action (Kende et al. 2014). However, in the case of postdemonstration interviews, interviewees are typically activists who are part of a more defined network, while those outside of it cannot be contacted through snowball sampling. Large-sample surveys would only provide a very small sample of participants of any given event, whereas questionnaire-based protest research is more accurate in this respect. Protest survey research itself is an established method in international movement research. According to a detailed study by Stefaan Walgrave and Joris Verhulst (2011), the first questionnaire-based protest research was conducted in 1965, during the antinuclear protests in Germany and the UK. The protest survey method has therefore been used at a time when movement research as a discipline was already beginning to emerge. However, as Walgrave and Verhulst (2011) point out, the method did not become widespread and only reemerged in the wake of the mobilization of the antiglobalization movement. While an edited volume which comprehensively dealt with movement research methods was published in the early 2000s, it did not consider protest surveys.However, a more recent undertaking devoted a separate chapter to the topic (della Porta, 2014b). The research project “Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation” (CCC) played a prominent role in the boom of protest research. This comparative research project combined a questionnaire survey of the May Day and Global Day of Action protests between 2009 and 2010 with data on the multilevel social and political context of the protests (van Stekelenburg et al. 2012). The method allows the analysis of the sociodemographic characteristics of protesters, their experiences of participation, the conditions, channels, and means of their mobilization, as well as their motivations, emotions, and attitudes relevant to protest in the context of the political system, protest culture, the general and issue specific mobilization context, and

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the specific protest. The project aimed for a level of standardization that would allow comparative analysis. Thus, questionnaire-based protest research has been used to achieve results in areas such as the impact of an individual’s institutional embeddedness on emotion management (Blocq, Klandermans and Stekelenburg, 2012), awareness of the transnational nature of protests (Walgrave et al. 2012), and the background and motivations of protesters without institutional affiliation (Klandermans et al. 2014). These seemingly different research directions are linked by the method itself, which focuses on the sociological characteristics, institutional background, attitudes, and motivations of protesters.

Results of the protest surveys During the research, we carried out several waves of questionnaires at demonstrations. Due to the experimental nature of the research project, we used longer and shorter online and paper questionnaires at each protest. An essential challenge of protest surveys is the organization and recruitment of a sufficient number of interviewers. As the occurrence of protests is not always predictable, researchers have little time to prepare. Hence, the number of respondents may vary according to protest events. The largest number of items (N = 300) is the joint database of the 2019 climate protests (24 May, 27 September). It was possible to collect 99 responses during the Peace March on 15 March 2018 and 135 during the opposition protest on the same day. The number of items for the overtime law protest on 8 December 2018, was 94, while the number of items at the protest on 23 October 2020 organized by students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE) was 75. In the latter case a shorter questionnaire was used. In the following, the sociological background of the participants in each event, such as their gender, age, educational level, and type of municipality of residence, will be compared using descriptive statistics. The extent to which protesters differ in terms of their mobilization, political participation, left-right self-assessment, and satisfaction with democracy will be also analyzed. In three of the protests studied, women were more numerous, accounting for roughly 60 percent of participants (Table 2.4).

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Table 2.4 Gender distribution at demonstrations

Male Female

Peace Opposition Protest Climate March demonstration against the protests 2018 (%) 2018 (%) overtime law 2019 (%) 2018 (%)

SZFE protest 2020 (%)

55 45

41 59

43 57

54 46

42 58

A higher proportion of men participated in the demonstration against the overtime law organized by the Hungarian Trade Union Confederation and in the Peace March of 15 March 2018. As both the Trade Union and the Peace March were more centralized collective actions with a stronger organizational background, it can be assumed that this circumstance had an impact on the higher proportion of men. In terms of age, there is a clear distinction between the rallies organized during the 2018 campaign, such as the Peace March and the event organized by the opposition parties, where the presence of people aged 50 and over was over 70 percent (Table 2.5). It is not surprising that the demonstrations of the Climate Movement, which started essentially as a school strike, had a 73 percent participation of people under 35, and that the SZFE demonstration was Table 2.5 Age of protesters

Under 35 years 35–49 years old Between 50 and 64 years old 65 years and older

Peace Opposition March demonstration 2018 2018 (%) (%)

Protest against the overtime law 2018 (%)

Climate protests 2019 (%)

SZFE protest 2020 (%)

10 13 34

9 14 27

14 29 30

73 15 8

46 24 19

44

50

28

4

11

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also attended by a large number of young people. The trade union demonstration was more balanced in terms of age. In all four protests studied, graduates were strongly over-represented (Table 2.6). Their proportion was lowest in the climate protests, but many students who were attending university or secondary school also participated. The proportion of graduates also exceeded 50 percent in the protest against the overtime law, which affects lower-skilled workers more. Demonstrations of national importance were usually organized by movement leaders in the capital, as this is where the most important decision-making bodies, such as the National Assembly, the government, and public spaces of symbolic importance are located. In the period of 2015–2017, 58.9 percent of protests were announced in Budapest (Susánszky et al. 2019). Since we studied protests in the capital, it is unsurprising that the vast majority of protesters lived in Budapest (Table 2.7). Events with a stronger organization, such as the Peace March or the overtime law demonstration, had a higher proportion of people from other municipalities. In the case of the climate protest, we included a question in the international Table 2.6 Education level of protesters

College, university degree Secondary school degree Vocational school degree Primary school

Peace Opposition March demonstration 2018 2018 (%) (%)

Protest against the overtime law 2018 (%)

Climate SZFE protests protest 2019 2020 (%) (%)

52

77

54

46

65

35

22

39

29

32

11

6

—

—

1

1

1

25

3

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Table 2.7 Protesters’ place of residence

Budapest Other city Village County seat, a city with county rights

Peace March 2018 (%)

Opposition demonstration 2018 (%)

Protest against the overtime law 2018 (%)

Climate protests 2019 (%)

56 24 11 9

71 15 9 5

55 22 12 12

77 23

questionnaire asking about the distance between the place of the protest and the place of residence. Protesters who traveled more than one hour were recorded as living in “other city.” For protests with a stronger organizational background, there is a difference reflected in the time at which protesters decide to participate also (Table 2.8). In the case of the Peace March and trade Table 2.8 “When did you decide to participate in the demonstration?” Peace Opposition March demonstration 2018 2018 (%) (%)

At the time of 62 announcement, more than a month ago A few weeks before 27 the protest A few days 11 before the demonstration On the day of the 0 demonstration

Protest against the overtime law 2018 (%)

Climate protests 2019 (%)

SZFE protest 2020 (%)

34

52

15

27

30

3

30

20

25

38

46

44

11

6

10

9

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Table 2.9 Organizational participation of protesters Peace March (%) Church or religious 9 organization Trade union or 1 professional organization Political party 12 Other NGOs 14

Opposition Protest against Climate demonstration the overtime protests (%) law (%) (%) 2

1

7

4

17

4

11 26

15 28

1 37

union protests, 62 and 52 percent respectively decided to attend at the “moment of announcement” and “more than a month ago.” According to the European Social Survey (ESS) 2019 data, 0.6 percent of Hungarian respondents participated in political parties and 2.7 percent in NGOs, hence the participants of the protests surveyed exhibit a very strong organizational activity (Table 2.9). However, in light of the mobilization by political parties and the election campaign, it is unsurprising that the proportion of those active in political parties exceeded 10 percent for both the Peace March of 15 March 2018 and the opposition demonstration of the same day. In the case of the overtime law demonstration, the high percentage shows that the opposition parties mobilized for the event. As trade unions did not exclude political parties from demonstrations, there was no particular obstacle in their taking part. In the case of the climate protests, the proportion of people active in political parties is the same as that of the whole population. Most of the climate protesters indicated that they were involved in NGOs. This proportion is the lowest in the case of the Peace March. Understandably, the overtime law protest had the highest proportion of trade unionists, and the right-wing Peace March had the highest proportion of people involved in a church or religious organization. An interesting result, however, is that the climate protesters are not far behind in terms of religious organizational activity.

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Table 2.10 Political participation of protesters in the last 12 months

Contacting a politician Participated in a legal protest Signed a letter of protest Boycotted certain products Donated money for political purposes

Peace March (%)

Opposition Protest against Climate demonstration the overtime protests (%) law (%) (%)

44

37

27

6

34

83

59

67

36

51

64

69

29

42

33

77

33

32

25

18

In terms of political participation, we obtained similar results to those of organizational participation, as protest survey respondents are very active (Table 2.10). A prominent form of participation is protest participation, especially for participants in mobilizations critical of the government. According to the 2019 ESS data, the share of protest participants in the total population was 2.2 percent in the previous 12 months. Age, distance from party politics, and the topic of the protest are informed by the participation pattern of climate protesters which differs from the rest of the population. Their rate of engagement with politicians is in line with the overall population (ESS 2019: 5.9%), but boycotts stand out as a form of participation. Indeed, politically conscious consumption is a specific form of political action of ecological movements. An examination of participants’ previous protest experiences of in opposition party rallies and trade union demonstrations shows that many participants regularly attend nationally publicized demonstrations that are of the government (Table 2.11). Such were the events organized by the I Would Teach movement, which was formed by teachers. The Central European University (CEU) protest emerged as the Orbán government disputed with the

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Table 2.11 “Have you participated in recent years in . . .”

. . . the protests of the I Would Teach movement . . . the CEU protests . . . the City Park or Roman Shore protests

Opposition demonstration (%)

Protest against the overtime law (%)

68

46

66 19

47 20

University in 2017. The City Park and Roman Shore protests were organized against the land use construction initiated by the Orbángovernment and the affiliated right wing lord mayor of Budapest. The effect of these protests were less pronounced as that of the overtime law demonstration, perhaps because of the presence of participants mobilized through trade unions rather than there being a more general government criticism. The ideological self-classification of protest participants reflects the political party nature of the mobilization, with the most right-wing participants being the Peace March participants and the most left-wing participants being those who attended the protest organized by opposition parties (Table 2.12). In terms of self-identification, climate protesters also tend to identify themselves as left wing, but much less so than opposition or trade union demonstrators.

Table 2.12  L eft/right self-classification of protesters (0 = left, 10 = right)

Peace March 2018 Opposition demonstration 2018 Protest against the overtime law 2018 Climate protests 2019

Average

Source

9.5 1.2 1.8 3.5

1.5 2.0 2.8 2.1

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Table 2.13 Satisfaction with the functioning of democracy (0 = totally dissatisfied, 10 = fully satisfied)

Peace March Opposition demonstration Protest against the overtime law Climate protests SZFE protest

Average

Source

8.0 1.7 1.3 2.1 2.3

2.2 1.8 1.6 2.0 1.9

Satisfaction with democracy is highly dependent on the perception of the current government (Susánszky et al. 2020). The responses to the questionnaire-based protest surveys also show this correlation (Table 2.13). However, there is not as large a descrepancy between opposition and climate protest as there is for ideological self-assessment. Indeed, dissatisfaction with democracy does not require identification with the opposition. Using protest research data, we shed light on the sociological background, participatory experience, and political attitudes of activists who participate in different types of protests and are committed to particular patterns of activism. We conducted questionnaire-based protest surveys at the Peace March on 15 March 2018, at the rally organized by opposition parties (Demokratikus Koalíció [Democratic Coalition] (DK), Párbeszéd [Dialogue], Magyar Szocialista Párt [Hungarian Socialist Party] (MSZP) on the same day, at the overtime law trade union protest on 8 December 2018, at the climate protests in 2019 (24 May, 27 September), and at the protest organized by students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts on 23 October 2020. The data collected shows that women, graduates, and residents of the capital were over-represented among the participants across various types of protests and mobilizations (progovernment, opposition, material, and postmaterial) of national importance at the end of the 2010s. If there is stronger organization and mobilization behind the event, as in the case of the Peace March and the trade union demonstration, the gender and residence ratio may change. Young people are mainly attracted by events outside official politics,

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such as the climate protests and the SZFE demonstration. However, the data also shows that being organized does not necessarily mean organizational participation. Of the events surveyed, participants in the Peace March were the least active in organizations, although they still outperformed the average activity of the population as a whole. Political participation and previous protest experience also suggest that an active core of citizens critical of the government are recurring protesters, with protests becoming a common form of expressing criticism of the government for a politically active oppositional social stratum.

Chapter 3 PROTEST AND POLITICS AFTER THE ILLIBERAL TURN

On the night of 28 October 2014, 30,000–40,000 protesters gathered in the central square of the Pest side of the Hungarian capital. This was the second event of the so-called internet tax protests. A week before, the finance minister of the third Orbán government announced the tax after data traffic. The protesters marched through the inner city and to the Buda side on the Elizabeth Bridge. Their goal was to reach the Zero Kilometer Stone, a sculpture, from which road distances to Budapest are measured. This action aimed to demonstrate symbolically their unwillingness to pay the tax. Although Viktor Orbán withdrew the introduction of an internet tax on 31 October, the demonstrations continued until January of the next year. The mobilization wave could be re-framed as corruption, the cordial relations with Russia, and centralization of public education were later criticized. Also, the protest wave began after the municipal elections, when the fragmented opposition lost not just in smaller settlements, but in major cities as well. Hence, the protesters expressed their dissatisfaction with the opposition as well (Szabó and Mikecz 2015). The internet tax protests led to the withdrawal of the extension of the communication tax, but various attempts to institutionalize the protest wave failed to sustain mobilization. Nevertheless, the 2014 internet tax protests were not the only postelection protests in Hungary after 2010. In 2010, protests were organized against the new media law of the second Orbán government. From these protests grew the Milla, the One Million for the Freedom of Press group, which proved to be a relevant social movement organization in the 2010–2014 election cycle and mobilized disappointed opposition voters against the new media law in 2011 (Jensen 2015). The Milla movement established with other groups the Együtt (Together) party in 2013. 

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In December 2018, after the third election resulted in a twothirds majority for the Fidesz party, the fourth Orbán government issued a new regulation about overtime. Initially unions protested against the so-called “slave law,” but later opposition political parties obstructed the parliament with direct action and opposition MPs occupied the building of the state media for being a biased outlet. These actions forged a unity in the opposition, which even included the now moderate, formerly radical right-wing Jobbik party. The joint actions led to a united run at the 2022 general election, when parliamentary parties of the opposition had one party list and common candidates in the single mandate districts. The prime ministerial candidate of the opposition was selected through open primary elections, wherein not just parties, but also civil society organizations and groups could run for the candidacy. The involvement of civil society organizations was the result of credibility issues of political parties and increased civil movement activity. In line with the abovementioned mobilization waves, a new phenomenon in Hungarian politics after 2010 was that movements and “civil” actors were increasingly mentioned not only in academic, but also in public discourse. In Hungary the term “civil” was mostly used to refer to the nonprofit sector before 2010, and after 2010 it became a catchall term for movements that were able to express and carry general criticism of the government, as well as for the watchdog, human rights-protecting NGOs. The rise of movement politics was directly triggered by the loss of credibility and fragmentation of the left and liberal sides of party politics and the regime building of the right. The increased street opposition to the government in question was also in line with the trends observed in the Visegrad countries (Císař and Vrablikova 2015). The influence of early 2010s international movements for democratic participation, such as Indignados and Occupy, on opposition protests in the 2010s could be also detected. This was in line with the “Nothing about us, without us!” slogan used by the 19th century Hungarian statesman and leader of the revolution and freedom fight of 1848– 1849, Lajos Kossuth. In addition, in the context of movement and civil activism against the Fidesz government, a discourse unfolded in several forums, which in the 2010s was largely about when and

46

Protest and Politics after the Illiberal Turn

how new political forces could be formed from civil society groups, and how civil initiatives could be successful against the Orbán government. This debate was also important because the role of civil society organizations has traditionally been seen—in a democratic framework—as representing interests that are not discussed during election campaigns. Furthermore, in a liberal interpretation, which draws on the concept of nonprofit, NGOs can also provide services that the state are unable to provide themselves, as they lack the necessary knowledge and resources. Nevertheless, this role is not a primarily political one. However, the political control function is not alien to civil society in the East Central European region. During the regime changes in the region, an important strategy of opposition groups was to provide an alternative political structure against the communist system. In the 2010s, several civil initiatives placed precedence on the “watchdog” and human rights protecting role, while the Orbán government saw this kind of activity as illegitimate politicking. During the protests against the new media law, submitted after the second Orbán government came to power in 2010, the abovementioned Milla played an important role in mobilizing those who were critical with the government and the unfolding illiberal democracy. Also, the student movement of 2012–2013 achieved concrete policy results, not to mention the experience gained by participants and the creation of an activist network. However, after the change of government in 2010, it was not yet considered that the unspecified “civil” groups could be an alternative to not only the government, but also to the opposition parties and that these groups could form the nucleus of new independent political formations. This narrative emerged only after the failure of the electoral coalition to change the government and the internet tax protests. None of the organizations and initiatives that emerged in the wake of the autumn-winter 2014 demonstrations, such as Populus, New Hungarian Republic, and Now Us!, were able to remain active in the long term. In 2016, the protests of teachers, students, and parents kept the opposition public in a fever pitch, but unlike the social movement organizations of the internet tax protests, the teachers’ organizations did not want to go beyond professional, policy related demands.

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Since 2010, an experience-oriented form of participation and politics has also been steadily strengthened, as represented by the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party amongst others. In both 2015, during the refugee crisis, as the Orbán government set up billboards calling migrants not to take the jobs of Hungarians and respect their culture (Nagy 2016), and in 2016, at the time of the referendum about the EU resettlement quotas of refugees, the Two-Tailed Dog Party managed to raise unprecedented amounts of donations for their government counter-poster campaigns and mobilized a large number of volunteers. In the context of the refugee quota referendum, the Two-Tailed Dog Party and its affiliated NGOs Társaság a Szabadságjogokért [Hungarian Civil Liberties Union] (TASZ) and the Magyar Helsinki Bizottság [Hungarian Helsinki Committee] actually mobilized voters by encouraging them to cast an invalid vote. The high rate of invalid votes (6.27%) led to speculation as to whether the Two-Tailed Dog Party would gain seats in the 2018 elections. Although the above brief overview shows that civil activism has become more frequent in Hungary in the 2010s, there was an almost unanimous agreement that Hungarians are passive, unwilling to stand up for their interests and protesting rarely. In everyday public discourse, this is usually expressed as “a country without consequences” and Hungarians are considered as “a nation of sheep.” In academic circles and in expert analyses, Hungarians are often characterised by the phrase “Hungarian civil society is weak.” Symptoms of weakness are usually identified by low civic activity, volunteering, donations, and a low number of organizations (Szabó 2009; Nizák 2009). The cause of weakness is traced back to a lack of democratic traditions. Indeed, international comparative data shows that political participation is lower in Hungary (Róbert and Szabó 2017). A lower proportion of Hungarians and citizens of the East Central European region go to the polls, demonstrate, sign petitions, and donate to political candidates than in the Western European countries cited as examples. But less civic activity does not mean that there are no protests in Hungary and that political protests are unimportant. Indeed, protests have a role to play in the political space. In Hungary, a demonstration of 20,000 people or a two-month-long protest campaign

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Protest and Politics after the Illiberal Turn

can be very significant, as it can discourage voters of the governing party and even change the balance of power. Protests have not been used to bring down a government since the democratic transition in 1989, but they have been used to bring about policy and cultural changes. While the political consequences are exemplified by the taxi blockade of 1990 in response to gas prices or the internet tax protests of 2014, the cultural consequences are exemplified by the radical right wing protests after the turn of the millennium. However, protests can also be used to create movements that can develop into a political community and eventually a new party. In 2010, both the radical right-wing Jobbik and the ecologist Lehet Más a Politika [Politics Can Be Different] (LMP) were new parties with such a developmental background. Hungarian protesting habits depend essentially on the background of the protesters, the means available, and the goals set by protesters, so Hungarian citizens do not always protest in the same way each time. Since the regime change, protests of civic ethos have been recurrent, with protesters demonstrating in the name of universal civic values. Such protests used to be more associated with the left and liberal sides, such as the Democratic Charter protesting against right wing radicalism in the early 1990s, or the above mentioned Milla, but the phenomenon also exists on the right in the case of the Civil Union Forum, which organized the Peace Marches, a rally of Fidesz voters. Protests by the radical right, which are also primarily political in nature, are also a recurrent phenomenon. These were sometimes organized by political parties, such as certain members of the MDF, the strongest right-wing party in government between 1990 and 1994, and later by the radical right-wing Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja [Hungarian Justice and Life Party] (MIÉP), and a generation later Jobbik, but there were also several organizations and groups behind the “hot autumn events of 2006.”1 On economic issues, it is mostly trade unions, chambers of commerce, workers’ groups, and students who protest, as was the case after the adoption of austerity measures in the mid-1990s. In 1 In 2006, the speech of then socialist prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was leaked among MPs of his party. In this speech, which was shared with his parliamentary group, Gyurcsány admitted that they had lied about the economic situation of the country before their re-election.

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49

some cases, these groups wanted to broaden the basic conflict to include other issues. This was the case of the Hungarian Solidarity Movement, founded in 2011, which was basically organized in the wake of the abolition of early retirement pensions and would later focus on broader social issues. This is similar to the student protests in 2012–2013, when, in addition to higher education issues, some groups, such as the Student Network and Constitution Is Not a Game, also wanted to express more general criticism of the regime. The demonstrations of environmentalists and greens have also played a prominent role in the history of Hungarian protests. The role of the Danube Circle during the system transformation in the late 1980s is memorable, as their environmentalism provided an opportunity to express general dissatisfaction with the communist regime. After the turn of the millennium, former and new environmentalists united again in a critique of globalization, demonstrating against neoliberalism and the Iraq war. In the global justice movement, local environmental protests also played an important role, take for example the protests against a NATO locator on the Zengő peak of the Mecsek mountains. These were aimed at preventing some local investment, such as road widening, and the building of a rubbish incinerator and shopping center. These protests are known in the literature as the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) protests (Hubbard 2005). The following sections review the new protest waves and participation tendencies after 2010, namely the education protests, the new alternative movements, and volunteering during the coronavirus pandemic. The conflicts, contrasts between civil activism and oppositional political parties, and the institutionalization attempts by political parties are also discussed.

New Waves of Protest and Political Participation after 2010 Education: A Recurring Protest Issue Throughout the period between 2010 and 2023, the issue of public and higher education has been a recurrent theme of political protests. In 2011–2012, higher and public education students and their

50

Protest and Politics after the Illiberal Turn

organizations, the Hallgatói Hálózat [Students’ Network] (HaHa), the Oktatói Hálózat [Educators’ Network], and the Középiskolai Hálózat [Secondary School Network] (KiHa), protested against student contracts or—as they put it—serfdom. Student activists also carried out a campus occupation at the Faculty of Humanities of the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in 2013. From this group grew a new alternative, left movement in Hungary. Teachers and the Tanítanék Mozgalom [I Would Teach Movement], protested against the centralization of public education from 2015 to 2016. It was then that former State Secretary for Higher Education István Klinghammer contrasted the “unshaven, disheveled, plaid shirted” teacher with “the smart, moral teacher.” The plaid shirt has been a symbol of education and teacher protests since then. Another symbol of these teacher protests was that of the umbrella. At the demonstrations on 13 February and 15 March 2016 in Kossuth Square, a crowd with umbrellas protested in the pouring rain against the government’s measures on public education. There were also some echoes of the umbrella movement in Hong Kong in 2014. In parallel with the I Would Teach Movement, nurse and activist Mária Sándor raised public awareness of the need for health care reform at these events. The large scale demonstrations in February and March 2016 raised high expectations, but the organizers failed to sustain mobilization in the second half of 2016 and the movement was consequently condemned as a failure by the media. Also linked to higher education is the issue of the Central European University, which was the subject of large scale protests in 2017 as the government’s new regulations made it impossible to operate in Hungary. The Independent Students’ Parliament protested for better quality education in early 2018, and in 2019, together with the Students’ Union, against the compulsory language exam for university admission. Students at the University of Theatre and Film Arts protested in 2020 against the outsourcing of universities to foundations and the assumption by government friendly media of being ideological biased. The coronavirus pandemic demobilized movements and protests in general, but the in the case of teachers, their grievances were rather intensified by the abolition of the public servant status, the switch to two-day online education, and the compulsory vaccination.

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During the three terms of government since 2010, there have also been protests in the areas of freedom of the press, the environment (local investments, climate change), social situation (housing poverty), and wages and employment (early retirement pensions, nurses’ salary, overtime law). From time to time, the sector has been hit by sudden grievances in the course of reorganization and centralization, but education is a movement that is often revisited even without these grievances. One reason for this is that policy problems have not been solved and teacher salaries remain low. It is essential that there are strong institutionalized advocates and trade unions in the sector, whose legitimacy cannot be disputed by the government due to their representativeness, and which can provide organizational, financial resources, and expertise. In addition to the trade unions, the above-mentioned movement organizations such as the I Would Teach, HaHa, KiHa, the Független Diákparlament [Independent Student Parliament] and the Alternatív Diákközpontú Oktatásért Mozgalom [Movement for Alternative Student-Centered Education] (ADOM Diákmozgalom), which was formed from it, and the Hallgatói Szakszervezet (Student Trade Union), which aims to combine the interests of workers and students, also play an important role in mobilization. Teachers’ mobilization is also facilitated by what is described in movement research as a “catnet,” which is the combination of the same professional category and the existing network (Tarrow 1998). It is relatively easy for students to get involved since education is the primary concern for young people who are active in terms of political participation, as they gain their social experience in the education system. In the last decade, educational protests have been a privileged arena of political socialization for young activists. They have become the sites of political coming of age and many of them have continued their civil society and political activities. The continued public engagement of the former movement members and the expansion of the education protests is also facilitated by the fact that many other issues can be attached to the topic, such as the future of young generations, education for democracy, the knowledge economy and, since the government almost made it impossible for teachers to strike in 2022, the restriction of fundamental rights.

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Alternative Movements Political participation as a means of individual fulfillment is a distinctive feature of the new social movements that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, or alternative movements as used in German and Hungarian social movement research (Mikecz 2018). In the 2010s, alternative movements in Hungary emerged mainly in the environmental and homeless solidarity movements. In most cases, the cause of environmental protection is linked to some local interest, such as the redevelopment of the City Park. The Orbán government decided in 2013 to build a new museum district in the City Park in Budapest, which is one of the oldest urban parks worldwide. The reason for the new museums was the idea to move ministry administrations back to the original pre-WW2 buildings, which since then were used by public museums. The nature of the City Park issue is not entirely new, as there were several similar actions before 2010. The determination of the activists, the chaining up, the sit-in as a form of protest, and the image of the violent investor on the other side are similar features of protest as in the case of the NATO locator on the Zengő peak in the Mecsek hill in SouthWestern Hungary in 2004. Environmentalists protested against the construction planned by the socialist liberal government because it would have seriously endangered the local ecosystem, including the highly protected Bánáti peonies, the majority of which are found on the Zengő ridge. Local NGOs and national green organizations, including Greenpeace activists, also clashed with the security guards of the project company. The Zengő affair is interesting because the NATO locator was not ultimately built, and the success of the environmental protesters later contributed to the formation of the green and globalization critical LMP party. The Battle of Zengő Hill was fought in Mecsek, but similar conflicts appeared in the capital in the 2000s. These included the initiative to defend the Millenáris Velodrom, a historic velodrome near the City Park, the protests against the planned entertainment district on Óbuda Island in Budapest, and the Critical Mass movement promoting cycling. What these cases had in common was that they were organized and participated in by often converging networks of activists and they were all linked to a movement promoting the

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communal use of public spaces. Known as Reclaim the Streets (RTS), the movement emerged in the UK in the 1990s, primarily in protest against the large number of cars on the roads in the city. It was during this period that the use of private cars became more prevalent than public transport in cities. However, cars not only pollute cities with exhaust fumes and noise, but car owners ultimately take up a portion of public space, unlike public transport users. However, the demand to reclaim the streets does not stop at criticizing traffic conditions. In the 1990s, the city began to transform itself into a center for creative industries, for nonmaterial production, and with it the city’s public spaces as a competitive factor. This change generated new conflicts between the workers of the creative industries, the profit-oriented interests that wanted to demarcate public spaces, and the former residents who were displaced from public space, as well as urban alternative forms of existence. In connection with the incident between the protectors of City Park and the security guards, the question was also raised as to why it was not possible to mobilize the residents to such an extent that the crowd would actually stop the construction and felling of the trees, thereby forcing the investor to negotiate and consult. This is particularly interesting in the light of the fact that, according to a poll commissioned by Greenpeace Hungary, 86 percent of the respondents polled in the capital agreed with the statement in 2016 that the museums planned should be located in places that do not endanger green areas (Greenpeace Hungary 2016). Although the summer period is not an easy time for protest organizers, they also managed to recruit participants for protests on health and public education issues during the period in question. Moreover, the situation of public parks could have provided an opportunity for a broader critique of the system, as was the case in Istanbul, where a nationwide wave of protests erupted over the planned shopping mall in the central Gezi Park. But the case of City Park did not become a Hungarian Gezi Park. On the one hand, the construction of museums did not provoke the same level of opposition as shopping centers. On the other hand, an important element is that although the urban alternative lifestyles mentioned above are an important base for the RTS movements, for many possible supporters, the lifestyle politicization that characterizes them is alien. In such cases, it is common for

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protest organizers to organize supportive events where people who would otherwise not be inclined to chain themselves to a tree could participate. In the case of social movements, the conflict often goes beyond the specific issue, such as the privatization of public spaces in the case of the RTS movement or protecting trees in an urban park in the case of the City Park protectors’ movement. The museum district project was decided without consulting the people concerned, that is the residents who use the City Park. It is a basic principle of both the RTS movements and the City Park protectors that the use of public space also says a lot about the state of public life, so the conflict is not only about environmental and urban protection, but also about political participation and democracy. In July 2017, the protectors of the City Park took action again after the contractors wanted to replant an old tree behind the a 1956 memorial. According to the green activists, the tree would not have survived the unprofessional transplantation. At the time, the City Park protectors had been campaigning for more than a year against the unfair treatment of the museum quarter, which would have significantly reduced the green space of the City Park. The activists did not only protest with banners and words, but also with their own bodies in a peaceful and passive way. They chained themselves to construction machines, lay down in front of bulldozers, and tried to prevent the demolition of a building by organizing sitins and occupations. At the same time, there were numerous incidents of violence where activists were hurt. However, the struggles and risk taking of activists proved not necessary, as the movement achieved concrete partial successes, such as the avoidance of an underground exhibition space at the Museum of Transport and the contractor’s finally complying with the regulations in dealing with asbestos-contaminated demolition debris. The compelling force of the City Park activists lied in the commitment of local residents interested in protecting the park. Another important resource was the experience of the Hungarian green movement. Organizations such as Greenpeace and Clean Air Action Group have been involved in the conflict and represented environmental and ecopolitical issues for 20–25 years. In the case of similar green initiatives, however, the aim of the movement is more

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clearly defined and its success can be more easily assessed since the decisive factor is whether the original environment is protected and whether the controversial investment is carried out. For many people, however, an activist milieu like that of the City Park protectors may be alien and this was also exploited by the government friendly press. Green politics, which is conscious and ready to engage in conflict and is also implemented through lifestyle, has consumption patterns that are unusual at first glance. Generally, the green movement in Hungary rarely becomes a mass movement, with the exceptions of the Danube Circle during the democratic transition in 1989 and the Critical Mass, which is of minor political importance. A new chapter in green environmental activism was the climate movement, which became a massive movement in the mid-2010s. Contrary to the City Park protests and other environmentalist NIMBY protests, the climate movement in Hungary did not explicitly address the Orbán regime, but climate pollution in general. The main events of the movement since 2018 have been the Friday school strikes organized mainly by secondary school students. Participants refused to go to school to protest inadequate political responses to the climate crisis. Movement organizations such as Fridays For Future and Extinction Rebellion play a key role in organizing events and demonstrations. In Hungary, the Fridays For Future group was formed in 2018 and joined international protest campaigns by organizing demonstrations. These included the first global climate strike on 15 March 2019, the second on 24 May 2019, and the third on 27 September 2019. The latter was part of the first Global Climate Week from 20 to 27 September 2019, with activities and demonstrations raising awareness across the country. In addition to these events and the movement initiative, in 2019 the Amazon rainforest fires and the consumer boycott of single-use plastics that summer have had an impact on raising environmental and climate awareness. The movement aimed to reduce emissions of climate changing gasses, one of the means of which is to ratify and comply with the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference agreement. The movement focused on global interdependence rather than local issues, calling on institutionalized political actors to take immediate action rather than subpolitical solutions. In addition to environmental and climate protection goals, there was also a generational

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element to this movement. The students and young people taking part in protests held the older generations responsible for the development of an economic and production system that does not take account for sustainability and environmental protection.

Civil Activism during the Refugee Crisis The refugee crisis in 2015 brought to light a previously nonexistent conflict in Hungary, and a good number of aid organizations and activists have emerged then. The refugee crisis has shown what kind of reactions can be expected in a situation where the usual, tried and tested political mechanisms are not fully functioning. In several parts of the country, especially at the Szeged Central Station and the Keleti Railway Station in the capital, civil society organizations and informal groups took up grassroots organizing. Without even being registered, they organized needs assessments, reception, storage, and distribution of donations. In addition, doctors, interpreters, and legal experts helped refugees and provided them with information. Anyone who followed volunteer communications on social media in 2015 would have noticed that citizens were trying to organize their work in a nonpartisan way, in a familiar twist. On the wall of the closed Facebook group “Let’s Help the Refugees Together,” which had almost 9,000 members, mostly pledges and requests could be found, as opposed to comments on the refugee crisis, the domestic political context, or the foreign repercussions of the Hungarian government’s actions. Obviously, the volunteers helping refugees had their opinions on these issues, but they did not share them on the pages coordinating the pledges and requests. Grassroots actions, such as those of NGOs providing assistance, usually make a lasting impression in the longer term. Research on the subject shows that volunteers can gain a lifetime’s worth of experience and may be willing to help again. It can also increase civic engagement because of the widespread perception that volunteers are performing an important role, often in place of the state. The refugee crisis also saw protests against the government’s refugee policy, but these did not have the same resonance as the antigovernment protests of 2014. One of the main reasons for this is that

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the refugee crisis has divided Hungarian society much more than the expulsion of government officials from the United States or the internet tax issue. Opinion polls showed that even among voters of opposition parties, those who believed that refugees were a threat to Hungary and should not be allowed into the country were in the majority, compared to those who believed that the political community had a duty to welcome refugees (Republikon Intézet 2015). Moreover, the refugee crisis was a long-lasting issue, so it was not capable of suddenly erupting into emotions and discontent. Also, the uncertainty surrounding the phenomenon, future developments, and the perplexity felt abroad has also prevented a strong political opinion from being formed on the matter. The refugee crisis has therefore not triggered unified antigovernment sentiment and street action. However, despite policy uncertainty and fragmented European political will, a spontaneous solidarity movement did emerge in Hungary. The 2015 refugee crisis saw not only solidarity protests but also anti-immigration protests in Hungary. The civil protests against the construction of refugee camps were a particular type of protest, in that they were exclusively focused on the primary interests of a narrow, local community. However, even if they are difficult to reconcile, particular interests do not necessarily deny the universality of the concept of civil society. It may seem a side effect of the refugee issue that in August 2015, the residents of Sormás and Mártonfa protested together with local politicians against the construction of container cities and temporary refugee camps for refugees. In the same month, politicians from Együtt, LMP, and Jobbik also spoke out at a demonstration in Pécs, which was billed as a nonpolitical event. While local residents were most concerned about infections, a possible increase in crime, the threat of terrorism, and the depreciation of their property, local mayors blamed the lack of dialogue and coordination between the government and local authorities. In Slovakia, in a local referendum in the predominantly Hungarian village of Bős, 96 percent rejected the construction of a temporary refugee camp on the outskirts of the village. Protests against the construction of refugee camps and local investment in general are a separate type of protest. As explained above, the umbrella term for these protests is NIMBY. Civil society

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is generally thought of as a medium that provides a space for the free association of citizens. An important element of the concept of civil society is universality, which means that every­one can be a subject and initiator of civil society activities. This presupposes starting points and procedural standards such as the universality of human rights, humanism, and mutual respect. The activities of activists helping refugees can be understood in this context, since they provide assistance on a humanist basis to those in need, regardless of their age, gender, or ethnicity. However, in the case of the NIMBY protests, the concept of universal civil society is contrasted with a particular civil interest. Those protesting against the refugee camps do not believe that their local interests are in line with any universal civic values and interests. The simultaneous organization of the solidarity movement and its countermovement, the increase in the number of refugees, the decrease in accommodation capacity, and the growing insecurity rightly raised the question in 2015 whether more and more violent acts could occur. The fear was not unfounded, as refugee camps were set on fire in several places in Germany in 2015 and antirefugee riots in Heidenau lasted several days. These were acts at the expense of refugees, but the violence may have been initiated by radical right wing groups, as well as by refugees themselves, and the police. The violence during the refugee crisis is not part of solidarity activism, but it is worth reviewing the relationship between violence and social movements. In August 2015, the police used tear gas to disperse an angry crowd in Röszke, two other violent incidents occurred in July of that year: a riot in a refugee camp in Debrecen and the beating of a girl whose boyfriend was mistaken for a refugee by a prison officer. In addition to the actual violent incidents mentioned above, there were several reports from volunteers assisting refugees of extremists insulting people in train stations and transit zones. Furthermore, refugees also damaged the land of farmers in the south of the country and the temporary border barrier en route. These acts are not directed against persons, but the intentional damage is ultimately considered as violence against property. The literature on social movements has long examined the emergence of violence and its escalation (della Porta and Fillieule 2004).

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It is therefore worth taking stock of what is known about the likelihood of violence occurring. Violence always takes place within a system of relationships, so it needs several actors to unfold. Moreover, it does not take place in a static situation and occurs and escalates rather as a result of a process of constant change. The emergence of violence is also a function of the way in which each actor assesses the situation. A bar fight may be triggered by a remark or gesture intended as a joke. However, understanding the emergence of violence is also complicated by the fact that it is not only the environment that can radicalize a group, radicalization itself can also have an impact on the environment. One known form of this is the escalation of violence. In Röszke, it was not possible to know exactly what had enraged some 200 refugees, but fortunately the police intervention did not radicalize the crowd, that is escalate the violence. The likelihood of violence also depends on the ethos of the police corps. Unlike, for example, Italy in the 1970s, the police in Hungary have not been proactive in social issues since regime change. However, refugees are not members of Hungarian society, so the corps role of the police of citizens has limitations in this case. In relation to the public mood in the country, there have been repeated comments that the government’s stance and the poster campaign against refugees and migrants in 2015 might have encouraged radical groups to incite violence. It may sound unusual, but this could in fact hinder a violent reaction by radical right wing groups. Experience has shown that in a more accepting environment there is less chance of violence, but on the other hand, tough government action tend to make radical groups less likely to mobilize. However, in the case of small, sectarian groups, the members of the group itself become the primary source of evaluation and judgment of events and they can easily lose contact with the outside world, which in turn increases the chance of violence. The emergence of violence and its escalation is therefore a complex, multiactor process. Not only is it difficult to predict, it is also difficult to identify the indirect causes of events that have already taken place. The violence that has emerged during the refugee crisis includes the language-politics struggles that have been mostly associated with frame theory in social movement studies. It is not uncommon for radical groups to be accused of terrorism, as it is often difficult

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to draw a clear line between the two. A fear of acts of terrorism is an understandable reaction, as is the attempt by authorities to prevent the infiltration of Islamic State terrorists into Europe at the same time as refugees are entering the country. However, counterterrorism precautions often raise the question of the proportionality of each measure to the terrorist threat. Such is the case with the NSA scandal leaked by Edward Snowden which uncovered the state breach of digital privacy in the United States. As is well known, it has come to light that the intelligence agency had been monitoring the communications of more than a billion people around the world, including politicians in allied countries. It was during the refugee crisis that the police and child protection services jointly interrogated a Muslim boy at a school in north London (Kundnani and Ben 2018). During a French lesson, the 14-year-old boy used the term “ecoterrorist” to describe radical environmentalists who want to prevent the felling of trees with chainsaws by hammering nails into them. He was then taken to an inclusion center and questioned about ISIS and terrorism. The school’s response was tied to the government’s “prevent policy,” which aimed to prevent young people from joining terrorist organizations. It is clear that these are not cases of equal gravity and of course any legislation can lead to an anomaly. However, the above examples illustrate the caution that needs to be exercised when a government wishes to take action against terrorist acts, whether on an intelligence level or other policy level. In the case of Röszke, however, the issue was not about finding terrorists or preventing terrorist acts, but whether or not an act that has already taken place can be considered a terrorist act. The case is also problematic because there is no uniform, international definition of terrorism. What is common to the many definitions is that terrorism is an act of violence or a threat of violence. Terrorist acts are also generally characterized by being premeditated and aimed at intimidating a particular community. The vagueness of this definition is due to the fact that different states have different interpretations of the degree of violence, intent, and coercion by the state that would constitute an act of terrorism. To better understand this issue, let us examine the story of the London boy. In a class discussion, the boy described radical green activists as ecoterrorists. Although these acitivists did not commit any violence against

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people, coerce the state, nor intimidate members of the population, they nonetheless met the criteria for terrorism that is broadly in line with the Hungarian Criminal Code. Collective direct action always carries the potential for conflict, and from time to time, even in stable democratic systems, challengers may emerge who question the political consensus and thus the peaceful, accepted norms of assembly. A group that uses violence must expect a reaction from the authorities, opposing groups, and a negative public perception. The use of various forms of violence during political protests is therefore not uncommon, but in Hungary such actions are less frequent. The most memorable violent political protests in recent years were the attack on the Fidesz headquarters during the first internet tax protest and the vandalism of the Christmas tree in Kossuth Square during the overtime law protests, but these are not comparable to the wave of anti-refugee violence in Heidenau, Germany. As protests targeting the state are also aimed at imposing something on the demonstrators, as well as raising public awareness, and collective action can be violent, it is easy for more radical protesters to be accused of terrorism. In the case of the events in Röszke in 2015, the government could argue that terrorism was a crime precisely because violent demonstrations do not actually happen very often in Hungary, so it was understandable that the rarely seen images could stir up public opinion.

Volunteering and Mobilization during the Coronavirus Pandemic While social distancing demobilized social movements and bottom-up initiatives in general during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020–2021, new conflicts and forms of voluntarism emerged. Several civil initiatives have been launched to address and reduce health and economic risks and damages. This has given a new impetus to altruistic, solidarity-based activism. Initiators include political parties, registered NGOs, companies, and informal groups and communities. In Hungary, political participation is a matter of social status, as typically higher educated, higher income earners and those who acquired their political socialization in the 1980s are especially active in politics (Mikecz and Oross 2018). However, the

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extraordinary situation may override decades long trends, making visible social agents that previously went unnoticed, increasing the role of online participation, and activating individuals under institutionalized politics and civil society. The coronavirus was particularly dangerous for people aged 65 and over, who were previously identified as a particularly active age group. This subchapter seeks to provide an answer to the following questions: To what extent did the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic change eastablished trends in Hungarian civil and political participation? Was the participation of high status people still prevalent? Did the role of online participation in the political participation of Hungarian society increase and did new participants constitute an identifiable group? When people talk about volunteering, most people probably think of some kind of charitable activity, not political involvement. However, empirical studies also suggest that participation in NGOs is an important indicator of political participation, as neo-Tocquevillian authors assume (Van der Meer and Van Ingen 2009). Nevertheless, the academic definition of volunteering does not link volunteering with political participation. Based on the literature, Hajnalka Fényes distinguishes four criteria of volunteering (2014). According to Fényes’ criteria, volunteering is done without remuneration, whether direct material or otherwise. In conclusion, volunteering does not include reciprocal work, that is when one party helps because it wants to reciprocate help they had previously received or expects a later reciprocation. Volunteering is done for the benefit of others or for the general public good, and not to satisfy individual needs or for self-expression. The essential element is that volunteering is free from external constraints, based on free choice and decision. This last aspect is particularly interesting because since 2011 in Hungary, the requirement for high school graduation has been 50 hours of community service. This requirement cannot be considered as volunteering according to the above criteria, although volunteering in high school has a positive effect on later volunteering (Janoski et al. 1998). Finally, the motivation for volunteering can be intrinsic, value-based, but also extrinsic, instrumental, and without direct financial motivation. An important question in sociological studies of volunteering is which factors determine volunteering commitment, that is to say,

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who is more likely to volunteer. A comparative study by Grönlund and co-authors focusing on the cultural roots of volunteering found that individualism and egalitarianism are cultural norms that influence volunteering (2011). While in countries with individualistic cultures, the motivation for students to volunteer was to enrich their CVs and expand their career opportunities, in countries with egalitarian cultures, altruistic motivations mattered. The literature suggests that among the macro factors, stable and long-standing democratic systems, higher social and welfare spending relative to GDP, stronger and more Protestant religiosity, higher education, and higher GDP are positive influences on volunteering, while belonging to the former Eastern, communist bloc is a negative factor (Baer et al. 2016). However, in postcommunist countries, the number of volunteers has been increasing since the democratic transition. Although volunteering is lower in these Eastern European countries, as well as in Southern European countries, here, as in Northern and Western countries, education, religion, income, and age determine volunteering engagement (Voicu and Voicu 2009). Research on the microlevel determinants of volunteering found that social status, marital status, the size of one’s social network, church attendance, and previous volunteering experience are the most important determinants, while older age, parenthood, and loss of functionality are detrimental to volunteering (Niebuur et al. 2018). These variables can also be characterized as indicative of the dominant status of the individual. According to the dominant status model, those whose status is socially recognized are more likely to engage in volunteering (Smith 1994). However, the sociological factors that influence volunteering engagement also change over time. Van Ingen and Dekker studied trends in volunteer participation in the Netherlands between 1975 and 2005. Their results show that voluntary participation of the economically inactive, such as pensioners and homemakers, increased while that of the employed decreased, and that the gap between those with lower and higher education disappeared (2011). These findings contradict the dominant status thesis. At the individual level, personal relationships and institutions are also of particular importance (Nesbit et al. 2016). One may be invited to volunteer through personal relationships or may also be incentivized to volunteer for an organization or cause

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that benefits a friend or relative. Volunteers can also receive support and recognition for their work through their personal contacts and the social environment can also play a socializing role. Institutions can also play a socializing role and can prepare and recruit individuals for volunteering. Special cases of volunteering are when, after a disaster, volunteers help those affected by the disaster, participate in the rescue of property and lives, and in disaster relief. Social networks play a key role in volunteering during disasters, as does direct recruitment (Rotolo and Berg 2011). Disasters tend to involve young people and those with lower education levels. Personal identification with the victims and emotions, especially grief rather than anger, also play a role in the development of volunteering following disasters and crises, as was the case in the United States after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (Beyerlein and Sikkink 2008). A similar finding was made by Rotolo and colleagues when they found that during the housing crisis that unfolded in the wake of the 2007–2008 economic crisis, more people in the worst affected cities and among homeowners volunteered to help those affected (2014). Although Hungarian respondents distinguish between social and political activity, volunteering can be linked to political participation and volunteering during disasters can also be a political act. After the cargo ship Rena ran aground off New Zealand and its fuel leaked into the sea, young activists spontaneously volunteered to protest against the shortcomings of official disaster management (Lockwood et al. 2016). In the case of solidarity movements, such as the homelessness movement in Hungary, the political element is even more evident, as they address their policy demands to decision-makers. Comparing the Hungarian Statistical Office data with the data from a survey conducted by the Centre for Social Sciences Budapest, it is found that during the pandemic, in April 2020, the volunteer participation in response to coronavirus exceeded the overall volunteer participation rate in 2019. Coronavirus related volunteering occurred primarily through organizations, both directly and through organizations simultaneously. For understandable reasons, the older generation was not the most active in coronavirus related volunteering, yet it was not the youngest, but rather the middle generation aged 40–49 that proved to be the most active generation.

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The higher activity of men can also be attributed to the higher average age of women. While there were no major differences in volunteering according to educational attainment before the pandemic, there was an overrepresentation of people with tertiary education in volunteering during the pandemic, both directly and through organizations. The same can be observed in the cross section of economic activity. There, in addition to the greater distancing of the elderly, the effect of dominant status is evident, but there is no difference in accordance with either educational attainment or type of settlement. The organization of volunteering for the coronavirus pandemic was typically direct, with a particular role for smaller, informal groups. The most important organizations were NGOs, followed by local authorities. Each type of activity was grouped and then compared with the sociological characteristics of the respondents and their political participation. Of the different forms of volunteering, helping with shopping was the most common, with 44 percent of the total population helping friends or strangers in this way. Almost a third of respondents (30 percent) provided help online to unconnected people or took part in distance learning. A quarter of respondents helped by making or delivering donations, while 7 percent sewed masks, and 5 percent volunteered at hospitals or healthcare organizations. It is clear that women were more active than men in almost all forms of volunteering, especially in sewing masks and providing online help, and they were more likely to help with shopping and participate in social media. By age, the most active were those aged 40–49, who did not yet feel at risk. Older people were more likely to be involved in mask sewing and social media, but young people were less likely to volunteer in all aspects. As with age, a volunteer’s type of settlement and level of education had a clear influence on mask sewing, with lower education levels and people living in communes being more likely to use this voluntary form. By type of municipality, there was also a difference in donation and participation in social media in favor of those living in the capital. The breakdown by education confirmed the concept of dominant status, that is those with higher education were more active in all forms, except for mask sewing. A similar pattern emerged when comparing economic activity, with the difference

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being that the unemployed showed higher participation in social media. The low proportion of inactive people helping with shopping is associated with the older age of this group. Finally, the results show that those involved in public life and politics were more likely to volunteer during the epidemic. In particular, people who had already been active in the work of NGOs before the outbreak of the coronavirus were active in this respect. To sum it up, during the coronavirus pandemic, coronavirus related volunteering exceeded the level of voluntary engagement that would have normally occurred. During this period, the middle generation aged 40–49 years, as well as graduates, residents of the capital and the economically active showed greater activity. These results show that during the pandemic, people of higher status became active mainly in organized and mixed forms, as well as spontaneously. Among the direct forms, individual networks of friends and, within the direct forms, NGOs stand out. A comparison of the different forms of volunteering and social media activity and social background shows that the effects of education, economic activity, and therefore dominant status, are reflected in the volunteering in health care, shopping, donating, and online help. Unemployed people were more active in creating and sharing outbreak related content on social media. Volunteering of all types was particularly high among protest participants and those active in NGOs. However, a particular form of volunteering was sewing masks, which was more common among lower status respondents. The latter result suggests that volunteering as unpaid work for the community was also present among nondominant status respondents.

Structural Contrasts between Civil and Political Action In the wake of the political protests of 2014–2018, conflicts between opposition political parties and movements, noninstitutionalized political actors, NGOs, in short “civilians,”2 often emerged. One of the reasons for these conflicts was the contrast between the 2  In Hungarian, “civilians” means not only non-military people, but also those who are non-partisan activists.

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universality and credibility of civil activism compared to the advocacy of political parties focusing on certain electoral groups and the conflictual nature of politics. This subchapter reviews these conflicts and furthermore the NGOization tendencies of social movements. Conflict, the representation and assertion of the interests of the individual and, in the best case, of the group that serves as a reference group for the politician, is present at all levels of politics. In line with Hungarian political culture (Körösényi et al. 2003), this is often seen by voters as unnecessary bickering and a lack of unity. However, the conflictual nature of politics cannot be fully resolved, as this would deny the diversity of interests, and thus pluralism. In contrast to the conflictual and essentially particularist reality of political action, the activities of civil society organizations can be perceived as acting on the basis of a universalism of human values, in order to create the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number of people (Górski 2007). According to the universal conception of civil society, no one can be excluded from benefiting from the goods produced by NGOs and is therefore fundamentally inclusive. In contrast, there are civil society groups that are more or less concerned with the interests of their own members. These include not only the discriminatory groups of supposed bad civil society, but also organizations with a purely professional or territorial interest. The relationship between universalism and particularism was an important issue because many saw civil movements as key to the political revitalization of the left since the 2010 election. Szolidaritás and Milla were institutionalized in the political party Együtt but failed to achieve a breakthrough political success in the 2014 parliamentary elections. Later, at the end of 2014, many believed that the internet tax demonstrations might create a new political force and alternative political organizations but their hopes remained unfulfilled. The need for a renewal of left and liberal politics, the high acceptance of civil society actors, and their contradictory relationship with politics remained a tangible phenomenon. A referendum initiative launched by the Momentum party at the end of 2017 was another opening of the conflict between civil society organizations and political parties. The question was submitted by the party during the protests against the government’s stigmatization of foreign funded NGOs. The referendum question

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was aimed at asking the National Assembly to repeal the law requiring all NGOs that receive more than HUF 7.2 million in foreign funding per year to register as foreign funded organizations. A few days later, the Civilization Group, which brought together several NGOs to organize protests against the stigmatization of NGOs, took a stand against Momentum’s initiative. The statement, published on the Amnesty International website in Hungary, was jointly signed by the “NGOs working together in Civilization.” The Civilization Group argued that the illegality of the law in question was not a function of majority support or opposition. That is why, they argued, it should be ruled in a judicial procedure that the law was unlawful. The organizations concerned have therefore also appealed to the Constitutional Court because they believed that they had suffered a violation of their rights because of a law that was directly applicable to their case. Civilization, while welcoming “the Momentum Movement’s stand against the government’s law that stigmatizes NGOs,” argued that “NGOs were not created to participate in party political campaigns, but to work for the common good, for society” (Amnesty 2017). According to the latter, it was not the referendum as a tool that was the primary problem, but its organizer, Momentum as a political party. The statement also made a distinction between party politics and the common good. The conflict outlined above also ultimately reveals the different roles and operating logic of parties and NGOs. It is understandable that NGOs may consider that they should not cooperate with political parties in order to maintain their credibility and to meet the expectations of donors, supporters, and volunteers. However, a party raises an issue because it considers it important for its members and voters, and the ultimate aim of political parties is to be successful in elections. Civil action that seeks universalism can also be generous to the boundaries of the group that serves as its reference, because its goals are fundamentally different from those of political parties. The scope of civil society action can include all people, regardless of their culture, class, origin, or religion. Political parties cannot be so permissive, because they have to build up an electoral majority and must therefore undertake to give priority to certain groups and policies, while respecting fundamental human and political rights.

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In principle, this is clarified in the parties’ election manifestos. Conflict is indeed necessary for effective political action. However, the aim of civil society organizations, which claim to uphold universal values, is not to win electoral support. The ultimate recipients of the parties’ activities are the electorate, but they lose credibility precisely because their links with their electorate are weakened. Partisan dealignment has been observed in advanced industrial societies since the 1970s (Dalton 1984). Various micro, meso, and macrolevel social processes play a role in this (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000). These include higher levels of general education, which have the effect of making citizens feel more competent in understanding social and political processes and thus less inclined to parties. In parallel, the informational and explanatory function of political parties is being taken over by the media, while the advocacy function is being taken over by civil society organizations and social movements. Moreover, the growing demand for public participation is creating opportunities for social movements to mobilize at the expense of political parties. These transformations also change the function of parties. From the 1970s onwards, they sought less to represent a single social group and more to represent the whole of society, as a catchall party. The mediatization of politics and the weakening of social ties to parties lead parties to seek access to the media and to allocate public resources, hence the process of cartelization (Katz and Mair 1995). The civil-political divide is not only structural, but also rooted in the anti-elitist movements that have become increasingly common since the early 2010s. Until the economic crisis of 2007–2008, the largest protests were linked to movements criticizing the neoliberal global distribution system. The beginning of the so-called global justice movement can be traced back to the large scale protests that eventually blocked the World Trade organization (WTO) summit in Seattle in 1999, and the protests that accompanied the IMF, World Bank and the Group of Eight (G8) meetings in the 2000s (della Porta 2015). Although support for critics of globalization in the United States had declined already after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the economic crisis finally led to the emergence of movements that emphasized qualitative democracy rather than a more equitable distribution. To be more precise, it was not the

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economic crisis directly that upset the protesting masses, but the economic and political interconnections it brought to light. Further fuel was added to the fire when it emerged that financial investors, who were held responsible for the crisis, and the managers of banks bailed out with taxpayers’ money, were still collecting their bonuses of millions during one of the worst economic and financial depressions. The opaque political and economic interconnections, corruption scandals, and lack of political alternatives have led to sharp criticism of the elite and demands for the departure of the entire political class. In the United States, the Occupy movement drew attention to the widening social divide which, in their view, was already threatening the entire democratic system. This contradiction was expressed in the slogan “We are the 99%.” In terms of its methods and themes, the Occupy movement drew heavily on the aforementioned antiglobalization movement but was also strongly influenced by the European antiausterity movements. Many of the formerly ardent Obama supporters joined Occupy, feeling that it had not yet brought about the change that the current president had promised in his 2008 campaign (Amedee 2013). The Spanish antiausterity movement is the best known in Europe. The M-15 or Indignados movement has also been covered in the Hungarian press in connection with the emergence of the left wing Podemos party, whose sudden rise has given hope to left wing political challengers and organizers and supporters of the internet tax protests. The slogan of the M-15 movement was “Real Democracy NOW” (Democracia Real YA), which was addressed to the parties of the old left and right, united in its condemnation of both (Taibo 2013). For a long time, Podemos seemed to be the most popular party, but the critical political formation lost momentum at the end of 2014 and did not perform as well as many had hoped in the spring local elections. Protesters in Central and Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Romania, demanded the departure of the corrupt political elite in the 2010s. Movements calling for the replacement of the political elite and the emergence of a new, untainted, and honest political class may enjoy strong support for a while, but even in larger countries there is a narrow pool of people who can and will engage in public affairs, and in a democratic

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system the ultimate conclusions about political responsibility are drawn by the electorate. There is no doubt, however, that demonstrations and movements can help to refresh the political class with new people and make established, closed political parties more willing to open up. Antagonisms can arise not only between the political,civil and social movement spheres, but also between international NGOs and local, indigenous movements, a good example of which is the international global justice movement mentioned above. In addition to neoliberal globalization, the growing influence, and the undemocratic functioning of supranational global regimes (G8, World Bank, IMF, WTO) the movement targeted multinational companies, which, in order to maximize profits, threatened the preservation and integrity of the natural and man-made environment, local communities, and exploited workers in developing countries. The aim of the global justice movement was to create a grassroot, alternative global network that could counter the neoliberal agenda of international regimes. The creation of a global countermovement was seen as necessary because state and national frameworks were not sufficient to counter international regimes that were eroding sovereignty and multinational corporations that were blackmailing states. One of the systems instrumentalized was that of social forums, known as the Porto Alegre process, where global and regional forums were used by movements opposing neoliberal globalization to discuss their strategies, identify grievances and opponents, and exchange experiences. One of the basic assumptions of the global justice movement and social forums was that the movement was a meeting of the exploited of the Global North and South. In this concept, there was no separate place for Eastern Europe, which was facing serious economic and social problems, and as such could not be assigned to the Global North. As Ágnes Gagyi wrote (2011), the East Central European region was not included on the problem map of the global justice movement. Although the movement was present in Hungary and was successful in providing a coherent framework for mainly local environmental initiatives, Gagyi argues that self-colonizing compliance pressures were also evident behind the adoption of Western models. There was and could have been more room for left-wing,

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green critique of neoliberal globalization in Hungary, but liberal reflexes confusing globalization critique with extreme right wingism were not in favor of it. Apart from ignoring Eastern Europe, there were also serious limits to equal cooperation between the Global North and South. By the end of the 2000s, the former colonial movements were confronted with the growing influence of NGOs in the North which had more resources. Left wing activists, mainly from developing countries, argued that NGOs were conforming to the neoliberal system and that the problem was the NGOization of global resistance. Arundhati Roy, a Syrian-Indian activist and writer, used a biological analogy to put it bluntly: NGOs as “indicator species” appear where neoliberal destruction is greatest (Arundhati 2014). Reservations, criticisms, and bad practices against NGOization are summarized in NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects, edited by Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor (2013). The case studies, drawn mainly from former colonial and developing countries, illustrate the negative effects of the professionalization, institutionalization, and NGOization of local critical movements. The criticisms raised by the editors and authors of this volume are better understood in the postcolonial discourse. As Richard Falk has put it, NGOs are essentially products of Western, liberal internationalism from the perspective of developing country movements, which have a civilizing mission on the one hand, and are compatible with dominant geopolitical structures on the other (Falk 1999). Thus, critics argue, the professionalization and depoliticization of NGOs marginalizes more radical social movements with political demands, which are less hierarchical and less structured. Professionalization also means that work is carried out according to the methods used in the corporate world. Western scientific methods are used for evaluation, and resistance and the struggle for community are broken down into issues and projects. NGOs can also act as gatekeepers between resource poor initiatives and donors, who are mostly state or corporate funders interested in the neoliberal status quo. In Hungary, as in Eastern Europe as a whole, NGOization goes back further, to the extent that civil society became a quasi-ideology of regime change, mainly under Polish influence. In communist Poland, movements were created with the mass participation of

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workers parallel to the communist bureaucracy. The strategy of new evolutionism, formulated by the well-known Polish dissident Adam Michnik, was not to make the opposition see reason with the communist party elite, but to turn to the workers and create alternative structures and people-to-people relations in everyday life, free of the communist state. The aim here was not the erosion of the state, but of communist bureaucracy. After the regime change, the “civil” identity element remained mainly on the liberal side and a point of reference on the right. At the same time, the liberal idea of civil society, as a means of checking the state and as a provider of alternative services, fitted in well with the neoliberal economic consensus of the 1990s that advocated for the reduction of the state’s powers. Furthermore, the concept of civil society was linked to the idea that participatory civic culture (Verba and Almond 1963) had a stabilizing effect on democracy.

Institutionalization Processes After the CEU protest wave in spring 2017, several attempts were made to channel and sustain the discontent and the activism that had started. These included an initiative, which aimed to change the election system favoring the Fidesz party, the Momentum party’s election program, which was to be prepared with the involvement of voters by 15 October, and a referendum initiative on the statute of limitations on corruption. There were also attempts to sustain and institutionalize the mobilization after the 2014 wave of internet tax protests. These included the social media site Populus, which aimed to unite local community initiatives, the system-busting referendum initiated by the Új Magyar Köztársaság [New Hungarian Republic] association and the Most Mi! [Now Us!] group. At that time, in early 2015, these attempts failed to gain sufficient and stable support. Later on, the I Would Teach Movement was not able to build a national network that could have mobilized teachers and teachers’ boards critical of the government’s education policy. This was not entirely the fault of the movement’s members as they had tried to organize themselves in an environment in which the knowledge and will to participate politically largely lacked.

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The success of attempts to channel and institutionalize depends on the willingness to participate in organizations, on the coherence of organizational and movement goals, and on the confidence in their success, that is on the political opportunity structure itself. The noted activist Márton Gulyás announced at the “We will not remain silent” demonstration on 15 April 2017, the launch of a movement to introduce a proportional electoral system in Hungary. The aim of changing the electoral system is usually linked to the emancipation of a social group, as workers and women have fought for equal, secret suffrage. In Malaysia, a movement for electoral reform began in the second half of the 2000s, but there the aim was not to change the whole system, but to protest for a fairer process (Hooi 2014). According to Gulyás, his initiative aimed to bring together parties from different backgrounds and the disaffected. The Momentum party was formed by a group of young activists, who sought to change the oppositional landscape. The group and the Momentum existed before the 2017 party formation as a civil society organization. Unlike other movement parties, the Momentum originally aimed to form a political party already in 2015, as the group was organized and members were recruited. The Momentum gained public attention during their NOlimpia campaign, when they initiated a local referendum for Budapest to not apply for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The initiative was a success, the Orbán government alongside the then reigning conservative mayor of Budapest and the Hungarian Olympic Committee withdrew the application. The party itself was founded after the successful campaign in March 2017. The Momentum party wanted to channel the discontent and activity that had emerged from the demonstrations into building the party’s organization, creating its program and increasing its support and visibility. In this case, there was therefore no intermediary organization nor a common cause beyond the general regime criticism between the demonstrators and the party. By Momentum’s own admission, their roadshow was successful, and they added several hundred new members in the period that followed. Their pro-EU demonstration on 1 May 2017, the anniversary of the country’s EU accession, was also successful. This was bolstered by opposition parties being incapable of similar street mobilization on their own and also the evident distrust

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of these parties. A third channeling opportunity was the collection of signatures on the initiative of a former LMP MP to extend the statute of limitations for corruption cases to twelve years. Although the example of Momentum shows that, with a lot of work, the necessary signatures for a referendum can be collected without publicity, not all issues can be as penetrating as the examples of the 2015 ‘regime breaking referendum’ after the internet tax protests and the corruption referendum attempt. However, these initiatives have been made possible by the fact that the themes covered by the opposition were overlapping. For example, the criticism of Russian influence or corruption started to become a common opposition issue before the 2018 elections, so each theme reinforced the other. At the same time, the most important obstacle to channeling the activism accumulated in the protests was that the aforementioned institutionalization and activism opportunities lacked participants. The demonstrations were organized around major, mostly policy issues (internet tax, higher education, public education, freedom of the press, and overtime law) provided an opportunity for general criticism of the government, but this visible activity was not sustainable in the long term. In fact, creating public activity requires not only the formulation of expectations, but also the use of forms of participation that are feasible and understandable to the majority of those who wish to participate. The established forms familiar to the narrower activist subculture are not necessarily suitable. A good example of this is when, in the 2000s, greens regularly protested against environmentally destructive investments with small or large scale cycling marches, which many were unable to join. It is not therefore reasonable to expect a disaffected group of voters to form a tight-knit, self-initiating community. Many people will go to a demonstration but would be reluctant to spend their free time brainstorming with strangers. The role of political parties and other organizations in initiating and organizing is therefore crucial, even as the institutions themselves are hollowed out. In this respect, traditional forms, such as moderated forums and petition drives, are often more realistic. The above cases show that in the 2014–2018 cycle, there were several attempts to institutionalize activism and protest waves, yet on the other hand, institutionalized actors, politicians, and

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parties aimed to have a more “civil” character. This is not a new phenomenon in Hungarian politics. Each of the regime changing parties had more or less a movement background, as did the two new entrants in 2010, the radical right wing Jobbik and the environmentalist LMP. The so-called movement parties are located in the space between the institutionalized world of politics and movements based on social networks and direct action. Radical right wing and libertarian left wing green movement parties emerged in Western Europe in the late 1970s and were able to enter politics in the early 1980s. Two demonstrative examples are the French National Front, which was elected to the European Parliament in 1984, and the German Greens, who won a seat in the German legislature in 1983. These new parties unlocked the “frozen” Western European party systems, bringing new issues into the public discourse that had been unknown before, such as the environment or, on the other hand, anti-immigration (Kitschelt 2006). However, until recent decades, only the issues represented by the Green parties have entered the political mainstream. Movement parties have brought innovation to politics not only in terms of the content of politics, but also in terms of the basis of political commitment and forms of action. Indeed, the new parties placed greater emphasis on identity politics. This means that members express their political commitment through their way of life and these new parties also give their supporters the opportunity to do so. This can be done through popular music concerts, community spaces, and leisure activities that are integrated into the political subculture. In the case of Jobbik, the most important such instrument was the Hungarian Island (Magyar Sziget) and other national rock music festivals. For the LMP, the expression of a politically significant way of life was spectacular, carnivalesque demonstrations. Another innovation is the new form of political action: because of their links to the movements, these parties mobilize their activists and supporters not only during election campaigns but also halfway through the election cycle. The function of this is not only to provide an opportunity to express political commitment, as mentioned above, but also to reward movement parties that are short on resources.

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The transformation of the public sphere, tabloidization, and the emergence of digital communication has enhanced the value of movement experience. Personal and targeted lifestyle messages can be delivered to voters. In Hungarian politics, Fidesz has been successful in using the tools of top-down, movement style mobilization. The biggest obstacle to maintaining the movement character of parties is low political participation. In general, high voter turnout is a sign of acceptance of the political system and of civic activity. High turnout also helps to prevent a narrower section of society, supported by government policy, from usurping the right to choose policy makers. Higher participation therefore leads to stronger feedback and thus better policy. The different forms of political participation, such as voting, demonstrating, signing petitions, and visiting elected representatives, can be placed on an imaginary straight line. At one end of this line are elections, which are institutionalized and require little energy or investment, and at the other end are illegal and risky forms of participation such as factory and house occupations. An intermediate position on this line is occupied by the traditional street protest. In reality, however, voter turnout in Hungary is not much lower than in Western European countries, but the gap in other forms of participation is larger, to Hungary’s disadvantage. In the light of the above, it is suggested that Hungarians distinguish between participation in elections and other forms of political participation mentioned earlier. It is also easy to see, and research shows, that many of those who voice their discontent at protests usually participate in general elections (Szabó and Mikecz 2015). The inability of political parties to be an attractive loci of political activism can be traced back to the more general crisis of political institutions, which although it is not a recent phenomenon, it is closely linked to the more general challenges of representative democracy. Traditional forms of participation, such as voting in elections and working within political parties, seem to be less significant, while direct forms, such as protests and noninstitutionalized political action such as politically conscious consumption, are increasingly valued. This process has been observed since the 1970s and 1980s and the basic reason for the shift is the loosening of voters’ attachment to parties (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000). Protest

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had clearly become a common form of political participation in European societies. According to the data of the European Social Survey, between 2002 and 2018 around seven percent of Europeans did partake in a lawful demonstration in the 12 months prior to the data collection. Nevertheless, the use of different mobilization techniques is not unique to grassroots initiatives. It is becoming increasingly common for institutionalized political actors, even for parties, to mobilize in the streets. Due to the growing discontent with institutionalized political players, protest politics gained a growing significance, thereby changing the relation between protest and institutionalized politics (Somma and Medel 2017). As a consequence, institutionalized political parties are not just targets or addressees of political protests, but often initiators, organizers. Typical protesting political parties are challengers of the mainstream, outsiders without organizational experience (Borbáth and Hutter 2021). However, as the Hungarian case demonstrates, even incumbent political parties might organize collective events with public claim making (Metz 2015). As mentioned before, the organizers of the demonstrations in the 2010s in Hungary tried several institutional solutions, but none of them proved to be sustainable, and they failed to sustain or at least give new form to the mobilization. The failure of institutionalization is seen by many as a result of mobilization through social media. Indeed, relying solely on social media can be risky because it is not a vehicle for building strong bonds, only for mobilizing quickly through weak bonds. Political scientist Ivan Krastev writes (2015) of the Twitter revolutions that middle class protesters were misled by the fashionable view that institutions are the past and that networks and spontaneous action are the future. The disruption caused by the protests in Turkey and Russia in the mid-2010s did not disrupt the system but, on the contrary, stabilized the power of the state and its leader. Krastev sees the reason for this in the fact that societies have not only innovators, but also those who seek greater stability rather than creative destruction. However, political action beyond political institutions is not only the domain of Twitter revolutionaries, but very often also of populist political leaders, as Ivan Krastev has referenced. Indeed, one of the characteristics of populist politics is precisely that it redefines the relationship between society and

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political leadership. A populist leader does not interact with the people through the institutions of society, but directly (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). At the same time, the mediating institutions, civil society, provide society with the structure and knowledge through which it can control the nature of political decisions. The decline in the importance of institutions is not only due to the conscious political strategy of the populist leader, who in many cases is simply taking advantage of the changed social environment. Among other things, the wealth of information and insight provided by the internet can make individuals feel that they do not need to actively participate in institutions in order to benefit from the knowledge they generate and to feel empowered to act and form political opinions. This is not, of course, a reprehensible process in itself, as it is ultimately about the fulfillment of democracy. However, in some ways, this belies the optimism surrounding the internet, which offers the potential for open, understanding debate and unfettered political participation. However, political action beyond the institutions of political leadership involves not only bypassing civil society, but also redefining primary political institutions. In the context of the refugee crisis, Viktor Orbán has argued (Kalnoky 2015) that Europe’s problem is the action of institutions and not leaders as institutions slow down and render decision-making in the EU difficult. This is somewhat contradicted by the idea that more decision-making power should be delegated at the EU level in order to speed up decision-making, which obviously leads to a further curtailment of national sovereignty. In Fidesz’s practice, as it is analyzed in the subchapter on top-down mobilization, political action beyond institutions has already appeared with the organization of the Citizens’ Circles, which continued with the Peace March and with the legislative practice of bypassing further consultation through individual motions. The function of the institutions can be freely shaped, given the necessary parliamentary majority. The importance of political institutions lies in their legal status, the resulting stability, and the resources that they can mobilize. Traditional political institutions have therefore not lost their relevance, they have merely changed their functions. The effective politics and avoidance of conflicts arising from these changes require recognizing that old and new forms can coexist and complement

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each other. However, strong centralization and concentration of power can make an organization inflexible, prevent innovation and the flow of information, and reduce the autonomy of parts of the organization. The 1970s saw the emergence of flat hierarchical organizations with much less distance between groups, members, and leaders. The rigid organizational framework is also relaxed by temporary, project-based working, more direct, electronic communication, and the loosening of geographical boundaries. These changes affect not only companies, but also, for example, NGOs. For political actors, however, it is not only efficiency that makes it worth considering alternative organizational solutions. For political parties, it makes sense to open up their organizations in order to get closer to their potential voters and to offer opportunities for participation and engagement. Beyond the familiar grassroots democratic models, there are also organizational solutions that can provide the necessary openness while also allowing the party to maintain its political effectiveness. However, the opposition parties have sought a new function not only by creating new structures and standing up for NGOs, but also by taking protest actions which have not been used often on the opposition side of the Orbán regime. For example, in October 2016, three opposition parties—LMP, Együtt, and Párbeszéd—demonstrated against corruption and in favor of freedom of the press, and a former journalist of Népszabadság also gave a speech. The Népszabadság was a daily newspaper with the highest circulation in the country, which was bought covertly by an oligarch and close friend of Viktor Orbán. The demonstration was attended by around 3,000 people, however, opposition parties in Hungary have never been able to mobilize such a large crowd on their own after 2010. In September 2015, around 1,000 people attended the Democratic Coalition’s demonstration at Egyetem Square, and around twice that number attended the demonstration organized by Együtt on the same day. The scale of these demonstrations is not comparable to those organized against the internet tax, the I Would Teach Movement, or in support of the CEU, but they show that it was not an impossible task for opposition parties to organize visible demonstrations. There are, of course, important differences between parties in terms

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of their mobilization capacity. Thus, those that are typically overrepresented in the capital are better at attracting their supporters to well-established demonstration sites in Budapest, such as Kossuth Square at the Hungarian parliament building. In addition to place of residence, other important factors in this respect are education, financial background, and social self-assessment, these are all the characteristics that point towards more active citizenship. The role of leaders capable of street mobilization is also an equally important aspect. It is no coincidence that among the liberal and left wing parties, DK, Együtt, and Momentum were the main ones able to organize visible demonstrations, as they shared the social background of their supporters and the politicians were capable of mobilizing the faithful. In the case of Momentum, another mobilizing factor was the party’s youth and its movement image. In 2018, another politician, Péter Márki-Zay, the later joint prime minister candidate of the opposition in 2022 and mayor of Hódmezővásárhely elected a month and a half earlier, was the featured speaker at the demonstrations immediately following the April 2018 elections. However, disappointment with the opposition parties was even stronger at the postelection protests, which were eased during the demonstrations against the overtime law at the end of 2018 and especially during a parliamentary filibuster by the opposition as a reaction to the overtime law. However, criticism of the protests organized by the parties has since resurfaced following the July 2020 protests by journalists and freedom of the press activists which protested against the takeover of the popular index online news portal by government affiliated businessmen. Finally, at the 23 October 2020 demonstration organized by students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts, politicians were again expected to appear as “private citizens.” Successfully mobilizing former voters on the streets is not a completely self-evident task, as their commitment to a party does not last forever, and even fewer are willing to protest than vote. A further aspect is that many are more willing to take the plunge in a fierce electoral situation than to enthusiastically root for the same political formation. However, as movement researcher Charles Tilly has noted (2004), one of the aims of protesters is to express merit, unity, numerosity, and commitment to themselves and the public. Nevertheless, demonstrating all of these together has been

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hampered by the fragmented partisan left in the 2010s and protesters have only found opportunities to do so in more united civil protests. Thus, civil movements may be more successful in organizing protests not only because of their anti-political nature, but also because of their ability to unite, or at least appear to do so. The irony is that the sense of community, of “there are many of us,” experienced at protests, further discredits political parties and reinforces anti-political opposition. However, as Swen Hutter et al. (2018) have argued, protest movements can complement the advocacy activities of political parties which are not always able to address issues that are less crowded and more conflictual. The electoral orientation of political parties does not therefore necessarily conflict with the issue orientation of movements and NGOs. Moreover, movements can also escalate a conflict which can benefit political parties. An example of the latter is the case of the internet tax protests, in which government corruption and pro-Russian foreign policy became the cause of a movement critical of the government. As this chapter demonstrated, the institutionalization of general discontent with the government was limited not merely by the structural contrasts between civil activism and oppositional political parties discussed in the previous chapter, but also by party dealignment, the decreasing significance of organizations, and the low level of political participation in Hungary.

Chapter 4 PATTERNS OF ACTIVISM IN HUNGARY

With the change in political participation from the 1960s to the 1970s, activism steadily gained in importance. The post-Second World War economic boom and income security, the loosening of traditional social bonds, and increasing social mobility led to new political expectations that went beyond material needs. On the other hand, the way in which these demands are asserted has also changed, in that the focus has shifted from institutionalized forms of participation to unconventional forms of participation based on active participation. Theories of the long-term transformation of political participation have argued that modernization is the most important catalyst for change (Norris 2002). Modernization refers to the transformation of employment (post-Fordism), the expansion of the service sector, and the expansion of higher education. Political participation has thus been transformed mainly on the demand side by the “silent revolution” (Inglehart 1990), which has been accompanied by the strengthening of postmaterial values. On the formal side, however, individualization, the expansion of individual competences, and easier access to the public sphere have shifted the focus of social action from the collective to the individual. As a consequence, the role of traditional political institutions has diminished (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000) and forms of protesting political behavior, previously characterized as unconventional forms of participation, have become common (Meyer and Tarrow 1998). These changes have also fostered the emergence of a new culture of civic participation, an assertive civic culture, where loyalty has been replaced by distrust of representative democracy, political institutions and politicians, and a willingness to engage in conflict (Russel and Welzel 2014).



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Activism is collective action in social movements, yet at the same time, the social movement itself is a form of collective action. Collective action includes any action taken by several people towards a specific or less specific goal. Collective action can be institutionalized and extrainstitutional. The latter category includes panic, spontaneous rebellion, lynchings, and even celebrations following a sporting success, which were discussed in the literature on collective behavior prior to the 1960s alongside social movements as essentially irrational action (Mikecz 2010). Later, resource mobilization theory and related research methods especially moved beyond the “psychology of the masses” (Le Bon 2009) approach and separated social movements from spontaneous forms of action. Social movements, which are themselves a specific type of collective action, are distinguished from other collective actions by their purposefulness, organization, and continuity (Snow et al. 2004). Social movements aim to achieve or prevent political and social change and, in this sense, they are challengers or defenders of institutionalized or cultural authority. The activities of social movements can affect both the explicitly political sphere and the cultural sphere of broader social norms. Social movements also differ from other noninstitutionalized collective action in that they are characterized by a certain degree of organization. The level of organization can vary widely depending on the origins and aims of the movement, with some movements being based on hierarchical organizations and others on a loose network of activists. The third distinctive element of a movement’s organization is its continuity over time. For some movements, continuity can be observed over many years, not primarily in terms of specific objectives, but in terms of interpretative frameworks, mobilization techniques, and activists, as in the case of the alternative movement in Hungary. In other cases, however, social movements exist only for a single cycle of protest, as in the case of the internet tax movement. The characteristics of the social movement as collective action (political-social change, organization, and continuity) also apply to activism. However, activism is by definition a complex form of political participation, since it is a public activity in which it is often possible to participate. The latter also depends on how different the culture of the movement is from the general social norms and how

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radical the social change that the movement wants to achieve is. Activism as a form of political participation belongs to the so-called unconventional forms of participation, such as protest, boycott, and conscious consumption. The focus on activism is justified both to resolve uncertainties about the distinction between civil society initiatives and social movements and to overcome the problem that, due to low participation, Hungarian civil society initiatives often do not meet the definition of social movement as developed in Western Europe and North America. In many cases, the use of protests is missing in organizations with a Western movement theme. On the other hand, the focus on activism is also supported by the individualization of action because of the aforementioned social modernization. Political action can be taken not only by organizations and politicians in privileged positions, but also by individuals empowered by digital technologies, the knowledge industry, and the expanding education sector. However, this does not mean that certain patterns of activism are available to everyone, as they can be chosen depending on resources, interpretative frameworks, and movement goals. Activism differs from institutionalized forms of political action by elected officials in that it does not fit into the government/opposition binary code of politics. However, activism as a political action based on participation and not elected office follows a specific logic. The action of the individual involved in activism is motivated by the will to do something for the common good (Boda 2012) and is thus related to the classical Aristotelian concept of man as a political animal. According to the “homo politicus” model of action, in the case of movement politics, namely activism, the motivation for the individual is the use of forms of participation that are perceived as authentic and the direct action and contribution to the community, to the common good (Boda 2012), and it follows that activism as political action is a category with normative force. Activism as a form of political action is analyzed here in terms of its initiator, direction, institutional background, and actor (participant, participatory background), as well as involvement. This kind of grouping allows for a more general trend and a coherent typology, rather than simply describing individual mobilizations. Table 4.1 shows the identified ideal types of activism, that is patterns of civic action in Hungary, and their characteristics in terms

Universal

Universal

Universal

Exclusive

Civil ethos

Transactional

Experiencedriven, altruistic

Advocacy activism

Decision maker

Participation

Based on expertise

Based on individual indignation, grievance

Involvement

Relevant Based on collective resource of participation mobilization

Based on collective grievance

Based on individual Based on and collective indignation, participation solidarity

relevant Without mass resource of collective mobilization participation through transactions

Relevant Based on collective resource of participation mobilization

Institution

Inwards Free from oriented formal institutions, based on community

Decision maker

Decision maker

Scope of Target of beneficiaries action

Pattern of activism

Table 4.1 Patterns of activism in Hungary

Protests against the overtime law

Migration Aid, MigSzol

NANE, TASZ, Amnesty

Milla, I Would Teach Movement

Example

86 Patterns of Activism in Hungary

Exclusive

Exclusive

Exclusive

Exclusive activism

Radical right wing prefiguration

Populist

Spontaneous, community

Based on collective grievance

Based on political affiliation

Based on individual Based on and collective individual participation grievance

Based on collective participation

Outwards Relevant Based on collective oriented resource of participation mobilization

Inwards Free from oriented formal institutions, based on community

Decision maker

Peace March

Radical right wing rock festivals

Movements of foreign currency mortgage debtors, NIMBY protests

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of the dimensions of action mentioned above. On this basis, seven patterns of activism can be distinguished: civil ethos, transactional activism, experience-driven, advocacy activism, exclusive activism, radical right wing prefiguration, and populist patterns. In a different approach, Ondre Císař distinguishes between types of activism in postcommunist countries according to transactional capacity and mobilization capacity (2013a, 2013b). Hence, he differentiates between participatory activism, transactional activism, radical activism, civic self-organization, and episodic mass mobilization. Compared to Císař’s work, the typology used in this book introduces a further dimension, namely whether the participation is based on grievances or aims to enrich the self (experience oriented, altruistic activism). Furthermore, another added dimension is the scope of beneficiaries, hence inclusive, universal, and exclusive patterns of activism can be distinguished. It is important to stress that these are patterns of political action that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, especially in the first three cases. Thus, the student protests of 2012–13 show a pattern of civic ethos, while at a later stage, during the campus occupation at the Eötvös Loránd University, an experience-driven pattern became more and more prevalent. Some organizations show patterns of transactional activism and experience oriented action at the same time, such as the Shelter for Migrants Association, which hosts projects focused on target groups, but also provides opportunities for volunteering. Another example is Greenpeace, which is at once a protest movement organization and an environmental NGO with specialist knowledge and professional staff. The 2000s have seen a steady emergence of new types of collective action that go beyond the classical, liberal concept of civil society. The modernization of societies (higher education, the expansion of the service sector, the spread of post-Fordist production structures, the loosening of social ties, and increasing mobility) had already given rise to activism as a specific form of political action. However, after the turn of the millennium, digital technologies and increasing general individualization have led to the disintegration of a relatively coherent pattern of civic action into activist patterns. The above patterns did not emerge strictly after 2010, but the fragmentation of the left in this period has made differences in the patterns of

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activism increasingly clear. In this respect, the public discourse on the relationship between civil society actors and party politics, possible forms of cooperation, and the suitability of people opposed to the regime were particularly relevant. The patterns were identified on the basis of Hungarian politics, but their emergence are not exclusive to this, as they are also affected by more general trends in political participation such as the blurring of the boundaries between the private and public spheres, the experience-driven nature of political participation, personalization, and the diminishing role of institutions. In the following, these characteristics and types of participation will be discussed in more detail through different research findings. The selection of cases related to the types of activism is not systematic, but reflects the trends in activism after 2010. The case studies do not cover transactional activism, as in this case contrary to other forms, activism is not typically manifesting in protest, as in the case of transactional activism, activism is not based on the mobilization of the masses, sympathizers, and broad participation, but is created through permanent or temporary relationships between non-state actors and between these organizations, political actors and decision-makers (Petrova and Tarrow 2007). This type of activism is therefore primarily generated by various NGOs. These organizations are often active on issues (environment, feminism, minority rights, and international peace) that have been characteristic of the new social movements since the late 1960s. Their expertise forms the basis of their relations between organizations and with decision-makers, and of their media coverage, which allows them to cover almost all policy areas. Such organizations with a quasi-monopoly on policy, using patterns of transactional activism, include Nők a Nőkért az Erőszak Ellen [Women for Women Against Violence] (NANE), the Energia Klub [Energy Club], K-Monitor, the Eötvös Károly Institute, the TASZ [Civil Liberties Union], and the domestic branches of international organizations such as Amnesty International, the International Helsinki Committee and, to some extent, Greenpeace. Their expertise and competence are ensured by the employment of full-time experts, professional movers and shakers, and their networking in professional networks and the academic world. Transactional activism and the building of links between

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organizations are supported by a similar social status that comes from being experts and being internationally embedded. However, the professional staff of NGOs, which are seen as vehicles of this activism, have an activist attitude that is characteristic of not only movements with similar themes but also of individual participation. These organizations were supported by donor organizations (Soros Foundation and United States Agency for International Development) during the period of democratic transition, and then, as EU accession approached, the role of EU structural and civic participation funds became increasingly strong (Arató and Mikecz 2015). The resource requirements of activism, which focuses on expertise and professional credibility, mean that the core activities of these organizations include proposal writing and related projectbased work organization. Such activities are characterized by a target group approach, meaning that they do not work for their own members, but for the benefit of the clients who approach the organization and the beneficiaries identified in the project. Transactional activism, like civic ethos and experience-driven patterns, articulates the goals and values that characterize a good civil society. It is about helping the disadvantaged, the impoverished, and the vulnerable, in the spirit of the universalism of citizenship, that is it does not arbitrarily narrow down the pool of initiates on the basis of nationality, color, or creed. However, project-based activities are characterized by a target-group approach, making it difficult to involve the initiators of specific projects in the main activities of the organization, due to a lack of expertise. Transactional activism targets policy makers with their expert material and opinions. Monitoring the activities of public bodies— and to a lesser extent private companies—and acting as watchdogs is an important part of the identity of this form of activism. This watchdog identity and a more prominent political role emerged after the conflict between the transactional organizations and the Hungarian government over the disposition of the Norwegian Fund’s grant money. In the context of this conflict, the question has been raised in public debates as to where the watchdog role of the transactional organizations is derived from, and what gives NGOs the legitimacy to control the government, which is democratically empowered by the political community. Similar to the single-issue

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movements that emerged during the regime change, these organizations justified their activities on the basis of both intra-political, that is professional, and trans-political, that is universal civic values (Bozóki 2003). In the case of transactional organizations, the lack of citizen participation and dependence on foreign donor organizations provided a platform for attack by those questioning the political legitimacy of NGOs.

Civil Ethos Activism The model of civic ethos is linked to the classical liberal tradition of civil society of 1989. This kind of activism is based on the universality of citizenship, and its subject and object, that is the actor and initiator, can be anyone in the political system, with no one being excluded from it. This universality has been extended beyond national political systems by the protest movements and international NGOs reflecting on globalization by creating the category of global civil society. Civil ethos activism targets policy makers by mobilizing institutional resources and their sympathizers. This includes, among others, the Democratic Charter, Milla, the I Would Teach Movement and the 2012–2013 student protests. Universal activism is based on the rediscovery of civil society in East Central Europe during the democratic transition, when the concept became a quasi-ideology of democratic transformation. The role of civil society is consistent with the heritage of the civic ethos in East Central Europe and Hungary. This chapter explores the discursive potential of politically active NGOs in Hungary in the context of universal civic activism by analyzing the resonance of the so-called civil society master frame in the Hungarian public sphere. Master frames are the central interpretative schemata of social movements that help to identify the goals, opponents, and means of collective action. The chapter identifies the demographic factors that are likely to support the direct political role of civil society organizations (CSO). First, however, I introduce the East Central European tradition of the concept of civil society as a mechanism of control over politics as a master frame. The chapter will also discuss the limits of the resonance of the civil society master frame in Hungary. Finally, the chapter uses a representative sample to test

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the resonance of the civil society master frame in Hungarian public opinion and draws conclusions about the discursive potential of politically active NGOs in Hungarian public life.

The Civil Society Master Frame in East Central Europe Civil society itself has become a political buzzword in Central and Eastern Europe. In other words, from the point of view of interpretative frame analysis, the ethos of civil society can be understood as the basic frame of the democratic transition in 1989, but also, as the examples below show, of the anti-government protests in Hungary since 2010. Frame analysis itself is a constructivist theory of social movement research. In Erving Goffman’s formulation, frames are interpretive schemas by which people organize the world around them and their own situation by positioning, perceiving, identifying, and labeling events that affect them (Goffman 1974). Snow and Benford further developed the theory of interpretive frames, they felt that previous research had focused too much on grievances and social psychological consequences (relative deprivation and alienation) rather than on time, space, and individual interpretations that can also influence collective action. Indeed, classical social psychological theory shows a direct link between grievances and collective action, and resource mobilization theory identifies both grievances and the willingness to participate in politics as a constant element (Snow et al. 1986). Snow and Benford stress that participation and collective action are the result of ongoing interpretation. Social movements are less institutionalized political actors and therefore do not have the same organizational and ideological background as, for example, political parties. Social movements are linked to a well-defined issue or conflict, which may form part of a wider set of values and beliefs. However, movements do not need to develop a detailed ideology, but a frame of meaning that allows for mobilization and collective action for the social and political change they seek. The frame is therefore fundamentally oriented towards action. Snow and Benford have identified three functions or elements of collective interpretive frames (Snow and Benford 1988). Diagnostic framing helps to identify the problems and opponents facing the

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movement. Prognostic frames help answer the question “what to do?” by defining strategies, goals, tools, and action plans, and motivational frames facilitate direct action. William A. Gamson distinguished three types of interpretive frames: injustice, agency, and identity frames (Gamson 1992). The injustice frame helps to identify the problem that a social movement is trying to overcome. The movement needs to identify these unjust practices in order to turn them into demands for protest. According to Gamson, a critical point can be the abstract nature of the movement’s question, which can be addressed by personification. A good frame aims to synchronize the abstract and the concrete, as actual events and happenings need to be linked to the wider context. A framework of agency is linked to an awareness that the current situation can be changed. People’s disillusionment and the specifics of the protest’s success often hinder collective action. The agency frame seeks to convince potential supporters of the cause and importance of action. The identity frame is about defining the “we” of the actor, usually through an identification of opponents. According to Gamson, there are three overlapping layers here: the organization, the movement, and the solidarity community. While Gamson’s typology focuses on the action oriented properties of frames, Benford and Snow’s typology is concerned with the interactive, discursive processes of framing (Benford and Snow 2000). Beyond the specific interpretive frames of a movement, Snow and Benford distinguished master frames, which have a wider scope than a single social movement (Snow-Benford 1992). Master frames determine who can be blamed for a particular problem, the individual or the social context. Master frames can be grouped according to whether they are limited or more detailed. Limited master frames are difficult to extend and apply broadly, such as the nuclear disaster framework in Snow and Benford’s example. More elaborate frameworks, on the other hand, are more flexible and generalizable, such as the master frame for civil rights (1992). Further research has shown that master frames can facilitate cross border networking, which also has implications on the development of such frameworks (Caroll and Ratner 1996). Movements in East Central Europe have also been linked to and have drawn on the Polish concept of civil society in particular. As John K. Glenn has put it, civil society

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served as the main frame for various dissident movements prior to 1989 (Glenn 2001). According to Glenn, the basic claim of civil society as a frame for injustice was the violation of human rights, which had previously been endorsed in the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. The identity frame created a concept of “citizen,” a collective actor with an emphasis on the rights of each individual rather than economic status, as in the case of class. In terms of action, the master frame of civil society understood it as nonviolent action and the promotion of institutional reform, and thus not as a direct takeover of political power. Elżbieta Ciżewska-Martyńska has pointed out that the master frame of civil society, or as she argues, the “anti-politics” frame, still determines social movement mobilization, civic activism, and political thinking in the Visegrad countries (Ciżewska-Martyńska 2015). This anti-political legacy is manifested in the distrust of NGOs towards political parties, the moralization of politics, and aesthetic forms of political action. The master frame of civil society has thus influenced social movements in the region. Such was the case of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) movement in Poland, but in Hungary it appears as an appeal to moral authority over politicians, as they represent universal civic values rather than particular political interests (Arató and Mikecz 2015). In Hungary, such protest movements were the Democratic Charter of 1991, in which György Konrád participated (Bozóki 1996), and the aforementioned Milla movement. References to the master frame of civil society can also be found in the narratives of the Hungarian protesters. To illustrate, here are some quotes from the I Would Teach Movement, whose major protests were organized six months before the empirical data collection. A call for a demonstration of the I Would Teach Movement stated that “the civil sphere, which is the last sphere which can decelerate and act as a counterweight in Hungary, is threatened more than ever” (Népszava 2017). But civic activism not only has to analyze politics, it also has a duty to restore trust in politics. As one of the main organizers of the protests, the president of the Democratic Trade Union of Teachers, said in an interview, “How do we get them [children] to do all this when politics has now become a buzzword, and politicians themselves have made it so. But politics is the most

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beautiful word in the world, because it means polis, caring for the community” (Danó 2016). Mária Sándor, who was an ally of the I Would Teach Movement and the leader of the hospital nurses’ movement, said that this work can be done regardless of political party: “We are politicizing in the sense—and we encourage everyone to do so—that we stand up and speak out about the negative processes in the country, but we want to do this regardless of party, that is, we are trying to make sure that politics is not just a buzzword in people’s ears, but that it regains its positive values” (Gulyás 2016). She also added that the problem of opposition parties is their lack of credibility: “According to Mária Sándor, the continuous operation of such a movement is the only chance for criticism of the government’s actions to reach the people, because the opposition has lost its credibility” (Gulyás 2016). Speeches by civil society activists and movement leaders demonstrate the content of the master frame of civil society in Hungary. In the framing, Hungarian activists identified the whole or at least the pre-2010 political class (the socialist MSZP and the conservative right wing Fidesz) as their main opponents. Based on this frame, the corrupt, selfish, and incompetent elite can be blamed for the country’s poor democratic and economic performance. In terms of prognosis, the power of the old elite and general apathy can be overcome through grassroots initiatives and conscious political participation. The motivation for collective action—and the expected outcome—is the departure of the old elite, which may be attractive because of its antiestablishment attitudes, but as inherently anti-political, it is not in itself a motivation for political action. It is worth noting that the civil society master frame is completely at odds with the Orbán government’s concept of civil society. In his 2014 speech on illiberal democracy, Viktor Orbán claimed that civil society organizations that are politically active and receive support from foreign donors are ultimately political activists controlled from abroad. The Hungarian prime minister’s opinion reflects Fidesz’s concept of democracy, which emphasizes the majoritarian dimension of democracy over consensus decisionmaking and minority rights (Böcskei 2013). In this way, the government has, even if unintentionally, ultimately acknowledged the political role of NGOs.

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Resonance of the Civil Society Master Frame Collective action frames must be convincing for a certain social group, otherwise mobilization will fail. The concept of frame resonance refers to the ability of a particular interpretative frame to persuade and motivate the target group of a given social movement. The resonance of a frame, that is its ability to mobilize potential supporters, is determined by infrastructural and phenomenological constraints (Snow and Benford 1988). Infrastructural constraints include the central and hierarchical location of the interpretive frame within a wider belief system. In Hungary, the anti-political content of the civic ethos is consistent with voters’ low trust in political parties and politicians, but political decision-making, engagement, and accountability are not centrally located when it comes to the lack of democracy in public discourse. The range and interconnectedness of frames in a belief system are also among the infrastructural constraints. In addition to the demands of politics, the movements of educators and hospital nurses have incorporated issues of citizen action and civil society into the framing of the movement. However, subsequent mobilization efforts showed that the civil society frame did not resonate among those who protested primarily because of their working conditions. Phenomenological constraints refer to the target group’s prior experience and cognitive state with which the movement’s frame is intended to appeal (Snow and Benford 1988). Among these, empirical credibility refers to the feasibility of the movement’s claim because of external examples. As pointed out above, the master frame of civil society is deeply rooted in Hungarian political thought and public discourse, as well as serving as a reference in social movement practice. Empirical comparability indicates whether the frame is consistent with previous personal experiences. Snow and Benford cite the example of the nuclear disarmament movement, where the frame of nuclear winter resonated better in Europe and Japan because of firsthand experiences of war. In this respect, Hungarian CSOs may have less resonance because the majority of society has little experience of direct democracy and horizontal decision-making. Narrative fidelity—the third element of phenomenological constraints—means that the frame fits with the wider political culture.

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Since political cynicism, pessimism, and low confidence in subjective political competence are typical elements of Hungarian political culture (Körösényi 1999), it is hard to embed in “bystanders” a sense of collective action, and supporters can easily be disappointed if they do not see rapid, fundamental policy results. Taking these factors into account shows that the conceptual framework of the civil society master frame does not resonate well in the Hungarian context (Table 4.2). Just as the legal framework of a political system, the federal structures, and institutions determine the structure of the political opportunities of social movements (Kriesi 2004), the resonance of the interpretative framework determines mobilization potential. In order to better understand the latter context, Koopmans and Statham introduce the concept of discursive opportunities (Koopmans and Statham 1999). Discursive opportunities refer to the cultural and symbolic factors that externally influence the mobilization potential of a given social movement. While the notion of building discursive opportunities has been widely invoked in social movement research, most studies aim to identify the cultural constraints that determine the opportunities of movements. In order to understand Table 4.2 Factors affecting the resonance of the civil society master frame Infrastructural constraints

Centrality

Low trust in political parties (+) Low level of political activism (–) Range and the Material demands could not interrelatedness be incorporated into the civil society frame (–) Phenomenological Empirical credibility Deep roots of the civil constraints society master frame (+) Experiential Little experience with direct commensurability democracy and horizontal decision making (–) Narrative fidelity Lack of good historical examples (–)

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the discursive opportunities of politically active NGOs, the resonance of the civil society master frame was tested by a public opinion survey with a representative sample of 1,100 respondents. The survey asked respondents to evaluate normative statements on the role and tasks of NGOs. The descriptive statistics show that the vast majority of respondents agree with the normative statements on the role of NGOs, that is promoting self-organization, providing alternative services, and representing social groups (Table 4.3). Opinions are more balanced when it comes to control over the state and local government, which play a more explicitly political role. Regarding the relationship between civil society organizations and political parties, the responses reflect anti-political sentiment and low levels of trust in political parties (Table 4.4). However, findings show that voters clearly distinguish between political and civic roles when it comes to electoral politics and political alternatives. The high proportion of respondents with no opinion shows that the political role and relevance of civil society as a frame for collective action does not have a hierarchical importance. Table 4.3 “What are the tasks of NGOs?” Agree (%) The duty of civil organizations is to offer services the state can not fulfill (N = 773). The duty of civil organizations is to represent certain social groups (N = 815). The duty of civil organizations is to promote the self-organization of social groups (N = 741). The duty of civil organizations is to control the state and municipalities (N = 688).

Disagree Don’t know/ (%) No response (%)

66.7

6.6

26.7

71.6

5.0

23.4

66.1

5.4

28.5

35.4

30.6

34

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Table 4.4 The political role of NGOs Agree Disagree Don’t know/ (%) (%) No response (%) Civil organizations are more trustworthy than political parties (N = 691). Just like political parties, it is the role of civil organizations to offer policy recommendations (N = 640). Civil organizations are better in offering political alternatives than parties (N = 627). At the forthcoming election I would give my vote to a party with civil affiliations (N = 629).

46.5

20.9

32.6

36.6

26.3

37

29.4

32.2

38.4

41.5

22.6

35.9

Multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify sociodemographic factors that allow for a better resonance of the civil society master frame. The dependent variable is the average of the four variables in Table 4.4 “Political role of NGOs” indicating whether the respondent supports or does not support the direct political role of NGOs. The independent variables were chosen on the basis of factors that influence the resonance of the master frame of civil society (Table 4.5). Education shows a positive correlation with political participation, so it can be assumed that people with higher education accept the political role of civil society organizations. Although recent research suggests that education is more a proxy for preadult experiences and life choices (Kam and Palmer 2008; Persson 2012), as the level of education in Hungary has a positive effect on both electoral and direct forms of political participation (Róbert et al. 2017). As Glenn has already pointed out, the civil society interpretive frame has linked citizens to the notion of universal human rights rather than class defined by the same economic status and interests (Glenn 2001). The civil society master frame neglects economic issues that may limit the discursive possibilities of the frame. Thus, it is assumed that the frame does not resonate among

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Table 4.5 Factors affecting the civil society framework

School education Income Sign the petition Participating in a demonstration Donate money to an NGO Prefers a left wing, liberal government after the next elections Favors a Jobbik government after the next elections Lives in Budapest Lives in a village Lives in a county seat

Nonstandardized coefficients

Standardized Significant coefficients coefficients

B –0.116 0.008 –0.028 –0.027

Beta –0.126 0.031 –0.011 –0.008

0.012 0.543 0.832 0.872

0.041 0.315

0.015 0.189

0.752 0

0.081

0.041

0.396

–0.098 0.298 0.443

–0.046 0.166 0.214

0.368 0.001 0

lower income groups; income is thereby included in the model as an independent variable. The level of political activism and experience with direct democracy and horizontal decision-making is directly measured by actual political participation. To this end, petition signing, participation in demonstrations, and donations to NGOs were included as dummy variables in the analysis. Support for the political role of NGOs cannot be disentangled from the Hungarian political environment, where the conflict is between politically active NGOs and the Fidesz government. Consequently, it can be assumed that those who would have preferred to see a non-Fideszled government after the 2018 elections support the direct political involvement of CSOs. These are also included as dummy variables in the model. Finally, Budapest residents have better access to demonstrations and politically active NGOs. Therefore, the different types of municipalities were also included as dummy variables in the regression analysis. Due to multicollinearity, cities that are not county seats and the preference of the Fidesz government were excluded from the analysis.

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The highest level of education is a significant coefficient that is surprisingly negatively correlated with the approval of the political role of NGOs. However, net income, which is usually associated with educational attainment, is not significant in this question. Experience with various forms of political participation was also not a significant coefficient on the political role of NGOs. The preference for a left wing, liberal government is of obvious significance. Both left wing and liberal respondents clearly support the political role of NGOs. This result indicates the embeddedness of the question in the current political debates in Hungary. However, it is important to note that the master frame of civil society has liberal and not leftist roots, even if it was partly a post-Marxist concept. The support, and consequently, the resonance of the political role of civil society organizations was lowest in Budapest. Nevertheless, the high proportion of neutral responses suggests that the civil society issue is not of great importance. It can also be assumed that Hungarians responded in line with normative expectations regarding the role of civil society organizations. The results suggest that the master frame of civil society is not central to society as a whole. Moreover, linear regression analysis of the aggregate indicator of politically active civic role with demographic data showed that well-educated social groups in the capital are not considered to be the primary target of civil society frames. However, participants in the aforementioned anti-government protests tend to come from this group (Szabó and Mikecz 2015). The political role of CSOs is more accepted in medium-sized cities, where CSOs have been able to nominate representatives in local politics since the first free, democratic local elections in 1990. Respondents with lower educational attainment support the political role of NGOs, which is probably a consequence of stronger anti-political attitudes of lower status social groups. In the light of the results, there is also a clear difference between the left-liberal and the right-wing voters. The left-wing and liberal opposition to Orbán’s government have a strong support for the political role of NGOs. Consequently, the target group of the civil society’s master frame in mediumsized cities could be left-wing citizens with low education levels. Politically active CSOs, however, are more likely to have access to the aforementioned higher social status groups based in Budapest.

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Most protests are organized in the capital for good reasons, as there are more resources available for protesters and politically symbolic public spaces are located in Budapest. According to the Hungarian police database, between November 2015 and July 2018, 1,937 out of 3,237 protests—or 60 percent of all protests—were registered in Budapest (G. Szabó and Szabó 2018). The master frame of civil society shows better resonance in county capitals and countylevel cities. The Hungarian local government electoral system is a likely explanation for this phenomenon. In local elections, civil society organizations can run candidates in the same way as political parties. Although CSOs have gradually played less of a role in local politics since 1990, 11.2 percent of the seats in local government in 1998 and 7.8 percent in 2002 were nevertheless won by CSOs in coalition with other CSOs or alone in county seats (Kákai 2003). While in Budapest the proportion was 2.5 percent in 1998 and 3.1 percent in 2002. However, the presence of civil society organizations in local elections does not explain the difference between county seat towns and villages, where civil society organizations played an even greater role.

Experience-oriented, Altruistic Activism Experience-oriented, altruistic activism is the third category in our typology. As in the case of civic ethos and transactional activism, political action is guided by universal values. All citizens can benefit from the advantages that this type of activism produces, depending on the situation, as long as the initiator himself accepts these universal values. In the case of experience-driven activism, political action is not concerned with specific policy decisions, but is ultimately aimed at the inner enrichment of the actor, at the acquisition of experiences and at the realization of the individual experience project (Schulze 1992). This kind of activism is thus closely linked to the aestheticization of everyday life, hybrid forms of participation, and self-expression at the interface of the spheres of art, entertainment, politics, and expertise. The individual is not only the end point of experience oriented activism, but also the starting point. Whether it is an individual action, as in the case of boycotts or conscious shopping, or whether activism takes place in a community,

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joining is not related to specific involvement, but is a choice of the individual. The individual does not become active as a member of an occupational group, as a worker, or as a victim of an investment, but along the lines of indignation justified by universal values. In the absence of direct grievances, solidarity is the strongest driving force, alongside the homo politicus motivation for action (doing good for the community) that is a common feature of activism. Accordingly, this activism is characterized by solidarity demonstrations, altruistic actions (food distribution), and forms of cultural self-expression and alternative consumption, driven by experience orientation and aestheticization. Experience-oriented activism is closely related to the phenomenon of individualized collective action (Micheletti 2003). The social processes described above (expansion of education and of the service sector), the spread of new digital technologies, and the diminishing role of the state through globalization, which have led to the emergence of activism as political action, are replacing old political institutions with less bound, nonhierarchical, flexible, and informal forms of engagement. This tendency is captured by individualized collective action, which refers to taking responsibility to protect collectively or individually those segments of life, which have been identified as being crucial for the actors (Micheletti 2003). The terrain for individualized collective action is thus not necessarily the political, but the world of sub-politics that lies beneath formal institutions (Beck 1992). However, this also means that the practice of experience-oriented activism is independent of institutions, framed by a cultural practice or activist community itself. Important spaces for experience-driven activism in the country are entertainment and community free spaces of social movements associated with activist subcultures, free from the state and other authorities (Poletta 1999). Other characteristics of experience-oriented activism include both vanguard politicization and prefigurative action that reject structural reform and aims to advance the critiqued system by creating creative alternative practices and institutions (Leach 2013). Specifically, the experience-oriented pattern includes for instance refugee-supporting organizations in Hungary that create prefigurative practices, such as MigSzol, Migration Aid and the Shelter for Migrants Association, but the latter also exhibits transactional

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patterns in many respects. These groups do not formulate specific policy proposals to the state but criticizing it for the lack of continuity in the provision of altruistic activities (food, medical care, sanitation, and sleeping accommodation for refugees) and the lack of universality and inclusiveness that characterizes civil society. For social movements, cultural practices that express the grievances, commitment, and collective identity of the protesters are of particular importance. It is very much true in the case of experience-oriented activism, with a special place given to forms of protest that express some form of cultural meaning-making. For instance since the 1990s, various summer festivals have also begun to flourish in Hungary, and in the last decade they have become more than just a phenomenon associated with alternative, underground music styles and consumer patterns. Festivals are about fun, relaxation, and community, and because of this latter aspect, music festivals and summer carnivals often carry an implicit or sometimes explicit political message. At the same time, carnival means or forms often appear in direct political protests. In the context of political protests, news reports and analyses usually highlight the demands of the protesting group, the number of participants, and, in some cases, the violence of the protest. The symbolic, performative dimension of protests is less often mentioned, with the exception of protest events, which are accompanied by spectacular carnival elements, colorful masquerades, and imaginative puppets and banners. Protest events which, in their program and appearance, resemble music and cultural festivals and art happenings, are known as protestivals. The term protestival itself is associated with the Australian “ideajockey” and cultural activist John Jacobs (St. John 2008). The protestival builds on traditions such as the Situationist International that emerged in the late 1950s, the international art movement of the 1960s, Fluxus, and the countercultural movements that were also known in Hungary. Such events are closely linked to initiatives aimed at individual and collective autonomy through creativity. In the case of protestivals, it is difficult to separate political protest from aesthetic expression. In the New Left and libertarian festivals, the themes and interpretative frameworks are linked to self-realization, alienation and the “colonization of the lifeworld” (Habermas 1985).

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Music has been an indispensable part of collective action since the Chartist movement (Bowan and Pickering 2009), and it is no coincidence that these forms have become popular with the expansion of higher education and the emergence of a new, mobile social class with high cultural capital. From the perspective of social movement research, protestivals are not studied for their aesthetic quality or artistic aspirations, but as a form and site of political opinion-making and action. Protestivals have served as movement free spaces for New Age travelers in the UK in the 1960s, or for the Rainbow Family countercultural movement in the US in the 1970s (St. John 2008). Protestivals as vehicles of carnivalesque can also ease social tensions, dynamize rigid social structures, and enable social change. During the carnival, social hierarchies can be reversed, but at the same time they are reinforced (Bakhtin 1984). A popular protestivals in the 2010s in Hungary were the radical right wing Hungarian Island (Magyar Sziget), which had many links to the Jobbik party and carries an explicit political message. The Bánki Lake Festival on the other hand could have been connected to a progressive, New Left political community. Not all festivals have a political meaning, but the protestival is an opportunity for both withdrawal and social activism. However, entertainment can also dampen the edge of protest. The carnival-style Pride marches that take place every summer in Budapest had the same function for the LGBTQ movement. In the context of social movements, culture can refer not only to the form of action, but also to the purpose. The gay pride movement aims to change the social perception of gay people and gayness. The Gay Liberation Front groups that were first formed after the Stonewall Riot in the USA, and then in Canada and the UK. These were more radical than the conservative gay groups of the past and they linked themselves to the new left wing, anti-capitalist movements of the 1960s (Kissack 1995). A prominent demand of the gay pride movement is the external recognition of the group’s identity, which is a characteristic of identity politics movements. However, the gay pride movement cannot be seen as a new social movement with entirely postmaterial demands, as formal, legal recognition of same sex marriage and adoption are the most important issues of the movement.

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In Hungary, the criminalization of same-sex relationships was abolished in 1961, but the establishment of gay rights organizations and the emergence of the gay pride movement could only take place in the late 1980s after the regime change. In 1988, the Homeros Association was allowed to be founded (Hanzli 2016), followed by the Lambda Budapest (Gay) Friends Association in 1991 and the Rainbow Association for Gay Rights in 1994. The registration of the latter was refused by the court on the grounds that the statutes did not stipulate that only adults could be members, thus allowing the court to claim that the organization had committed the crime of indecency against nature. The court’s refusal to register the organization led to protests from several well-known public figures, with the Rainbow case becoming the first gay rights protest action (Nagy 2019). The Hungarian gay movement had already wanted to hold its first public parade in 1992, but due to low turnout, the Pink Picnic community event was held on the Hármashatár hill. On the occasion of World AIDS Day in 1993, gay activists organized a torchlight parade as part of a film festival’s program, and in 1997 the first gay parade took place on the Danube embankment with 600 participants (Lux 2008). Since the mid-2000s, the radical right wing mobilization boom has been accompanied by a series of atrocities and violent attacks on marchers. In 2009, the event was renamed Budapest Pride, with a video message from American actress Whoopi Goldberg welcoming the participants. That year and later, there were violent counterprotests at the march and related events, and in 2011 and 2012 the police refused to allow the event on the grounds of disproportionate obstruction of traffic, but these decisions were overturned by the courts (Tóth 2013). However, from 2010 onwards, Budapest Pride has increasingly been part of the mainstream, and the movement and the march have been successful in terms of recognition. The gay movement is similar to the feminist movement in that it believes that it is fundamentally important to talk about issues in the political public sphere that were previously thought to be exclusively private. The reason for this, according to the movement, is that without access to the public sphere, the oppression of women or LGBTQ people remains hidden, and the lack of access to the private sphere means that there is no chance for social intervention on behalf of the disadvantaged and abused. The gay movement,

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like the green movements mentioned above, is about the politics beneath the institutions (sub-politics), the politics of lifestyle, consumption, and identity. In the context of gay pride, it is clear how well-known NGOs and domestic companies are much more active than opposition political parties, whose representatives participate in the gay pride march itself or in the accompanying events, but whose independent initiatives are not to be heard of. Nevertheless, the Orbán-regime restricts the rights of LGBTQ people. In 2022 the government launched a referendum on the protection of minors, which included questions suggesting that LGBTQ organizations were promoting gender reassignment for minors in public schools and through the media. However, left wing parties are also unable to take action on other sub-political issues, which in itself raises the importance of NGOs. It is difficult for political parties to get involved in sub-institutional politics, since sub-politics is a field for individual initiatives and ad hoc citizen coalitions. Three subtypes of experience-oriented activism will be analyzed in the following subchapters, emotion based mobilization, political altruism, and prefigurative action. The cases are the Living Memorial movement, homeless and refugee solidarity movements, and the university occupation in 2013. In all three cases new, innovative protest forms and logic have been applied. With the help of these forms protesters could challenge the Orbán regime even with limited resources.

Emotion Based Mobilization The media and the general public is mostly aware of large scale mobilizations, numerous street marches with policy related, or anti-regime demands. Nevertheless, social movements based on a smaller community with cultural aims and means can also achieve their goal, as demonstrated by the “Living Memorial.” The Living Memorial was originally a flash mob organized on 23 March 2014 to protest against the German occupation memorial planned and erected on Szabadság Square. The monument was initiated by the Hungarian government to mark the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Holocaust. The portrayal of Hungary as the archangel Gabriel, attacked by the Nazi eagle, was interpreted by the protesters

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as a falsification of history, a denial of the responsibility of the Hungarian state and authorities in the deportation of Hungarian Jews. The flashmob took place two and a half months after the announcement of the erection of the monument. The organizers advertised the event by asking participants to bring a piece of stone, a small cross, or a personal object that could express their personal feelings. The initiators also asked participants to tell their own or their family’s stories and memories, sharing them with others and the public. The main objective was to create an alternative memorial, based on personal memories and stories. The event did not end on the day of the flashmob and the occupation of the area where the memorial was to be built continued. Activists also took direct action against the monument, repeatedly removing the fence around the construction site. Despite this, they were unable to prevent the erection of the monument, which was set up at night at the end of July (Mikecz 2021). Even before the final installation of the monument, a series of conversations were triggered by the activists with the same aim as the flash mob: to create an alternative monument of personal anecdotes, stories, and memories. After the government set up the memorial, these discussions became increasingly important for the movement community. However, these events were not only used to tell personal stories, but also to discuss current political events, political issues, art, and aesthetics, with the participation of academics, politicians, and political analysts. Later on, “objective” topics dominated and the participants were asked to refrain from anecdotes and personal stories. Meanwhile, another series of events, the so-called “Freedom Stage,” was organized, which started an hour earlier at the same venue. The Freedom Stage featured poetry readings, performances, and concerts. It was here that the Slaves Choir sang together from Verdi’s opera Nabucco, led by the prominent Hungarian conductor Adam Fischer. In contrast to the conversations at the Living Memorial, the Freedom Stage allowed room for emotion, joy, and subjectivity. Social movements often try to push emotions into the background when presenting themselves to outsiders. They need to argue rationally if they are to attract the attention of decision-makers and the wider public as objective, reliable actors. At the same time, emotions

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can be used to strengthen internal cohesion and solidarity, while outsiders can join in if positive emotions can be evoked by participation (Goodwin, Jasper and Poletta 2001). The Living Memorial was organized around personal memories and emotions, but these have since been outsourced to another venue nearby, the Freedom Stage. Nevertheless, rational, objective discussions are not entirely devoid of emotion either. Being well informed can give you confidence, an important prerequisite for political action. Since the monument was eventually erected and there was little chance of it being removed, the movement could not have had a direct instrumental purpose. In this situation, the main objective may be to maintain a “certain mental state” of participants and activists, as one of the speakers at a meeting of the Living Memorial put it.

Mobilizing Emotions and Social Movements Compared to other civil initiatives, social movements critical with the Orbán-regime, emotion, and especially grief based mobilization was crucial for the Living Memorial movement. Until the 1970s, the study of collective action was dominated by the social psychological approach in the social sciences. The experience of totalitarian regimes, which developed out of the extremist movements between the two world wars, justified the pathologization and psychiatrization of political protest. Political process theory, the theory of resource mobilization, considered social movements as rational actors, and therefore neglected the emotional aspect of social movements. In contrast to resource mobilization theory, the new social movement theory, which is essentially European, focused on collective identity, the process of meaning making, and networked organizational structure. The role of emotions in mobilizing social movements was introduced in research after the turn of the millennium (Aminzade and McAdam 2002; Goodwin, Jasper and Poletta 2001; Flam and King 2005). Emotions play a role in the whole mobilization process. Emotions can trigger spontaneous protests and motivate supporters. A crowd participating in collective action can generate and induce emotions. Emotions can also influence the purpose of mobilization. Social movement leaders may use emotions as a tool for mobilization,

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but they may also aim to achieve a particular emotional status. Emotions can have a major impact on success, failure, and actual strategy (Jasper 1997). Political scandals can provoke and trigger outrage, leading to spontaneous political protests and later to the emergence of a social movement. Grief and mourning triggered by tragic events can also trigger a similar process. Pride, fear, and happiness are all emotions that can motivate collective action. Emotions can be categorized by duration and by the generality or specificity of their purpose. More permanent emotions with a specific object, such as love or hate, imply a permanent social relationship, while short-lived emotions are reactions to certain unexpected events. A mood is a more general emotion without a specific object and can be of longer duration, such as disappointment, pride, and optimism; or of shorter duration, such as happiness or depression (Goodwin, Jasper and Poletta 2001). In the case of social movements, emotions can be ordered into a matrix, where one dimension is the duration of the emotion, whether it is a continuous state of mind or an emotional reaction to an event. The other dimension indicates whether the emotion is expressed inside or outside the social movement (Jasper 1998). Emotions outside the social movement include home or family relationships, fear of external threats (such as ecological disaster), prejudice, and trust or distrust of politicians and political institutions. External, reactive emotions are usually those triggered by a powerful event. These are the political scandals, outrageous decisions, or disasters mentioned above. In the longer term, loyalty, sympathy, or antipathy can develop within the movement towards other activists, movement leaders, and allies. Shorter-term emotions within the movement are responses to the actions of decision-makers and the actions of the media and other actors.

Managing Emotions The general expectation is that individuals should behave according to social norms, which are set by social and political institutions. Institutions not only regulate behavior, but also guide it in different situations (Hochschild 2012). In other words, institutions contribute to the management of emotions, which is also true for less formal

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entities, such as social movements. Performative, spectacular forms of protest are particularly suitable for influencing and managing the emotions of supporters and the wider public. In some ways, the mobilization of social movements is about the successful management of emotions. Movement leaders need to maneuver cleverly between emotionally charged and more sedate moments. It is also essential that the emotions of the supporters mobilized are in line with the aims of the movement. Outrage, grief, and anger from outside the movement must be articulated in a way that is consistent with the movement’s goals. Symbols with strong emotional content can be effective tools for recruiting supporters and deepening and maintaining commitment. In some cases, it is possible to motivate by diabolizing opponents and exploiting people’s fear for them. In the case of spectacular, performative forms of protest, the opposite process takes place. Protesters often use papiermâché puppets of politicians and their opponents, presenting them as ridiculous and easy to defeat. In the case of more radical protests, these puppets are sometimes destroyed, which is in fact a symbolic destruction of the opponent. But in some cases, you need to cool down. While strong emotions can mobilize supporters and activists, hot-headed politics can be off-putting to the wider public. To ensure the success of the movement, to plan for the long term, to build a positive public image, and to deepen activists’ commitment, it is essential to address emotions. Managing emotions is also important when negotiating with other actors. As Goodwin and his co-authors note: “You can’t bring a lawsuit against a factory because air pollution makes you sad and upset” (2001). In public debates, policy planning, and decision-making processes, it is important to present the movement as a rational negotiator. However, managing emotions does not necessarily imply manipulation, and activists and supporters are not easy targets to influence. In other words, managing emotions does not mean exploiting activists, because in many cases managing emotions is done with their consent. Putting emotions in the background and emphasizing a rational profile can satisfy activists’ need to be informed, rational, and persuasive individuals. Turning shame, guilt, or fear into pride can be an effective strategy for movements where the aim is self-expression

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and recognition of their collective identity by other groups in society. The gay pride movement is a good example, but the demonstration of merit is a common feature of contentious politics (Tilly 2004). Nevertheless, leaders of social movements and other political event organizers are not omnipotent in managing emotions. Their impact is limited, regardless of whether a genuine emotional identification with the performers and other participants is established (Kiss and Szabó 2015). Participation in protests can also be a source of entertainment and experience, especially in the case of spectacular, performative forms of action. As in carnivals, protesters march in colorful costumes in these protests, often accompanied by music. As we wrote in an earlier subchapter on pro-festivals, not only are protests becoming more and more similar to music festivals, but many festivals have a clear political message. Therefore, political participation in such protests is a source of joy.

Emotional Management Techniques During the mobilization of the Living Memorial, organizers used different techniques to manage emotions. The aim of these techniques was not simply to regulate certain emotional expressions, but to channel them in support of the movement’s main objectives. Even the purpose of the movement itself was not easy to define, as it was difficult to imagine the government eventually dismantling the monument of the German occupation. However, as activists noted in their meetings, the movement successfully interpreted the monument as political indoctrination. Thus, in the case of the Living Memorial, the expressive goals were more important than the instrumental ones, and the movement was more about the movement itself. When the Living Memorial was launched, it was an action with a strong emotional drive. During the flashmob, activists used their own family memories, photos, and personal objects to deconstruct the monument erected by the government. This technique was inspired by an earlier social media discussion where children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors shared their stories. They used grief, mourning, and remembrance to counter the government’s messages (Mikecz 2021).

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At the Living Memorial meetings, different techniques were used to deal with emotions. These include discussions on various public issues, during which the movement’s activists sit in a circle listening to the guest and can ask them questions later. The events were open to all, with activists distributing leaflets to tourists in English and inviting passersby to join the debate. The commemoration was not only about telling the activists’ stories, but also about starting a dialogue with others. The aim of the movement was to create a common ground for historical memory. As part of this, on one occasion, a young radical right wing man who had previously insulted activists was invited to a discussion. However, some members felt that it was not compulsory to sit down and talk to everyone, that there were clear boundaries, while others argued that the Living Memorial was about listening to each other. An important moment for many activists was the testimony of András Rényi, the main initiator of the Living Memorial, who said that his father was a high-ranking cadre in the communist Kádár regime. Meetings and discussions were organized around themes that are crucial for managing emotions. Six categories were distinguished, these are (1) holocaust, history and remembrance, (2) politics and policy, (3) art, (4) opposition strategies, (5) democracy, and (6) selfreflection (Mikecz 2021). Events in the first category mostly dealt with the politics of memory, historical events, and personal stories in Hungary. In the second, political category, activists often invited well-known experts to discuss political issues or analyze current political events. These meetings were not about emotions, but about a rational understanding of the sociopolitical issues at stake. The third category, art, was also an integral part of the Living Memorials events. The initiators of the Living Memorial were closely linked to the art scene in Budapest and many of them were artists or curators themselves. The fourth, opposition strategies, were events where the chances of social movements and strategies for successful political protest were discussed. In the fifth category, democracy issues, there were occasions when activists discussed illiberal democracy, freedom of the press, or the state of democratic institutions. In the sixth category, the group held meetings to discuss the purpose of the group and ideal communication.

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Political Altruism and Solidarity Movements The most prominent of the domestic solidarity movements in the period under review are the groups that stand up for the homeless, fight against housing poverty, and the groups that help refugees during the 2015 European refugee crisis. This part will examine what characterizes the claims made by these two groups. The importance of the topic lies in the fact that the activists of these movements do not make material claims for themselves but fight for the rights of others and their basic livelihoods on the basis of morality, and do so without compensation. Although, the subchapter first reviews the relevance of morality in social movement mobilization. At the heart of experience-oriented, solidarity-based activism is the reference to morality in political action, but this can be traced back to the emergence of the first social movements. The process of the privatization of morality created new opportunities for social and political challengers in the late Enlightenment, and the reference to morality was thus already present in the earliest social movements. The first successful social movement in the modern sense was the British abolitionist movement. Between the first boycott of sugar from a plantation employing slaves (1791) and the second petition to the king to ban slavery (1806), British abolitionists successfully used the tools of the movement that had emerged a few decades earlier (Tilly 2004). The new means of movement included marching, petitioning, holding public meetings, forming organizations, and the creation of a modular form of protest specific to a place, time, and culture (Tarrow 1993). The emergence of new forms and means was made possible by the strengthening of parliament, the emergence of the proletariat,the accumulation of capital, and more directly by the Seven Years’ War (Tilly 2004). The war left more people dependent on the government for their salaries, and the increasingly powerful parliament had a similarly larger impact on the material situation of the wider classes. The capitalist class, partly as a creditor, had greater influence on government, with the result being that the working classes, freed from feudal dependence, could enter politics in their own right and became occasional allies of the former. From these social coalitions grew the world of organizations and assemblies. In addition, as the role of parliament

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grew, electoral assemblies also provided opportunities and venues for political rallies. Instead of direct action against the local representative in power, they addressed their demands to the central government and recognised their identity of interest through the emergence of national media. However, with the emergence of new social classes, new political forums, new means, and a civic public sphere, the moral, in our case religious reference did not disappear, although it did not appear in the same totality as in previous centuries, where the demand for social change was essentially carried by religious renewal. The leading figure of the British abolitionist movement, William Wilberforce, expressed his political aims in his diary as follows: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners” (Piper 2006). It is through the religious commitment of abolitionists that what Charles Tilly calls WUNC, that is worthiness, unity, number, commitment, can be demonstrated, which he interprets as one of the distinguishing features of social movements (Tilly 2006). However, in addition to religious commitment, material pressures such as the aforementioned boycott of sugar from slave plantations, in which 300,000 families participated between 1791 and 1792, certainly played a role in the success of the movement (Tilly 2004).

Morality as the Purpose of Movement Activity Contrary to the state-centered approach presented above, Michael P. Young argues that life politics determined the rise of the abolitionist and anti-alcohol movements in the United States (Young 2002). In the 1830s, hundreds of thousands of people in the United States were mobilized by the so-called confessional protests against the sins of drunkenness and slavery, the need for public confession of faith, and the need to draw attention to the sins of the nation. In the protests of faith, the possibility and need for individual salvation appeared as a goal together with the possibility of social change and norm change. According to Young, the “national social movement,” that would later become the model for the US movement, was born in the religiously motivated protests of the 1830s, an altruistic movement, and shaped the modular protest, and thus the typical protest patterns. The religious protests and

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the American religious revival movement of the 1830s shaped the framework that defined the American populist movement, the civil rights movement, and later the feminist, gay movement. In the combined need for individual salvation and social renewal, the politics of life (Anthony Giddens), known from later times and retrospectively invoked by Young, appears. In late modernity, individualization increases the freedom to develop lifestyle and consumption patterns, which is also a constraint in the experience societies (Gerhard Schulze) as a means of achieving the “good life,” the realization of the self-project (Éber 2008). With the weakening of traditions, the individual’s greater freedom and capacity for reflection is accompanied by the need to make existential decisions in everyday situations, which increases the political agency of individuals (Sik 2013). In reflexive modernization, it is in the sub-political sphere (Ulrich Beck), below institutional politics, that economic-industrial decisions are made that affect the quality of life and living conditions of individuals. At the same time, it is also where the resistances against these effects are organized from the civil society (Gulyás 2015). The social theories of late modernity and the concept of creedal protest share the demand for individual norm choice. While it may seem that in the former this is done through consumption, in the latter it is more emphatically a consequence of moral choice, as in late modernity consumption and morality are linked (conscious consumption and fair trade). In the case of altruistic movements organized to help others, such as homeless people, asylum seekers, political refugees, immigrant workers, and third world solidarity movements, the participants do not directly benefit from the success of the movement, while in sub-political resistance, life politics movements (ecological, feminist, and sexual), the individual benefits from some collective good, or at least succeeds in achieving the elimination of some kind of harm (Passy 2001). In addition to political action on morality as an end through consumption, there are also movement efforts that seek to directly influence social norms and morality. These initiatives can be described as counter-hegemonic movements in the Gramscian category. Writing about class oppression, Gramsci argued that, contrary to the theory of classical Marxism, it does not take place in a purely economic relation, since the ruling class dominates its own culture, but does so in

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a consensual way, by introducing institutions and procedures that appear to be independent, that is by establishing cultural hegemony (Gramsci 1971). Thus, challengers outside the consensus of the ruling class must fight against cultural hegemony. In Hungarian left wing movement circles, Gramsci is invoked in the development of movement practice, although the most successful movement in this sense was the new radicalism that gained strength in the mid-2000s (Mikecz 2012), which managed to bring the symbols and cultural assets of the radical right into the mainstream. Movements aiming at moral change use moral tools, such as symbols and movement subcultures, to achieve their goals. However, moral change is very difficult to measure because, in addition to the creation of cultural communities and subcultures mentioned above, it also involves changes in values and social norms, the emergence of new fashions and identities (Earl 2004).

Morality as a Logic of Protest The repertoire of protests from which a given social movement can choose is spatially, temporally, and culturally defined, in line with the concept of modular protest referred to above. Thus, to understand the role of morality in protests, it is worth looking beyond the forms of protest, which often combine different means of coercion, to the logic of protest. Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani distinguish between three types of protest logic: numbers, damage, and bearing witness (della Porta and Diani 2006). According to the logic of numbers, protests achieve their goal by being able to exert pressure on decision-makers by mobilizing a large crowd. For decision-makers and the public, the large number of people provides information about the social support behind the cause and the movement, which can have electoral consequences in democratic political systems. Public marches and rallies typically have the potential to have an impact according to the logic of numbers, but petitions are also part of this. Even if it is possible to mobilize a large number of people, the logic of numbers is constrained by the length of electoral cycles and the different policy preferences of voters. The logic of harm is directly compelling. If the demands of the movement are not met, the cost of the damage may ultimately be

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higher for the decision-maker than the cost of a favorable decision for the protesters. Damages can take the form of violence against objects or even persons. More often, however, it manifests itself in some form of loss of income or disruption of the established routines and rituals of everyday life. Take for example strikes, boycotts of products, and roadblocks, but the same logic can also be found in the university occupation of 2012 (Mikecz 2013). The latter example, however, shows that the damage loses its coercive power when it becomes routine, precisely because it is the disruption of routine that becomes routine. From the point of view of political altruism and the appeal to morality, the protest logic of bearing witness is essential. Bearing witness does not achieve its effect through numbers or direct coercive damage to simulate the workings of democracy, but through the demonstration of the strong commitment of participants to the cause. Demonstrations that operate according to the logic of bearing witness show that demonstrators are willing to take personal risks for the cause (della Porta and Diani 2006). Here, however, it is worth distinguishing between the theme and the form of the demonstration. Even in a street march, the organizers and participants may invoke moral considerations and the importance of solidarity with other groups. But a form of protest that operates according to the logic of bearing witness can also be about distributive, material issues. Hunger strikes are a typical form of protest based on the logic of bearing witness. The striker assumes the health risks of hunger. It is mostly used by people for whom other forms are not available, such as people serving prison sentences. However, the demand is not necessarily a call for solidarity, in our example it could be to improve conditions of detention. There is less risk in standing up in democratic conditions on moral grounds to protest on behalf of disadvantaged groups, but the commitment of the protester is then demonstrated by the lack of direct benefit. The demonstration of commitment, the assumption of risk, and the appeal to a higher command or norm is reflected in the logic of witnessing. These elements are also present in one of the earliest examples of protest: In Sophocles’ drama, Antigone defies the royal command and takes the death sentence. She buries her brother in accordance with the divine, and therefore moral, law.

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The logic of bearing witness is also strongly linked to the concept of civil disobedience. Henry David Thoreau, who developed the theory of civil disobedience and put it into practice, argued that the conviction and conscience of the individual is a more important guiding principle than the political majority. For the power of the majority does not lie in their being morally right, but in their physical strength. The majority, however, cannot decide on matters of conscience, but according to criteria dictated by expediency. The individual cannot renounce his conscience in favor of the legislator. For Thoreau, we are men first and subjects second (Thoreau 2001). The problems of the age of civil disobedience, the war with Mexico, and slavery are all raised in Thoreau’s work. In his view, many people blame the politicians of the South for these issues, although he believes that the citizens of his state, Massachusetts, who put morality and conscience after materialism, are also responsible for what happened through their passivity. Even a conscientious vote does not absolve a person from moral action or civil disobedience. For, according to Thoreau, voting is a game, a wager, in which the voter bets on the option he thinks right, but leaves its realization to the majority, and does not actively act for it (Thoreau 2001). The abolitionist cannot therefore wait to be a majority, but must act, and with his full influence. For the minority is invisible, powerless in the face of the majority, as long as it is aligned with it. For resistance, Thoreau advises nonpayment of taxes, a peaceful, bloodless revolution, whereas obedience is precisely what promotes bloodshed (Thoreau 2001).

Morality as a Mobilization Tool During the mobilization process, movement leaders and activists try to mobilize as many supporters and potential allies as possible, and to allocate available resources. Morality also has a role to play in this process. One of the most important findings on collective action is the role of moral incentives. Moral incentives are a response to the stowaway problem raised by Mancur Olson. Olson analyzed patterns of participation within trade unions by examining the relationship between public goods and collective action. Many union leaders complained that few union members attend union meetings

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and that it is difficult to get them to take union office. However, when plant ballots were held nationwide in the United States on the mandatory nature of union membership, the union position won in 97 percent of plants in the first four years. According to Olson, union members are rational because they have an economic interest in a strong union, but not in attending meetings. This freeloading behavior is not, however, typical of smaller unions and can be compensated for by noncollective incentives such as insurance and job search in larger unions (Olson 1971). Participation in collective action may also be motivated by a compulsion to conform to the community and an identification with it, which Olson calls a social or selective incentive. However, the social incentive, according to Olson, is more likely to be found in smaller organizations or federations of organizations with personal connections (Olson 1971). Later, movement researchers wrote explicitly about moral incentives and duty, for example in their research on the motivation for participation in East German protests (Opp et al. 1995). Political altruism, the motivation for solidarity protests in support of other groups, is also moral, since the protestor does not directly benefit from collective action. However, according to Olson’s original concept, the altruistic actor is also rational, since he is selective, acting because of social incentives, aiming to satisfy the expectations of a group. The stowaway problem and the function of particular incentives is essentially a traditional economic theory, and thus carries the starting point that the actor is rational and selfish. Another endpoint is represented by the work of James M. Jasper, who, in contrast to theories that focus on the rational use of resources and take grievances as a given, sought to rethink the role of emotions and culture in mobilizing social movements. As he writes in the Art of Moral Protest, emotions, morality, and cognitive processes are all part of Jasper’s concept of culture. Culture, however, is not seen as uniform and shared by society as a whole, but as hidden in the habits, perceptions, rituals, language, and emotions of individuals and particular groups. Culture can be expressed in the explicit imposition of meanings, but it is also implicit in the spontaneity of protest action. On the other hand, the culture of the movement is both individual and collective (Jasper 1997). Mobilization requires the management

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of moral indignation and emotion by movement leaders, which is a precondition for successful mobilization in movements of political altruism. However, morality is not only relevant for altruistic movements, but also the basis of the collective identity that is essential for the creation of collective action. Different theories of movement studies have different conceptions of the moral, cultural dimension of movements. In behaviorism, these are generalized beliefs that identify grievances and opponents. Symbolic interactionism distinguishes between the symbolism responsible for the appearance of irrational action by the masses and the group identity responsible for maintaining stability. According to the theory, value-oriented movements aim to change prevailing norms at the societal level, while limited personal movements provide identity for a narrower group. According to the theory of relative deprivation, the function of new ideas or “conceptual systems”—which can be either meticulously elaborated ideologies with intellectual ambition or even interlocking emotional reactions—is to legitimize political violence. For resource mobilization theory, the subjective perception of political opportunities is created by cognitive liberation through the important symbolic significance of an event. In the theory of new social movements, collective identity is central as something that shapes and is shaped in collective action, as well as its purpose (Mikecz 2010). However, the reason for the very different grasp of the moral moment is not only to be found in the different focus of the theories, but also in the different nature and purpose of the movements. At the same time, in the intermediate theories of movement research and in movement practice itself, morality can be grasped as the goal of movement activity, as a logic of protest and as a mobilization tool. The essence of political altruism is therefore that the actor makes demands that do not benefit him directly, but rather a group that cannot act on its own behalf. In contemporary societies, these groups are mostly immigrants, refugees, homeless people, and ethnic minorities. Ultimately, altruistic action raises questions of distribution and legal emancipation. But its own action is based on moral maxims. In the practice of social movements, the privatization of morality has made this possible. The activity of social movements can thus be directed towards changing the prevailing norms,

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the established social morality itself, as it appeared in Anglo-Saxon societies in the form of the abolitionist movement and the religious revival. In the 20th century, the new social movements are refocusing on moral and cultural change as a movement goal. What is new, however, is that individualization is increasing the responsibility of the individual in achieving this social and political change. It is thus the individual’s task to constantly reflect on himself, his social position, and his political significance, and on the basis of this, to form political consciousness and political lifestyle in everyday decisions. However, morality cannot only be the goal of movement action, but also very often provides the logic of protest. Indeed, the logic of bearing witness, which is also used by altruistic movements, is based on the protestor showing his commitment to the cause by publicly accepting the retribution for his actions. In this way, he demonstrates that the moral norm he represents is stronger than the positive right he seeks to change. Finally, in movements of political altruism, morality also appears as a mobilizing tool. The leaders of solidarity movements are able to involve as many supporters as possible in collective action through moral incentives and the management of emotions.

Housing Poverty Solidarity Movements The contemporary social movement on the question of the “right to the city” is rooted in urban social movements, the global justice movement, and more recently in austerity movements. Urban social movements are linked to a particular environment, a local space, and their demands are usually organized around collective consumption, cultural identity, and political self-management (Castells 1983). These characteristics are reflected in the specific urban social movement of the 1990s, the Reclaim the Streets (RTS) movement (Jordan 1998), which was already briefly discussed in the third chapter part of this book. The RTS aimed at reclaiming public spaces for local communities. This demand arose when public spaces in cities were being converted and expropriated for business interests. Cities became centers of nonmaterial production and the creative services sector (Florida 2002). This transformation changed

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the access to and use of public spaces, which in many cases were privatized by gated housing estates and shopping centers. The use of more environmentally damaging and space-consuming private cars was prioritized over the cost of public transport. The urban area had become a factor of economic competitiveness. After the 2008 financial crisis, social issues became more prominent beyond the ecological and community interests of urban movements. While the prodemocracy movements (including Occupy, Indignados, the M-15 movement, or the Taksim movement) were concerned with political participation and the responsibility of financial and political elites, urban movements actively defended the interests of mortgage victims (Álvarez et al. 2015). The financial crisis also had serious consequences in Hungary, with a sharp rise in Swiss franc mortgage debts in particular. For the new left alternative activists, homelessness and housing poverty became a prominent political and movement issue. In 2011, the conservative Budapest city government declared homelessness illegal with the support of the second Orbán government, although the new regulation was overturned by the Constitutional Court in 2012. In response, the Orbán government, relying on a two-thirds majority of the governing Fidesz party, changed the constitution, which then allowed for the criminalization of homelessness for cultural, health, and public safety reasons. Since 2011, the group “The City Is for All” (AVM) organized so-called “Housing Marches,” where activists demonstrated against the criminalization of homelessness and for better living conditions. Meanwhile, AVM and their allies have not only focused on homelessness but have also sought to broaden the movement’s interpretative framework by claiming that 2–3 million Hungarians suffer from housing poverty. Nevertheless, the demonstration for the right to the city under the Orbán governments is not only a critique of housing, but also focuses on human dignity, democratic participation, and the illiberal regime. However, AVM is not a traditional solidarity group in the sense that homeless activists are active members of the group, participating in their campaigns and daily activities. Its primary aim is to empower people living in homelessness and housing poverty and to strengthen their political agendas.

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Refugee Solidarity Movements In the summer of 2015, more than 10,000 refugees crossed the Hungarian border every week on their way to Western Europe, mainly Germany. Many of them passed through Budapest, as the Hungarian capital is also a transport hub in the country. As the refugees camped at Keleti station waiting for their chance to leave the country, NGO activists helped them with legal advice, food, clothing, and accommodation. The efforts of these people were recognized by the Hungarian and wider European media. The general view was that the aid groups had also saved the “honor” of Hungarians, as the government embarked on a tough anti-refugee campaign. For the first time, the MigSzol Szeged volunteer group for refugees was established in Szeged on 26 June 2015 (László 2016). Later, the groups “Let’s Help the Refugees Together” and Migration Aid were set up by activists to coordinate donations, volunteers, and organize various activities. The “Let’s Help the Refugees Together” activist group prepared 300–400 hot meals and 1000–2000 sandwiches per day. They tried to find accommodation for the refugees and collected and donated clothes, blankets, diapers, and hygiene supplies for the refugees (László 2016). Doctors also volunteered to help the refugees, as the Hungarian state offered only very limited medical assistance. Activists also entertained children and adults by showing cartoons, playing with balls, and games. At the end of August, the Hungarian authorities refused to allow refugees to leave the country by train, and more and more refugees were squeezed into Keleti station. As the situation worsened, some 1500 refugees decided to travel to Austria on foot. In the meantime, the Hungarian government sent buses for the refugees to reach the Austrian border. During the refugee crisis, the most important aid organizations were Shelter for Migrants (Menedék), Migszol—Migrant Solidarity Group, Migration Aid and Let’s Help the Refugees Together. The colleagues of Shelter for Migrants also work in Budapest, Nyírbátor, Kiskunhalas, Győr, Fót, and Vámosszabadi. In addition to providing direct assistance to refugees, Shelter for Migrants also organizes training for social workers, teachers, civil servants, and members of law enforcement agencies. The Shelter for Migrants also acts as a think tank, aiming to inform the public about migration issues,

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give lectures in schools, support the social integration of refugees, and provide psychological and social counseling services. While Shelter for Migrants was a registered organization set up before the refugee crisis, the other three are less formal, non-institutionalized groups that were organized in response to developments in 2015. Migszol is a grassroots Hungarian migrant and refugee group that advocates for the extension of political and social rights. They actively campaign against detention and expulsion of migrants and raise awareness on the rights of refugees. Migszol does not carry out these activities as an external promoter, but together with the refugees. Migration Aid was originally organized to assist refugees when they transit through Hungary and help them find designated refugee camps. Migration Aid groups have been set up on the routes and in the camps used by refugees, including in Budapest, Bicske, Cegléd, Debrecen, Fót, and Szeged. As mentioned above, donations were coordinated with the Let’s Help the Refugees Together group, providing refugees with ready meals and toiletries. The donations were stored in a cellar not far from the Keleti railway station. Initiatives to help refugees and immigrants can be distinguished according to whether they are organized as NGOs, civil society organizations, or social movements. NGOs that want to promote the admission of migrants have worked at a supranational level to put pressure on the nation state. The negotiations on a common European immigration policy under the Tampere program and the “UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families” have provided an opportunity for NGOs to lobby. Examples of transnational social movement campaigns on behalf of immigrants include the “European Day of Action for the Right of Residence and Freedom of Movement” and the Euromayday demonstrations in the 2000s. In the latter case, the situation of immigrants and refugees was incorporated into the concept of precarity (Monforte 2013). In the United States, a large scale protest campaign was launched when the “Border Security, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act” was passed in 2005. In response, between 3.7 and 5 million people protested in more than 160 cities (Bloemraad et al. 2011). As Ruud Koopmans puts it, the issue of immigration has been linked to three types of political mobilization in Europe since the early

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1990s: by immigrants, against immigrants, and on behalf of immigrants (Koopmans et al. 2005). Mobilizations in solidarity with immigrants are closely linked to anti-racist and antifa movements, where political action is identity-oriented and strongly linked to an inclusive national identity (Koopmans et al. 2005). Organizations and groups that help refugees differ from these mobilizations, as they cannot be understood as a reaction to racist, anti-immigrant mobilizations, nor are they primarily derived from political identities, but are based on the practice of helping. Thus, the driving force is not ideology or political position, but altruistic action.

Claim Making of Solidarity Movements Social movements formulate their claims in public protests. In some cases, the formulation of claims may involve activities beyond protests, such as press releases, public statements or comments, and social media posts. Claims include three elements, namely a subject (who), an object (who) and an action (what) (Lindekilde 2013). Claim making extends the scope of classical protest event analysis beyond the various forms of political protest (Koopmans and Statham 1999). In claim making analysis, routine, institutionalized actions are also subject to research. The method itself can be understood as a mixture of analysis of protest events and interpretative frameworks. Claims can be coded according to elements such as subject, form, addressee, issue, object, and frame (Koopmans et al. 2005), as shown in Table 4.6. This chapter examines the claims of the Table 4.6 Elements of claims Who? (subject)

How? To whom? (form) (recipient)

What? (problem)

Who / against whom? (subject)

Why? (frame)

Migration blames the for not for and thus, fails Aid government providing a refugees to meet its translator international obligations. Source: Koopmans et al. 2005

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aforementioned aid and solidarity organizations, such as Shelter for Migrants, Migszol, Migration Aid, Let’s Help the Refugees Together group, as well as AVM. The source of the analysis of the claims was the print version of Népszabadság, index.hu and MTI, the Hungarian news agency. The timeframe of the analysis of refugee aid organizations is the peak of the refugee crisis in Hungary, that is between 1 May and 31 October 2015. For AVM, the time frame was three years between 2015 and 2018 in order to have a similar amount of data. Articles about the organizations were identified by searching for the name of each organization. We considered claims where the solidarity organization was the subject, that is the one that made the claim. The same claim was counted only once in the same article, but the same claim could be counted more than once in different media and in different articles. The subject, form, and addressee were coded according to the code book of the research project The Transformation of Political mobilization and Communication in European Public Spheres (Koopmans 2002). Some categories were merged or changed due to the relatively lower number of claims and the different nature of the conflicts. The categories of cases and interpretative frameworks were created during the coding process and then reviewed after the first coding. Coding was carried out by one trained coder. It was not possible to code the addressee for all claims, as some were not addressed to a specific actor, but only as a general statement. In the claims analysis, 111 claims were identified in the 164 articles of refugee groups and 96 in the 168 articles of AVM. Migration Aid was the most common actor among the refugee aid organizations, active as a facilitator, expert, and initiator of political protests (Table 4.7). On the contrary, the group Let’s Help the Refugees Together was mostly involved in fundraising and Table 4.7 Subject actors, asylum groups, number of claims Migration Aid Migszol Shelter for Migrants Let’s Help Refugees Together

62 28 14 7

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coordinating distribution, and thus less public activity. Shelter for Migrants, on the other hand, was less active in directly assisting refugees, and more active as a promoter of long-term integration, which was less relevant during the six months of the refugee crisis. The most common form of claim in both cases was a press release or an interview quoted by the press (Table 4.8). The prominence of traditional media is also reflected in the low proportion of social media as a form of claim. Only three times did the refugee groups formulate their claims through a press release, in which case the press was the initiator. AVM was more active in reaching out to the press, with 18 of the 37 claims made directly to the media being made at a press conference or through a press release. In the case of AVM protests, events such as street theater, conferences, and direct action were recurrent methods of formulating claims. The political nature of the claims is also reflected in the results for the recipient of the claim (Table 4.9). Aid organizations appealed to the state, municipalities, and public authorities (73 percent in total). However, political parties played a minor role in the conflict, as did other civil society organizations. The target group of the AVM, apart from the homeless, are people living in rented municipal housing, so the relative majority of the needs were addressed to local authorities. AVM targeted both the central government Table 4.8 Forms of claims Refugee support groups Press release, interview, quoted by the press Call to protest, claim made at a demonstration

AVM 69 26

Conference, publication, open letter

9

Social media entry

7

Press release, interview, quoted by the press Call to protest, claim made at a demonstration Conference, open letter, petition Preventing eviction Concert, street theater, exhibition Social media entry Court of Justice

37 32 7 7 4 4 4

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Table 4.9 Addresses of claims Refugee aid groups Hungarian State, Government Local government Public opinion Public authorities, agencies Foreign state and the EU Ombudsman Church, NGOs Political party

AVM 42

Local government

37

10

Hungarian State, Government Public authorities, agencies Public opinion

26

9 9 5 4 3 2

Political party Parliament Constitutional Court

10 9 7 5 1

and parliament in its efforts to decriminalize homelessness and to secure a state-funded housing project. The issues on which claims were made show (Table 4.10) that groups in solidarity with refugees focused mainly on their relief activities and less on policy change. These include the claims “NGOs and volunteers did the work,” “public authorities should cooperate with civil society organizations,” “infrastructure of refugee camps, transit zones” and “authorities should do their job” (54 percent in total). These claims suggest that volunteers helped refugees on their own, without the help of the authorities. Also, in this category are claims where the aid organizations provided information to the public. Here, claimants stressed how hard and generously the volunteers worked for refugees. They also criticized the incompetence and malice of the authorities. The second most common claim points to the importance of easing anti-immigrant sentiment and tensions in Hungarian society, thereby reducing antipathy and fear towards refugees. Aid groups blamed the government for reinforcing these sentiments with the 2015 poster campaign. Aid groups also frequently referred to human rights and the rights of refugees. Both statements (34 percent in total) are based on the perception that Hungary should be a welcoming country and that the authorities and the government should respect human and refugee rights. The category “legislation, laws on migration” makes claims more

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Table 4.10  Issues of claims Refugee aid groups NGOs and volunteers did the work

AVM 23

Anti-immigrant sentiment 19 needs to be eased Human rights, refugee rights Public authorities should cooperate with civil society organizations Infrastructure of refugee camps, transit zones Regulations, laws on migration Authorities should do their job The refugee crisis is not a political issue

19

Housing, social policy, homeless shelters, housing crisis Criminalization of homelessness, negative discrimination against homeless people Evictions

27 26

16

13

Displacement of families 12 without alternative housing

13

Dignity of homeless people

4

10

Public toilets Taking children out of homeless families Civil disobedience Border fence Overtime law Opposition politics

2 2

9 3

2 2 1 1

along the lines of political issues. The claim that helping refugees is not a party-political issue reflects the apolitical nature of domestic civil action. While the criminalization of homelessness was a priority issue for AVM, the group also addressed different dimensions of housing poverty, from evictions without alternative housing to general housing policy and the rights of homeless people and children. Such a diversity of topics is indicative of the group’s expertise and its strategy of highlighting issues that promote empathy for homeless people. These issues include the lack of public toilets, the eviction of families, and the registration of homeless children’s addresses. As AVM is an established group whose activities go beyond policy issues, they have also articulated claims during anti-government protests, such as the 2014 internet tax protests and the 2018 overtime law

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demonstrations. They have also made claims on civil disobedience, a key element of the group’s strategy, and on blocking evictions. Unsurprisingly, in most cases, refugee aid groups have made claims in the interests of refugees. The aid groups, the civil activists themselves, came second, which is linked to claims about the altruism of the organizations and the incompetence of the Hungarian authorities in dealing with the crisis. Political parties emerged as negative actors, as aid organizations claimed that helping refugees should be an apolitical activity. As MigSzol was involved in the gay pride campaign, LGBTQ people were also the object of the claims. In the case of AVM, the subjects of the claim were more diverse. They distinguish between homeless families, people experiencing housing poverty, tenants, Roma people, and homeless children. This diversity reflects AVM’s focus on different aspects of homelessness and housing poverty (Table 4.11). There is an obvious difference between the two groups in the way they use morally grounded frames to formulate their claims. In the case of refugee groups, 42 out of 109 claims had a moral frame, while in the case of AVM only 25 out of 96 had a moral framework. Refugee groups argued in 14 claims that civil altruism is morally superior. Negative sentiments towards refugees and the government’s campaign were also reasons for action. AVM used fewer

Table 4.11 Subjects of the claim Refugee aid groups

AVM

Refugees Support groups

83 18

Political parties

4

Residents

2

LGBTQ people

2

Authority

1

Homeless people Families People living in housing poverty Tenants, residents of Budapest People threatened with eviction Minors Roma people Participants in civil disobedience Refugees Employees Opposition

36 18 15 10 5 3 2 2 2 1 1

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interpretive frames invoking morality, in most cases justifying their actions on the grounds of protecting the dignity of families and homeless people (Table 4.12). The results of the claims analysis are summarized in Table 4.13. An important issue for both solidarity movements was to change the negative public perception of their target groups. However, the logic of bearing witness was more characteristic of AVM, which used the prevention of evictions to demonstrate the commitment of their activists. Almost half of the frames of the refugee support Table 4.12  Morally justified interpretative frameworks Refugee aid groups Civil altruism

AVM 14

Protecting children and families The dignity of homeless people Civil disobedience is morally justified Fear must be eased; solidarity must be shown The credibility of left wing political parties

Fear must be eased; 13 solidarity must be shown The government incites 12 hatred Protecting children and 2 families The refugees were left alone 1

36 18 10 5 3

Table 4.13  The presence of morality on the levels of issues, forms, and frames during the claims-making process Morality in claims making

Refugee aid AVM groups

Claim issues: changing social values Claim forms: logic of bearing witness Claim frames: moral incentives and references

++

++

—

++

++

+

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groups were morally based, while AVM used expertise and rational arguments more often. To sum it up, the analysis of the claims made by refugee aid groups in 2015 and the AVM homeless support group between 2015 and 2018 revealed different functions of morality in the movements’ practices according to their goals, forms of action, and means of mobilization (Table 4.14). Refugee aid organizations have provided information, legal advice, food, accommodation, and medical care to refugees crossing the border. The majority of their claims were related to the need to be able to carry out their work without hindrance. This included criticism of the Hungarian government and authorities, as the aid groups claimed that they were not fulfilling their role. At the same time, aid groups stressed the importance of their own role and responsibility. Aid groups were less concerned with migration-related regulations, policies, and EU-level agreements. Demands tended to focus on practices related to refugee assistance, with claims with political-legal consequences being less important. This finding is in line with the findings of Kende et al. (2017), who showed that volunteers helping refugees were motivated by the expression of their moral convictions and identity, rather than by the possibility of changing public morale. Direct action to prevent evictions played a significant role in AVM’s action Table 4.14 The role of morality in the practice of solidarity movements The role of morality Goals

Refugee aid groups

Alleviate antirefugee sentiment Forms Prefigurative action Tools for Moral incentives mobilization (reinforcement of altruistic stance)

AVM Calls for solidarity with the homeless Civil disobedience Managing emotions (helping families, policy recommendations), moral incentives

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repertoire. This direct action is based on the theory of civil disobedience, which emphasizes individual responsibility and the superior value of morality over positive law. In terms of the means of mobilization, refugee organizations have given moral incentives to their activists and supporters, reinforcing their altruistic stance while stressing the importance of voluntary action and the ineptitude and reluctance of the authorities. This altruistic stance was reinforced at a time when party politics was in conflict with civil action. The general distrust in institutionalized politics and the strong civil society ethos in East Central Europe (Glenn 2001) reinforced the altruistic, voluntary dimension of activism at the expense of the political. AVM used complex emotion management when formulating policy recommendations, while at the same time focusing on families to create emotional identification and solidarity. Refugee support organizations during the 2015 European refugee crisis were closer to voluntary organizations of political altruism than to politically motivated solidarity movements. Voluntary organizations and initiatives can channel the altruistic resources of a society to its beneficiaries. In contrast to solidarity movements, such voluntary organizations do not implement political action or agendas, but depoliticized services, and they do not seek to engage in conflicts with the authorities (Ranci 2001). Established solidarity movements used a mix of political argumentation and morally grounded action. New solidarity movements can rely on morality to complement a lack of expertise or resources. As noted by Feischmidt and Zakariás (2019), during the refugee crisis in the Hungarian emergency, charity led to a critique of the political situation. The authors called this the politicization of charity, meaning that political actors perform acts of benevolence as a critique of the government.

Prefigurative Politics and Movement Free Spaces Prefigurative politics aims to establish the desired, ideal social order through movement practice in the present rather than becoming entangled in bureaucratic, hierarchical systems. Recently, academic and critical interest in the prefigurative action of social movements has increased due to its promise of progressive politics as a strategy (Soborski 2019; Monticelli 2021) and its use of a theoretical concept

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through which open-ended activism can be understood (Swain 2019; Jeffrey and Dyson 2021). While prefigurative action aims to change values and power relations in society and politics, it is ultimately directed inwards, focusing on communities and informal groups rather than on institutionalized politics. In addition to the occupation of the University of Theatre and Film in 2020, the occupation of a large lecture hall of the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) Faculty of Humanities in 2013 was of particular importance for the student movement. They protested against a decrease in the number of students in higher education, the so-called student contracts, which required students with a state scholarship to work in Hungary for a certain number of years, and against budget cuts. In what follows, I examine the university occupation as a form of action and the significance of the physical space occupied on the university campus. Although external solidarity protesters appeared in both the 2013 and 2020 university occupations, horizontal decision-making, prefigurative action, and activist self-reflection justify discussing this form of protest as experienceoriented activism.

A Short History of Student Movements The precursors of contemporary student movements and university occupations were the North American and Western European student movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The forms of action, appearance of activists, and interpretative frames of the time reappear in later student movements, but the public life of institutionalized student representative bodies and university campuses also bears the hallmarks of the old movement. However, similarities can be found not only at the level of formalities. In the 1960s, students from families with higher status and income were typically more active (Westby 1976). The findings of the Active Youth research team in Hungary are similar (Szabó and Oross 2012). Parallels can also be drawn in terms of broader social critique as well. The student movement of the 1960s was the most important source of the New Left, with several important organizations, activists, and opinion-makers emerging in the wake of the protests of the time (Barker 2008). However, the New Left political affiliation was only a narrow core of students. Alongside them was a wider circle of non-organized,

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occasional participants in the actions, and sympathizers who did not participate (Westby 1976). In the case of the Hungarian student movement, too, there was a hard core of the most committed activists, permanent organizers, and known participants in the protests, who were also the initiators of the occupation of the university itself. After the “turbulent” 1960s, the wave of protests subsided. In the 1970s, the economic slowdown compared to the previous decade and the successive oil crises left the young generation uncertain about their future. As a consequence, many had less free time for protests, and more and more chose courses that traditionally had less social activism (IT, law, and engineering) (Altbach and Cohen 1990). In Western Europe, the deconstruction of the student movement can be linked to the shift towards the center of European communist parties and the democratization of right wing authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe (Barker 2008). From the second half of the 1970s, in parallel with the neoconservative turn, the general patterns of social activism changed, and traces of this change were also visible in American universities. Action was directed inwards, towards the individual, towards lifestyle, and self-help groups and religious cults proliferated. In the 1980s, the neoconservative political climate in American universities was disrupted only by protests against the apartheid regime in South Africa. These protests were among the first occasions when computer networks were used to organize demonstrations (Altbach and Cohen 1990). After the turn of the millennium, the student movement was revived under the influence of ideas of higher education reform, which were seen as neoliberal. The mobilizing influence of the antiglobalization movement also played an important role in this period. The Bologna process, which aimed to create a single European higher education area, was the most powerful mobilizing force. In some EU Member States, this was accompanied by measures to curb university autonomy, which then triggered a series of student protests in Italy (2005), Spain (2005–2006), Denmark (2005), Greece (2006) and France (2007). The restrictions on university autonomy and the cuts to higher education were later followed by student protests in Germany (2009), Austria (2009), Croatia (2009), and the UK (2010). The Hungarian student movement of 2012–2013 was part of the latter wave.

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At the end of 2012, a large scale wave of protests was launched among Hungarian students against the reduction of higher education quotas and the introduction of student contracts. The protests were organized by the Hallgatói Önkormányzatok Országos Szövetsége [National Conference of Student Self-Governments] (HÖOK) and the Hallgatói Hálózat [Student Network] (HaHa), founded in 2006 and revived in 2011. One of the reasons for the creation of HaHa was precisely the dissatisfaction with the student representation system, which was the hallmark of the HÖOK. HaHa was founded in 2006 in opposition to the then socialist-liberal government’s plan to introduce the development contribution, a quasi tuition fee (Gerő 2013). Later, in 2011, the organization became active again in the wake of the planned reforms in higher education. The adoption of the new Higher Education Act in December 2011 and the announcement of drastically reduced funding in September 2012 further increased student dissatisfaction. The protest events of 2012 kicked off on 20 January, when HaHa activists gave a performance at the Educatio Education Exhibition (Gerő 2013). In November, the student group Lágymányos Interest Representation Community (LÉK), founded on the Lágymányos campus of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), wanted to initiate a university strike along the lines of the Croatian student squatters’ movement, but the announcement of new cuts in the number of students led to street protests, which made the university strike plan lose its relevance. On 10 December, HaHa organized a forum in Lágymányos, where the students’ six points were adopted. After the forum, the students closed the Petőfi bridge and marched to Kossuth Square. On the same day in Szeged, about 40 students occupied the Szeged government office and managed to get the head of office to receive their petition. Demonstrations were organized on 12 December by HÖOK, on 17 December by the Human Platform, and on 19 December by secondary school students (Gerő 2013). It is no coincidence that the students were planning to occupy the building of the ELTE Faculty of Humanities. In their research on student participation in higher education, Szabó and Oross found that students in the social sciences, humanities, and arts are more open to political and public issues (2012). This is the same group that uses direct democratic participation forms more intensively than students

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in other fields of study. The same study also found that Hungarian higher education students prefer conventional forms of direct participation, such as collecting signatures, petitions, and participating in demonstrations, which, as the study cited, require less individual effort and involve less personal risk (Szabó and Oross 2012).

The University Occupation The occupation of the university began on 11 February 2013, after around 40 students stopped the teaching of several lectures at the ELTE Faculty of Humanities building on Museum Boulevard and then urged their fellow students to join them. The action was not exclusively initiated by the Student Network, as the participants presented themselves as squatters, which of course does not exclude potential overlap. In the subsequent forum, around 120–130 students gathered and agreed to blockade the university (origo 2013a). On the evening of the 11th, the protesters marched from the Faculty of Humanities to Corvinus University and then to the University of Film and Theatre Arts via the Museum Garden (origo 2013b). According to a press statement issued the next day, the occupation was justified by the government’s refusal to negotiate the six points of the students’ demands in the months preceding the occupation. According to the press release, the aim of the creation of the free university forums was to inform the widest possible audience about “reforms on the future of education.” The squatters also asked the participants in the National Higher Education Consultative Forum to show solidarity with them and their action. A vivid summary of the squatters’ aims and reasons for the occupation is given in the text of the leaflet they distributed: The base and center of resistance and pressure. The students, in a situation justified by current politics, take over and take back control of the building. In order to achieve our goals, we must create the basic conditions. We need a center where we can meet, where we can debate, where we can organize the different levels of resistance. The first center of student resistance is the university. At the university we organize forums, we hold debates, we develop our long-term goals.

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In order to continue this work effectively and with the involvement of as many people as possible, we need to create a blockade. The usual routine of classes will be discontinued, replaced by open university lectures and other alternative programmes. This is a temporary, exceptional situation which will remain in place until our objectives are achieved or until the Forum decides otherwise. The university occupation was eventually limited to a single lecture hall, which also served as a venue for subsequent activities (open university lectures and forums). Many of the students slept in the corridors of the lecture halls on the campus, thus avoiding being forced off campus. However, activists did not wind down the university occupation to meet their physical needs. They organized the tasks of maintaining the occupation and mobilization. The operational tasks were carried out by so-called working groups, which were made up of one or more coordinators per group. The university occupiers set up five working groups: university actions (classroom visits), “sixpoint” flash mob, a working group focusing on involving other universities, an internet and finally a communication working group (source: University Occupation Budapest 2013—Facebook group). The activists also adopted a four-point agenda. They insisted on nonviolence even in the case of police intervention, no alcohol or illicit drugs on campus, protection of university property, and keeping the action away from political parties and their affiliated organizations (University Occupation Policy). The most important decisions were taken in daily forums held from 6pm. Here the working groups reported on their activities. Decisions were taken collectively, using known hand signals. As each of these occasions was used to decide whether to maintain the occupation, the squatters interpreted this as a legitimation of the occupation in itself. Behind the working group structure and the collective decision making with hand signals, it is not difficult to detect the influence of the Student Network, whose activists already had sufficient experience in this field. The squatters were not confined to the campus of ELTE. As the working group structure shows, they also aimed to involve other higher education institutions. As mentioned, one lecture hall was already the starting and end point of the street demonstration on

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the first day of the occupation. Later on, street protests took place, with the occupied lecture hall being the base of these protests. These actions took place in public squares in the vicinity of the Museum Boulevard and mainly on the days after the occupation (14, 15, 18, 19 February).

Peaceful, Passive Forms of Protest The forms of protest used by social movements, or in Charles Tilly’s terminology, the repertoire of collective action, are historically and geographically specific and limited (Tilly 1978). Most of the modern forms of protest that we know today are linked to the bourgeois transformation and are developed in the 18th century. Before the advent of civil society and the public sphere, the expression of discontent was direct, addressed to the local authority. This was embedded in the daily life of local society, in accordance with local folk rituals and church holidays. With the strengthening of the role of parliament, the consolidation of civic publicity, the erosion of traditional social ties, and the routinization of electoral assemblies, collective forms of action were addressed to the center and aimed at achieving a public resonance, such as petition signing and street demonstrations (Tilly 2004). The choice of form of protest depends primarily on the forms available to a particular group and their suitability for expressing dissatisfaction and their effectiveness in achieving the desired goal (Tilly 1978). Changing the repertoire of protest and adopting new forms is a slow process. Change depends on the norms prevailing within the community, the daily routines of the population, patterns of organization, the experience of previous collective action and the nature and extent of control and repression by the authorities (Tilly 1978). However, the spread of new forms of action is also linked to collective action itself. During cycles of protest, forms of protest are able to unfold, which are not mere tools but carry with them the characteristics of the period, the protesters, and their goals (Tarrow 1993). The occupation of universities as a form of protest first appeared during the student uprisings of 1968, and has since been in the protest repertoire of student movements. It is related in nature to the nonviolent forms that emerged in the 20th century in India and in

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the southern states of the United States (Tarrow 2011). Gandhi first consciously used the nonviolent, passive form of protest in South Africa and later in India. Later, the African American human rights movement protested racial segregation in restaurants in the South in a peaceful way. In the 1980s, such nonviolent forms of protest were popular with the West German environmental movements protesting against nuclear power stations. This practice is known as sit-in, or sit-down strike, which means that the passive physical presence of a protester causes disruption or paralysis in the functioning of an institution or organization. Since the person doing a sit-in is peaceful and passive, action against him or her can only be achieved by active physical intervention, and the removal of the person inevitably focuses attention on the vulnerability of the protester’s physical integrity and the brutality of the authorities. However, intervention by the authorities can lead to an escalation of violence. Prolonged sit-ins involve the occupation of physical space, such as protest camps, which have become part of the action repertoire of the British peace and environmental movements (Doherty 2003). In the 2010s, the establishment of protest camps became a common form of large scale protest. In these cases, a large urban space with symbolic significance is occupied by protesters and then a permanent camp is set up on the site. Such camps have been set up in Egypt (Tahrir Square), the United States (Zucotti Park), Spain (Puerta del Sol), Turkey (Gezi Park), and in the Ukraine (Maidan Square). These protest camps were able to exert constant pressure on the protest targets. One of the guarantees of a permanent presence is the continuous online mobilization on the internet and social networking sites. In Hungary, the first memorable sit-in was organized by the Fidesz executive committee in front of the Ministry of the Interior on 27 April 1989. A similar peaceful, passive protest exercise took place when opponents of the NATO radar planned for the top of the Zengő hill chained themselves to the trees to be felled. After the events of autumn 2006, radical right wing activists set up a permanent, long-lasting protest camp on Kossuth Square at the Hungarian parliament building. There were no university occupations before the events of February 2013, although there were some temporary occupations of lecture halls in the year before.

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The Protest Logic of University Occupation According to Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani (2006), movement forms of action have a specific logic along which collective action can achieve its goals. As it was briefly discussed before, they distinguish three such logics: the logic of numbers, the logic of damage, and the logic of bearing witness. In the case of numbers, the aim is to demonstrate that there are many protesters, either through mass marches or by collecting petitions. The large number of participants in collective action gives an idea of the social support for the protest groups, from which decision-makers can draw conclusions for the forthcoming elections. Numbers thus follow the logic of participatory democracy as the will of the majority must prevail in political decision-making. However, there are obstacles to this logic, as the terms of elected bodies do not necessarily coincide with the timing of protest events, so an issue may lose its relevance by the time of the elections, and voters do not cast their ballots solely on the basis of a particular issue, as the complexity of policy preferences may lead them to choose a party that does not support the aims of their movement. Acts of violence exert pressure directly, such as violence against objects through material losses and violence against persons through threats to physical integrity and life. However, there is also a symbolic dimension to acts of violence. Acts of aggression do not take place exclusively when there is no other way of expressing political dissatisfaction besides state repression. Violence is also a sign that the demonstrator does not recognize or respect the recognized forms of protest nor the upholders of such norms, and thus considers the state and its violent organizations illegitimate. Similarly, renunciation of violence may have an underlying message: it draws attention to the extent of state repression—the best example being Gandhi’s movement. The disadvantage of using violence is that those who do use it can easily lose public support, and it forces former supporters to make a choice about the use of violence, thus polarizing the conflict (della Porta and Diani 2006). However, harm is not only about the use of violence. Nonviolent forms of protest can also be used to cause harm, by disrupting the normal course of everyday life, by upsetting established routines, and by causing disruption. The disruption of routine attracts the attention of the press, forcing the authorities and the public to address the movement. Damage

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is greatest in nonviolent forms when it has some economic consequence, such as a strike or boycott. The logic of bearing witness has a less direct effect. In this case, the protest action does not achieve its effect through large numbers or material losses, but through the moral stand, example, and sacrifice of the participants. The religious connotation of the term is not accidental. Individual participation and personal responsibility are important. These are reflected in the civil disobedience that is closest to the logic of bearing witness. It is the logic of bearing witness that is closest to contemporary movements with grassroots democracy and decentralized decision-making, which are based on personal participation (della Porta and Diani 2006). Through bearing witness, the movement also gives an image and message of the sociopolitical order it considers ideal. The organizational structure and the way in which decisions are made are not only important for social movements for practical reasons, but also reflect the worldview that the movement carries. The anti-hierarchical, networked organizational structure and grassroots democratic decision-making first appeared in the New Left movements and later became an essential element of the new social movements. Underlying the use of such techniques and procedures is the recognition that the means of achieving social change cannot be through the seizure of power through a centralized organization, as the communist and social democratic parties believed, but can be imagined through the development of alternative democratic structures. All three logics can to a certain extent be detected in the university occupation as a form of action (Table 4.15). To a lesser extent, the Table 4.15 The logic of collective action in the case of university occupation The logic of numbers The logic of damage The logic of bearing witness

Occupy the physical space on campus, demonstrate support, reduce personal risk, inspire supporters Disruption to the routine functioning of the university Horizontal decision-making, individual risk-taking, breaking university rules, symbols and rituals associated with activist identity

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logic of numbers is present, although a certain number of participants is necessary to carry out the action itself, not only to physically occupy the space, but also to demonstrate support for the cause to other university citizens, the government, the press, and the public. When many people participate in an action, it gives encouragement to individual activists and reduces the risk of personal prosecution. However, the university occupation was not initially a mass action, with press reports claiming that only 30 activists started the action, but they were joined by more students in the meantime. In the case of the university occupation, the harm is found in the disruption of the routine functioning of the university. The activists disrupted several classes on the first day, and later on most of the lectures were canceled. The order of university weekdays was disrupted not only by the disruption of lectures and seminars, which was how they promoted the movement’s aims and attracted supporters, but also by the unauthorized use of the building, especially of one of the major lecture halls. This hall became a base for protesters, a permanent venue for forums, free-university lectures, and other programs that were not part of the university’s official business or part of the routine functioning of the institution. In addition to the organization of alternative programs, the fact that this large lecture hall, together with other venues in the university building, was used by the squatters for a short period of time as a place to live, sleep, eat, and clean themselves, contributed to the disruption in a spectacular way. However, disruption of routine can only provoke a reaction from the targets of the protest, the press, and the public until it becomes routine itself. It is no coincidence that, as part of the agreement with the squatting students, the dean of the faculty allowed the use of the hall in question for forums and alternative lectures. However, the university occupation also shows that nonviolent actions following the logic of damage can also provoke opposition from neutral parties and even potential supporters. Over the course of the occupation, the squatters were accused of not allowing their fellow students to study properly, with the sole aim of causing disruption. The logic of bearing witness is seen in the disobedience to university rules and horizontal decision-making practices, and in the case of the university occupation it is this logic that is most strongly

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expressed. Taking individual risks for a good cause, accepting retribution for breaking the rules, demonstrates a high level of commitment and gives the students who are occupying the university a moral high ground over those who are the targets of the protest. This moral superiority is reinforced by the age of the protesters. In political conflicts, young age can carry connotations of incorruptibility and honesty, which can easily be countered by a framing attempt to associate youth with natural restlessness, naivety, and inexperience. Both the student movement and the squatters have used direct democratic techniques, or in other words horizontal decision-making, to demonstrate ideal political structures. In forums that are held from time to time, issues are discussed and decisions made with the participation of those present, using hand signals, as in the Occupy Wall Street movement in North America and the Indignados movement in Spain. Such horizontal decision-making solutions require the active participation of protesters, which, in addition to strengthening the logic of bearing witness, serves to consolidate the collective identity of the movement and stabilize the network of activists through interaction. Bearing witness is achieved not only through risk-taking but also through individual example, which is why symbols and rituals play an important role in collective actions that carry this logic. The squatter bears witness not only through his participation in horizontal decision-making, but also through his own clothing, the tools associated with his status as a movement leader (megaphone), his roles (moderation, organization), his way of speaking and using language, and the everyday life of an activist (sleeping in a lecture hall, playing music together), all of which carry the message of the movement. Higher status also predisposes people to more active political participation in general (Szabó and Oross 2012).

The Occupied Lecture Hall as Movement Free Space In addition to the university occupation as a form of action, it is worth examining the resulting occupied space within the university building. After the first day of the university occupation (11 February), the squatters set up their base in building “A” of the campus of the ELTE Faculty of Humanities, mainly room 0.47.

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This large lecture hall became the venue for the squatters’ forums, alternative lectures, and seminars held by members of the Teachers’ Network. It was also the starting point for later protests and became the physical space of the squatters’ daily life. Free spaces have a special place in the creation and maintenance of a movement’s collective identity. Free spaces provide an opportunity for a community to develop a deep and self-conscious group identity and to learn the competences and civic mentality necessary to shape public affairs. In other words, free spaces can be found between private life and the larger institutions, allowing individuals to act independently from authorities and realize purposeful action (Evans and Boyte 1992). Free spaces play a special role in maintaining the movement network during periods of inactivity, in addition to building collective identity, and in helping to expand the movement and recruit potential supporters. Different researchers have different ideas about whether a specific geographical space is a free space or whether it includes virtual spaces and even symbolic representations such as a work of art. What is common to all definitions of free space is that they designate a space that is not under the control of authorities (Poletta 1999). Thus, churches of African Americans in the American South, family communities in Algeria, European “squats,” or feminist bookshops can be considered as free space, and for a time the campus building “A,” more narrowly lecture hall 0.47, took on such a function for the occupants of the ELTE Faculty of Humanities. According to Francesca Poletta, different concepts of free spaces can be classified by the relationship between individuals and networks (Table 4.16). Free spaces between movements, transmovement, Table 4.16 Types and functions of free spaces Free space types

Free space features

Transmigration “Native”

Identifying policy options Finding leaders, recruiting new activists and supporters, creating the necessary interpretative framework for mobilization Demonstration of an idealized social and political order, formulation of new identities

Demonstration

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connect preexisting movement networks, which serve the purpose of enabling movement members to identify political opportunities, but are not suitable for selecting leaders, developing interpretative frameworks, or recruiting supporters. In contrast, indigenous spaces can perform these functions, that is the production of leaders, the recruitment of new activists and supporters, and the creation of interpretative frameworks for mobilization, but are insufficient for assessing political opportunities beyond the local and mobilizing supporters who are not embedded in local contexts. These free spaces are characterized by strong interpersonal ties, close ties, and the isolation of the network. The third type of free spaces identified by Poletta are those that demonstrate in themselves the social and political set-up that the movement considers ideal, prefigurative. They are capable of articulating new identities and demands, but are difficult to sustain unless they create services that are not linked to the movement, such as legal aid, education, support for community initiatives, bookstores, and cultural events. Examples of the first type are the American National Women’s Party and the radical pacifists, the second are the black churches of the South and the medieval craft guilds, while the third type is offered by the autonomous spaces and alternative services of the new social movements, according to Poletta (1999). The political action associated with prefigurative free spaces, that is, prefigurative politics itself, is a fundamental feature of experience-oriented activism, a recurrent element in many of the movements discussed here, including the Living Memorials movements, the university occupation, and even the radical right. According to the coiner of the term prefigurative politics, Carl Boggs, both etatism and social democracy foregrounded the centralized state as the main source of political action and redistribution (Boggs 1977). For the Bolsheviks, the bureaucratic party and state guaranteed a monopoly of power, while for the social democrats, electoral mobilization and parliamentary participation alienated them from local initiatives. Both concepts stressed the importance of institutions, techniques, and means, while neglecting ends. Prefigurative politics thus rejects both vanguard and structural reformist solutions, instead seeking to create alternative processes and institutions within the existing system itself in order to disrupt its hegemony

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(Leach 2013). In terms of the logic of protest developed by Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani, prefigurative politics follows the logic of bearing witness. This means that political pressure is not triggered by the large number of supporters mobilized or the damage caused by protest actions, but by moral standing, sacrifice, and setting an example (della Porta and Diani 2006). Participation and individual responsibility taking are crucial. In prefigurative action, the organizational structure and the form of decision-making are not only important for practical reasons, but also reflect the ideals of the movement. A key element is also broad participation, not efficiency. Prefigurative action can be linked to the concept of expressive action in the literature on social movement research (Turner and Killian 1987). In contrast to practical instrumental action with clear, detailed demands, expressive action is a means of expressing emotions, beliefs, and identities. According to Alberto Melucci, the specificity of new social movements is the kind of political action for which collective identity is both its basis and direction. In developed countries, social relations, identities, and individual needs are becoming part of economic production. This production depends not only on the involvement, accumulation, and organization of material and human resources, but also on the complex construction of symbols, social relations, and information. The new antagonistic conflicts thus arise around identity and social relations, which also form the basis of production and consumption (Melucci 2003). However, prefigurative action is not exclusively inward looking, but demonstrates to decision-makers and the public a commitment to a society that is considered ideal. In the last decade, the expressive dimension of protest has been further enhanced by social media, an ideal tool for sharing and presenting the particular movement milieu that is the site of prefigurative action. Prefigurative action can also be found in early left wing communities such as the workers’ councils organized during the Paris Commune, the Spanish Civil War, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (Boggs 1977), among others. More broadly, the concept of civil society, which was “discovered” in Central and Eastern Europe from the late 1970s as mentioned in the second chapter, can also be seen as a type of prefigurative politics. The various concepts

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of effective resistance to the communist regime emerged in this period, ranging from the new evolution (Adam Michnik) through anti-politics (György Konrád) to the second society (Elemér Hankiss). What these concepts have in common is the elaboration of a dissident, alternative social structure outside the communist, formal world. In the second society, interpersonal and economic interactions and autonomy challenge the system. Later, during the democratic transition, civil society became a normative concept capable of implementing resistance to authoritarian regimes. Accordingly, civil society was seen as a precondition for democracy and active citizenship as it provides a space and a means to overcome existing socialism. After the democratic transformations in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, prefigurative action gained new momentum in Marxist, socialist, and anarchist circles. John Holloway argued that social change could not be achieved by gaining power through the state. Both the reformist and revolutionary forces were proved wrong, as the state was seen as a mere tool of the capitalist class that could be used by others (Holloway 2002). However, the state cannot be separated from the social and institutional environment, which is fundamentally capitalist in nature. Not only the state, but also power is incapable of significant political and social change. Revolution must take power in order to abolish power (Holloway 2002). The point, as the title of Holloway’s book suggests, is to change the world without taking power. This idea is inspired by the indigenous Zapatista movement in Mexico. Change can therefore be achieved through “alternative social practices” rather than a focus on the state and power. The method is creation by negation, engaging in activities that are not motivated by profit or the pursuit of power. Through such activities, “cracks” in the system can be found through which new social horizons open up (Holloway 2010). In practical terms, cracks are the reconfiguration of space and time by people who do not wish to organize their lives according to capitalism. These include grassroots organizing, protest and, above all, prefigurative action, or, as Holloway puts it, action to do otherwise (Holloway 2010). In the repertoire of the social movement, the idea of prefigurative action was not only a theoretical concept, but also appeared

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in the practice of the movement. One important example is the antiglobalization or global justice movement, which emerged in the late 1990s and gradually lost its relevance after the 2008 financial crisis, or took on new form and content through the antiausterity movements. While traditional organizations, such as trade unions and political parties, have also been involved in the global justice movement, it has focused essentially on means rather than ends. In the case of the European Social Forum, for example, prefigurative politics was implemented by emphasizing an inclusive, transparent, participatory horizontal method (Maeckelbergh 2011). This prefigurative process was also used in the organization of large scale protests and in the daily routine of the movement. Prefiguration was not just a tool or element of strategy, but the strategy itself, as it ensured the development of an existing, inclusive, multi-objective horizontal structure (Maeckelbergh 2011). Prefigurative action was also used during later mobilizations such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements. While the Egyptian Revolution was not a bloodless uprising, during the Occupation of Tahrir Square, protesters implemented the political goals of the movement on the ground (Sande 2013). Among the post-2011 movements, Occupy Wall Street and other Occupy movements also employed prefigurative action. These movements have been criticized by mainstream commentators, the press, and politicians for not having clear, detailed political demands (Howard and Pratt-Boyden 2013). In fact, the various Occupy movements have focused on prefiguration, inclusion, and participation, which may have seemed unusual to critics. A key element of prefigurative activity is the use of horizontal forms of decision-making (Maeckelbergh 2012). The anti-hierarchical, network-based organizational structure and horizontal decision-making was also used by the New Left movements and the New Social Movements from the late 1960s onwards. These forms include hand gestures, used by both the antiglobalization and Occupy Wall Street movements. Activists can, among other things, express their agreement, disagreement, or opposition to a proposal in the deliberations. Another form of horizontal decisionmaking is the human microphone, which is the loud repetition of a speaker’s sentences in order to be heard by a larger crowd. Despite

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these techniques, Occupy movements have not always succeeded in achieving broad participation and prefiguration. The Occupy movement in the United States has been accused of being exclusive since it has not addressed gender aspects of economic inequalities, developed conflicts with the homeless, has not been successful in working with trade unions, precisely because of the contrast between prefigurative and traditional strategies (Pickerill and Krinsky 2012). In the case of Occupy London, horizontal decision-making bodies and the various working groups have been subject to the influence of certain individuals and groups (Howard and Pratt-Boyden 2013). The lack of clarity of powers and institutionalized roles has made personal competences, prestige, and access to resources important, which can inevitably lead to the marginalization of those without them. Coming back to the university reservation, the 0.47 lecture hall was not part of the official university, so it is accepted that it was a free, non-hierarchical space for the movement. The occupied university grand lecture hall is a special free space for the movement in that it was only temporarily occupied. Despite the shortness of the time available, the occupied 0.47 lecture hall was nevertheless able to fulfill some of the functions that Poletta mentions in connection with each type of free space. In some respects, the occupied lecture hall can be seen as a trans-movement, since it was not only the activists of the Student Network who participated in the occupation of the university and it was precisely the short time available that made it difficult to identify political opportunities. On the other hand, the occupied lecture hall also fulfilled the function of indigenous free spaces, but for the squatters and the Student Network, pubs linked to activists were more important for such purposes. Within Poletta’s typology of the student movement, the most important function of the occupied lecture hall was to demonstrate the social order that was considered ideal. This room provided a site for the movement practices that emerged in relation to the logic of bearing witness discussed above. Through these movement practices andhorizontal decision-making processes, the free space reinforced the solidarity of activists, their networks, and their identities. Such movement practices included joint leisure programs in the

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auditorium, the lectures of the Free University. The free space also served as an important base for organizing and mobilizing street demonstrations. As the activists put it in the leaflet quoted above, “We need a center where we can meet, where we can debate, where we can organize different levels of resistance. The first center of student resistance is the university. On campus we organize forums, we hold debates, we develop our long-term goals.” Compared to other free spaces linked to the student movement in Budapest, which were typically community cafés and pubs, the occupation of the 0.47 lecture hall in 2013 was only temporary and therefore had limited capacity to perform certain functions. What is certain, however, is that it brought a typical movement practice and style, that is the expressive side of movement politics, closer to a more apolitical audience. After a strong start, the university occupation became less and less interesting. As the movement “settled” in the 0.47 lecture hall, their activities became familiar and routine, and the form of protest lost its relevance, as it no longer corresponded to the logic of damage.

Advocacy Activism The characteristic of advocacy political activism is that this form of political action is taken in the interest of a closed community, since trade unions and advocates make demands to policy makers in the interests of their members. However, there are no particular barriers to becoming an activist, such as cultural or ethnic barriers, as long as someone belongs to the same occupational group or interest group. The organization itself is, of course, an important resource, as it is the designer and implementer of political action and has important powers in the interest conciliation process. In the case of advocacy activism, the grievances emerge that are not at the level of the individual, but at the level of an organization, a group of workers or professionals. The particular nature of advocacy political activism, however, is not an obstacle to it being a vehicle for other types of activism, as was the case in the 2018–2019 overtime law protests. This subchapter deals with the emergence and consequences of this protest wave. After the democratic transition in the Central and Eastern European region, it was mainly trade unions that were able to

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mobilize protests on a larger scale (Císař 2013). In Hungary, however, after the change of government in 2010, the new strike law made trade union mobilization much more difficult (Arató and Mikecz 2015). One of the dilemmas of employee advocacy was whether to stick to narrow sectoral issues in case of conflict or to express a broader critique of the economic and political system. Linked to the latter strategy is social movement unionism, which emerged first in developing countries in the 1980s and links democratization with trade unionism (Waterman 1993). The union actions that have started in the wake of the 2018 overtime law can be linked to this more activist concept of advocacy. The overtime law protests began in December 2018, nevertheless, both the issue and the mobilization had antecedents. Even before the 2018 elections, at the beginning of 2017, the Orbán government had planned to increase the working time limit, the time after which employers must pay the accumulated overtime wages, to three years. This bill was framed by the unions as “slave law,” which became a frequent reference to the bill during the protest wave in 2018–2019. The amendment was finally dropped from the legislative agenda in April 2017. At the time, the Minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, János Lázár, agreed with the trade unions’ reservations and supported the negotiations. In September 2017, Lázár also backed Tesco workers preparing to strike in a published letter, while pledging his support for Hungarian-owned retail. The issue that sparked the conflict was therefore not new at the end of 2018, with the approaching elections and probably Lázár’s position being the obstacle to the introduction of the overtime law in early 2017. However, trade union mobilization had already begun in November 2018, when the government abolished the discounted taxation of the cafeteria system. In formal terms, the joint opposition street presence was achieved during the demonstrations that started immediately after the elections, although at that time politicians and supporters of Jobbik and liberal, left-wing parties marched side by side without making joint speeches. At that time, there were no longer any moral objections to the joint demonstration, as there were when the State Audit Office fined the Jobbik party at the end of 2017.

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The first demonstration against the overtime law was organized by the trade unions on 8 December 2018, following a similar structure as the cafeteria demonstration in November. In parallel, the opposition sought to block the adoption of the law by filing 2,925 amendments to the legislative agenda. However, the justice committee decided that they could be decided by a single vote in parliament. Opposition MPs protested against the decision by whistling and then left the chamber together. Two days later, on 12 December, the opposition occupied the presidential pulpit in Parliament to prevent the law from being passed. The joint opposition flouting of parliamentary norms and their continuous live broadcast had a powerful mobilizing effect. That evening, thousands of people turned up at Kossuth Square near the parliament building. There were clashes between demonstrators and the police, which was due to the fact that, despite the militarization of the police since 2015, the crowd did not feel that the previous rules applied to them either. The norm breaking and the common symbolic system have been a powerful mobilizing force in the aftermath. On the Sunday of the week of the filibuster, the opposition found a new target. At the initiative of independent opposition MPs and the Momentum party, after the demonstration on 16 December, the crowd marched to the headquarters of the state owned public television channel. The commitment of the demonstrators was illustrated by the fact that they walked the one and a half hour journey in the winter cold. Public media then became the prime target of the protest wave and the scene of opposition MPs’ actions and demonstrations. The original demand was to announce the opposition’s demands in a live broadcast, but the opposition extended the conflict to include the freedom of the press, and more broad, general critique of the regime. It is not unique that state media is the target of anti-regime protests. This was also the case in the 2018–2019 Serbian anti-government protests. Politicians and public figures are naturally exposed to the public sphere, making them more sensitive to its restrictions. It is also not exceptional that, in order to maintain mobilization, it is necessary for movement leaders to reframe the conflict. The protests in late December and early January showed that there was a need for protesters to broaden the conflict.

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Roles and Interests of Various Protesting Organizations On 5 January, the last major demonstration of the protest wave took place in the capital. The demonstration had already started to be organized in December by civil society organizations, trade unions, and opposition political parties. They demonstrated together, but with different roles and thus interests. The simplest to understand is the interests of trade unions. While their role is essentially to defend the labor interests of their members, the extent to which they should move away from a narrowly defined employment conflict towards a critique of the government is also an issue. The logic of the political parties’ actions is ultimately geared towards winning votes, so for them the widening of the conflict and criticism of the government are important aspects. For civil activists and demonstration organizers, criticism of the system and protest action are essential, but they do not have to take account of voters’ concerns and can formulate demands for action that are too disruptive of individual routines of everyday life. During the joint protest action and the speeches, these differences were not sharpened, but this was no longer the case for further actions. The discourse around the national strike shows this. The national strike as a possibility for action emerged precisely from the trade union side during the demonstration on 5 January. Although trade unions held half-lane road blocks in several places, a national strike could not be organized under the relevant legislation. Many political parties were not expected to return to parliament after 12 December, to implement a quasi-party political strike by not taking part in the work of the legislature. This was in fact the discourse of the election boycott in a slightly different guise. However, boycotting parliamentary work is contrary to the party political logic of a basically institutionalized environment, the organizational interests of the parties, the interests of the workers working in the parties, and the convictions of their electorate. It is also highly doubtful that, even if not a majority, there would be at least a significant minority in the country (25–30%) that would not mind a shutdown for several weeks. For those who took part in demonstrations, understanding what political changes they want to see is not usually a problem, as they

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express it in their own particular way. However, in the course of larger scale protest waves in Hungary after 2010, the initial political conflict became a more general critique of the regime. In this situation, speculation was triggered as to who exactly was criticizing the status quo, which social groups or political background were these critics attached to and what were their grievances. Since the internet tax protests, there have been speculations about disappointed Fidesz supporters, previously non-protesting, “political newborn” participants, and protesters who want to replace the entire political elite. However, a questionnaire survey conducted at the Institute of Political Science of the Centre for Social Sciences on the 8 December 2018 protest provides insights into the sociological background and participation experiences of trade union protest participants (N = 95). The average age of the randomly selected protesters was 53 years, the median age was 55 years, and 54 percent were male and 46 percent female. 56 percent of protesters had at least a college degree or were pursuing higher education. The proportion of trade unionists was 20 percent, which is estimated at 4–5 percent of the total voting age population. This is a typically active group, with only 22 percent of respondents not involved in any public or political activity (campaigning, organizing, demonstrating, boycotting, signing a petition, contacting a politician, and donating) in the 12 months prior to the protest. This is also indicated by the 95 percent turnout of the respondents in the 2018 elections. The sociological and political background of the participants of the demonstration on 8 December 2018 reflects its trade union nature, but it is still a mixed picture as different social groups were represented. Not only was the proportion of graduates lower than at other demonstrations, but many people from outside the capital also attended (45%). Of course, it is not possible to get a complete picture of the whole wave from a single demonstration, but certain clusters can be identified. After the opposition filibuster of 12 December, there were certainly more young participants, less connected to the old left, and fewer trade union activists coming to the capital. However, an analysis of the demonstrators shows that both trade union activists and voters from the old and new opposition parties took part in the demonstrations against the overtime law.

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A question that regularly arises in the context of demonstrations is what the ultimate outcome of the mobilization was. This is particularly true when there were not only limited policy objectives, but also opposition public opinion hopes for a change of government. In addition, not only complete successes—as in the case of the internet tax protests—but also partial policy successes could not be achieved in the case of the overtime law demonstrations, as in the case of the student movement in 2011–2012. Nor did the protest cycle have the same impact on Fidesz’s voter base as it did after the internet tax wave. This is not to say that the protests were without consequence. The Momentum party’s success in the European Parliament (EP) elections may have been due to the fact that one of the figures of their EP campaign became known during the overtime law protests. Also, the ground for the broad electoral coalition of the opposition parties was prepared during the joint protest, filibuster, and direct actions of opposition MPs. At the same time, it is worth looking beyond party politics to see whether there was a new impetus for unionism. According to a press analysis for 2017, the year before the 2018 election, there were 14 strike related trade union actions in the whole year. In 2019, this number has almost doubled to 26 in less than half a year, and this does not include non-strike forms such as workers’ protests. Moreover, the strikes were not limited to Budapest, as protests against the overtime law were held across the whole country. Although the wave of protests did not mobilize the same masses as the internet tax protests of 2014 or the demonstration in favor of the CEU in 2017, the joint action of political parties, unions, and civil society organizations and the previously unprecedented impetuosity of protesters distinguished the overtime law protests from previous mobilizations.

The Violence of the Overtime Law Protests The overtime law protest wave has been described by journalists and analysts as violent, which is unusual beyond the radical right-wing protest culture in Hungary. It is no coincidence that the overtime law protests have been compared to the events of the hot autumn of 2006, when right wing demonstrations against the socialist-liberal

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government were held. Since then, the police have also learned to manage the protests, filtering out and separating the more violent demonstrators and wearing out the others. There have been examples of violence against people at demonstrations organized since 2010, when during Viktor Orbán’s speech at a whistle-blowing demonstration a known historian was punched by someone from the pro-government audience. Violence targetting objects took place at the second internet tax demonstration in 2014, when keyboards were thrown at the Fidesz headquarters. The same building was also occupied by the group Constitution Is Not a Game in 2013, when minor damage was caused to the building. The most violent action took place during the actions of the City Park movement, mainly by the security guards supervising the construction. However, the police did not disperse spontaneous demonstrations and occupations during the student protests in 2012–2013 and the CEU protests in 2017. There are several reasons for the violence of the wave of protests that started in response to the adoption of the overtime law, some of these, such as the antiauthoritarianism described later, are closely linked to the social psychology school of collective action. However, it has been noted elsewhere that new groups appeared at the protests, with a different crowd composition than at previous antiregime actions. It can be assumed that these people have experience of conflict with police and security or are more prone to violent actions. This is exemplified by the hot autumn of 2006 when the violence and knowledge of the football hooligan subculture led to police officers being assaulted and cars being set on fire. It can be assumed that some of the right wing and radical right wing protesters at the overtime law demonstrations had protest experience from before 2010 or were members of the fan subculture. But the appearance of radical protesters was not the only reason for the uptick in violence. Equally important was that the authority of the rules had been broken. The direct action of the opposition parties in the parliament on 12 December 2018 defied convention, thereby suddenly changing the image of institutionalized politics. For opposition supporters, this weakened the authority of the government and the rule of the law. The social scientist Aristide Zolberg, referring to the events of 1968 in France, called

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it a “moment of madness,” a moment when demonstrators feel that anything is possible (1972). In such a moment, protesters could freely express anger, joy, derision, and rename things. This feeling was reinforced by the spontaneity of the protest. Although the demonstration was announced by the opposition parties, there was no explicit leader of the crowd. The expression of emotion was not moderated by the announcement several days earlier. It was possible to join from anywhere, giving the more radical groups mentioned above the opportunity to participate in the demonstrations. Furthermore, the spontaneity and lack of leadership challenged the hierarchies and authorities in place. In such a situation, the opportunity for violence and clashes with law enforcers is greater in a liberated crowd. However, the violence was not exclusively due to the protesters, as the police pepper sprayed peaceful protesters and assaulted those they arrested. There was a noticeable change in the way the police handled these demonstrations. The changed role of the Hungarian police of active border control in Southern Hungary and the migration crisis situation has given the police a much broader license, militarizing the Hungarian police. In other words, police officers have become accustomed to having more power over citizens.

Exclusive Political Activism The fifth category identified is exclusive civic activism. The most important difference from the previous patterns is that, as its name suggests, exclusive civic activism does not accept the concept of a universal civil society. Thus, political action cannot be initiated by everyone, and the scope of political action is narrowed down according to nationality and place of residence. It is important to emphasize that exclusivity is not alien to civil society, since the trade unions and professional interest groups described above expressly assert their interests and produce services only for their own members, sometimes in opposition to other social groups. The action is directed outwards, in this case again addressing the decision-maker, whom they wish to exert pressure on through collective participation. The individual’s involvement is based on the grievances they have directly suffered, so they participate in activism as a member

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of a group, a collectivity (e.g., foreign currency borrowers, tenants). In the case of exclusive political activism, it is interesting to note that there is also a certain degree of civic ethos, as long as there is a strong anti-political dimension in this case as well. This type of activism often takes up issues which could be justified even from the point of view of transactional activism (e.g. eviction of foreign currency debtors), but which, because of their exclusivity, cannot be taken up by those who promote the universality of citizenship. The addressees of the exclusive action are policy makers; nevertheless, the radical right wing prefiguration also has an inward direction, the enrichment of the self. Furthermore, exclusive political activism also includes the “civilization” of the radical right (Teune 2008). It refers to the phenomenon of groups that emerge which link radical right wing activism with community services such as ragweed eradication, blood donation, cultural preservation, and public safety. Another typical form of exclusive civic action is the so-called NIMBY protest, in which local residents express their disapproval of a land-use project (Hubbard 2005). The global justice movement could include local anti-investments protests into a global framework that rejected neoliberal globalization. This is reflected in the slogan “Think global, act local!” In the case of exclusive civil action, however, NIMBY protests cannot be linked to a universal framework. Protests against the construction of a refugee camp in Vámosszabadi (2013) and Martonfa (2015) and of a children’s home in Tolna (2014) belonged to this type. One reason for this is the nature of the investments, since the construction of a refugee camp or an orphan’s home cannot be interpreted as an attack on the general conditions of a healthy and balanced human existence, as is the case with an investment that is harmful to the environment (incinerator, factory, and airport).

Movements by Foreign Currency Mortgage Debtors The 2008 financial crisis hit the Hungarian economy. Many Hungarian households had mortgages in foreign currencies, mostly in Swiss Franc. Due to the weakening of the Hungarian Forint compared to these currencies, the monthly repay installment also increased, which many debtors could not pay. In the 2010s,

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organizations defending the interests of foreign currency debtors and bank loan victims were very active but less visible in the Hungarian public sphere. The majority of these actions were eviction prevention or street protests, typically linked to three organizations, the Koppány Group, the My Home Not for Sale Movement, and the latter’s related Interest Group of Bank Debtors. Although other organizations (Jobbik, Civil Union Forum) have also demonstrated on the issue of foreign currency mortgages, the three previous groups were specifically organized around this issue. The backbone of the Koppány Group’s activities was the prevention of evictions and related assistance. Other groups, like the My Home Not For Sale Movement and the Interest Group of Bank Debtors also expressed more general criticism of the system, aiming to restore the historical constitution of Hungary, for which they founded the political party called the Movement for the Restoration of Order (RVMP) at the end of 2012. All three organizations were characterized by radical national rhetoric and use of symbols. The My Home Not For Sale Movement carried this spirit in its name and with the Holy Crown on its logo. This symbolism was clearly connected with the demand for the restoration of the historic constitution. In the case of the Koppány Group, too, there is a striking link to radical right wing folklore, both in the name and in the logo with its arrow and shield. Koppány or Copan was a claimant of the Hungarian throne at the end of the 10th century and was backed mostly by pagan Magyars. In popular culture he is seen as a rebel and a freedom fighter. These groups were not satellite organizations of Jobbik, but genuine grassroots groups using the mobilization tools of the radical right. There is nothing surprising in this in itself, as the radical right movement in Hungary was not entirely dominated by the Jobbik party. Jobbik was the most important party within the radical right wing movement, but alongside it there were various internet forums, blogs, festivals, rock bands, and paramilitary organizations. Nevertheless, since the end of the 2000s, there has been no example of a group outside Jobbik using radical right-wing symbolism to make political demands of the government. In the early 2010s the street actions of radical right groups were aimed at intimidating the Roma minority, keeping the linguistic policy tool of “Gypsy crime”

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at the ready, preserving group cohesion, and maintaining the identity of the radical right movement. At music festivals and summer camps that host the movement scene, issues such as Hungarian history, the situation of Hungarian minorities beyond the borders, the global financial system, and the protection of the environment were presented, mostly with a symbolic instrument and identity-forming aim. Political parties have a vital interest in finding new issues from time to time, and social movements also have examples of new issues being added to their list of demands. In the case of the antiglobalization movement in the 1990s for instance, the issues concerning them were internet privacy, intellectual patents, and access to the internet. Nevertheless, the problem of foreign currency debtors is not an inherent issue for the radical right. It has no symbolic significance or precedent in the political history of the Hungarian radical right. The few civil initiatives in Hungary focusing on social issues did not use the symbols of the radical right in the 1990s and the 2000s. Yet the Koppány Group and the My Home Not For Sale Movement used the tools of radical right wing mobilization because their activists were probably familiar with them rather than with left wing symbols. In Hungary, not only the institutional conditions or tradition of social and political participation were lacking, but also the knowledge of progressive patterns of participation. In the absence of such knowledge, many people seem to have only the examples offered by uncivil society. Consequently, there was a clear difference between the movements of Hungarian foreign currency mortgage debtors and antiausterity movements emerging in the USA (Occupy Wall Street) and especially in Southern Europe (the Spanish M-15 and the Indignados, the Greek Syriza). Due to the particularities of Eastern European political history, many people in Hungary could not identify with the mobilization frameworks developed by global justice or other Western left wing movements. The reason for this is that there are obstacles to understanding and using these frameworks, which is not only a consequence of the compromise of left wing political symbols in Hungary. In the Western and Southern European tradition environmentalism, the emphasis on localism, the rejection of corruption and the political-economic consensus, the critique

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of neoliberal globalization, the demand for more transparency and participation, and the defense of the precariat and marginalized groups could all have the same progressive, left wing master frame. However, in Hungary and more broadly in Eastern Europe someone has to have the ability to understand this frame, requiring language skills and cultural capital to do so. The combination of all these is only available to a narrow group of people, and as a consequence, the foreign currency borrowers turn to another political tradition based on experience and lifestyle, that of the radical right.

Radical Right wing Prefiguration A separate category is experience-oriented radical right activism. It differs from exclusive activism primarily in that the direction of action is not primarily the decision-maker. Like in the case of experience-oriented activism, it aims at the inner enrichment of the individual, the community, and prefiguration, that is the expression of idealized social relations in movement practice. The following subchapter addresses this phenomenon in the context of an analysis of radical right wing rock festivals. Social movement scholars tend to ignore radical right movements (Blee and Creasap 2010). There are several reasons for this bias. In many cases, social movement researchers are themselves former or current activists of leftwing movements, which predetermines their research subject. Some scholars have also raised the question of whether the term “social movement” can be applied to non-progressive initiatives (Koopmans and Rucht 1996). Another reason is that it is easier to approach left wing or liberal movements than the often clandestine radical right wing ones, as many left wing activists themselves have a background in social science. In addition, left wing movements tend to operate in the public sphere, so more data is available for content analysis based on press sources, for example. Because of this bias, the study of radical right activism is partly linked to political and public interest in these movements, which are often reinforced by moral panic. One such topic is the radical right’s online presence and online identity construction (Anahita 2006; Daniels 2009; Caren et al. 2012). Radicalization, hate

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crimes, and radical right terrorism have attracted academic attention in addition to public attention (Chermak et al. 2013; Gibson and Sterns 2017). More recently, the “populist zeitgeist” has been another popular area of research (Mudde 2004, 2017; Ruth et al. 2014). However, in these later works, radical right movements are mainly examined as an auxiliary to political parties. This focus on political parties is not necessarily the fault of the authors, but a feature of radical right politics (Hutter and Krieie 2013). However, researchers of radical right activism have also studied members of far right parties, albeit as part of a broader social movement (Klandermans and Mayer 2006). Nonetheless, theoretical-methodological approaches to social movement studies, such as the structure of political opportunities, the analysis of the interpretative frames (Caiani et al. 2012), and the structure of discursive opportunities have been applied to the study of radical right movements (Koopmans and Olzak 2004). As mentioned by Manuela Caiani, the anti-Islamic mobilization in recent years, and in particular the anti-Islamic Pegida movement, has given a new impetus to the study of the radical right as a social movement (Caiani 2017). This sub chapter examines the prefigurative practices of the radical right. The idea of prefigurative politics is that the ends and means of a movement cannot be separated. The goals must be achieved through the everyday practice of the movement. With the exception of the work of Robert Futrell and Pete Simi (2004, 2015), the prefigurative politics of the radical right has rarely been studied, as the term has a normative connotation and refers to progressive, inclusive movements (Poletta 1999). However, prefigurative politics is understood as a descriptive, rather than normative, concept. In order to understand the prefigurative politics of the radical right, I will analyze the program of radical right summer festivals. Since the mid-2000s, summer music festivals have become popular leisure and political events among radical right activists. This is connected to the wave of radical right protests in 2006 and the Jobbik’s winning of seats in the European Parliament in 2009 and the parliamentary elections in 2010. Since then, several studies have addressed the “Jobbik phenomenon” (Karácsony and Róna 2011; Varga 2014), while other authors have also examined the cultural aspects of the radical right (Feischmidt and Hervik 2015; Feischmidt and Pulay

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2016), nevertheless, these studies do not focus on radical right-wing prefiguration. The fundamental aim of prefigurative politics is to create the desired, ideal social order through movement practice in the present tense, rather than waiting for the miracle to happen or becoming entangled in bureaucratic, hierarchical systems. The site of prefigurative politics is the free spaces described in the subchapter on university occupation. As noted by Robert Futrell and Pete Simi, the free spaces of the American White Power movement are different from those of the left wing and liberal movements analyzed by Poletta. However, a certain level of prefiguration is always observable in free spaces, and a specific feature of the White Power movement is the concealment of the alternative, so that the prefigurative function is present in transmovement and indigenous free spaces (Futrell and Simi 2004). Therefore, Futrell and Simi distinguished between indigenous-prefigurative and transmovement-prefigurative free spaces of the White Power movement. According to the authors, indigenous-prefigurative spaces are places of dense, interpersonal networks and symbolic actions that maintain and nurture the identities of movement activists. The family is one such indigenous-prefigurative space that plays an important role in early political socialization. White Power members give their pets Aryan names and decorate their homes with symbols of the movement. They retreat to the suburbs and educate their children through home schooling. Alongside the family, informal symbolic gatherings are a second type of indigenous-prefigurative space. These include private gatherings such as Bible study groups, parties, hikes, and camping trips, but may also include more public spaces such as pubs or restaurants. While political socialization is also important in informal, symbolic gatherings, group solidarity, identity maintenance, and the elaboration of racial agendas are achieved through the telling of stories, jokes, or rituals such as tattooing. Futrell and Simi have pointed out that indigenous-prefigurative spaces have limited accessibility, and that so-called transmovement-prefigurative spaces can link indigenous spaces and local movement groups. These are congresses, festivals, and music concerts where White Power members can comfortably experience and affirm their political identity through encounters

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with their peers and the practice of shared rituals. Online networks can also function as transmovement-prefigurative spaces where anonymity mitigates the costs of joining the movement and early engagement. National rock music is the basis and source of the collective identity of the radical right movement. In general, a social movement can have not only political but also cultural demands. However, the cultural implications of movements are more difficult to discern, as they can be complex and include community, subculture, fashion, identity construction, value change, and social norms (Earl 2004). Social movements can offer broad political and historical contexts for cultural struggles, and cultural goods can be used as resources and forms of action in political conflicts (Eyerman-Jamison 2006). Radical right wing music festivals can also be seen as protestivals, as described in the subchapter on experience-oriented activism. While the original concept of protestival refers to the new left and liberal movements, radical right movements also mobilize through music events. So-called Nazi rock first emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, spreading to Europe and across the Atlantic (Brown 2004). In the United States, the White Power music scene has been an organizing and experimental tool for an otherwise marginalized movement (Futrell and Simi 2006). In Germany, the British model contributed to the emergence of a radical right wing music scene and the Rechtsrock (right wing rock) genre, which became a new medium for the neo-Nazi agenda (Dornbusch and Raabe 2006). In Hungary, a similar genre is national rock. The origins of national rock can be traced back to the “wedding rock” genre of folk music, originally played at weddings, and the skinhead music scene (Feischmidt and Pulay 2016). The right wing character of this subsection of the Hungarian rock music scene is also rooted in its semi-legal, semi-illegal status during the communist era. The communist party and the cultural supervisors allowed a certain freedom in the fields of art, culture, and entertainment. Just as in the case of Russian dissident literature, where subversive messages were hidden between the lines (Parthé 2004), rock musicians were able to criticize the communist regime by allowing their audience to “read between the lines.” Rock music as a genre was not completely

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banned during the communist era, but it became a form of expression of oppositional views through the strategy of reading between the lines. As the Hungarian communist regime wanted to avoid any confrontation with its neighbors, the status of Hungarian minorities was a marginalized topic in public discourse, and anti-communism and nationalism came together. National rock bands conveyed such oppositional messages. Despite the regime change, however, the practice of reading between the lines persisted and became a common strategy of radical right and far right political actors. Radical right-wing protestivals have taken place regularly since the mid-2000s, bringing together national rock fans, radical right wing activists, supporters, and other like-minded people. These festivals were a typical tool of the new radical right. A youth organization, the United Hungarian Youth (EMI), organized such summer camps year after year. Founded in 2003, the organization’s credo was: “Our goal is to usher in a new era of reform, our people must learn to feel, think and, more importantly, act in Hungarian again. It is up to us, and the generations that follow us, whether there will be a free Hungarian nation in the Carpathian Basin, strong in faith, morals and national consciousness, and growing.” The main nighttime events are concerts by national rock bands. The daytime programs include activities for children, symposiums on Hungarian history, horse riding, archery, wine tasting, film screenings, handicraft, and martial arts demonstrations. Both the EMI and the better known Hungarian Island (Magyar Sziget) festivals have been closely linked to the Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (Hatvannégy Vármegye Ifjúsági Mozgalom). The movement organized the Hungarian Island festival in 2001, which has grown into the largest radical right wing event of its kind. The former rock festival later became an attractive program for families, with activities and programs for children. The festival offers a wide variety of leisure and cultural activities, concerts, political, historical, and scientific lectures. The motto of Hungarian Island is “For one week, the borders will fall again,” which refers to the unity of the Hungarian nation in the Carpathian Basin. The festival was regularly held in the village of Verőce, on the banks of the Danube. The number of visitors to the Hungarian Island Festival has steadily increased from 100 in 2001, when the festival was first held, to

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5,000 in 2004 and 10,000 in 2006. In 2014, the organizers wanted to get back to basics, so they announced the “First Hungarian Island.” This meant that visitors would return to their subcultural roots. The content analysis examined the 1536 event programs across a total of 110 days of five festivals, namely the United Hungarian Youth Camp (2009, 2011), the Transylvanian Hungarian Youth Camp (2005–2011), the United Hungarian Youth Camp in the South (2006–2011), the Székely Island (2009, 2011), and the Hungarian Island (2005–2011). While in some cases programs could have been categorized into several categories, all programs, including full-day programs, were coded once. Categories were not defined before coding, but during the content analysis process. In most cases, the topic could be identified by the title of the program, but sometimes further research was required. Evening concerts were not coded, only daytime music performances. The original 173 categories were narrowed down to 42, which are presented in Table 4.17. These program themes fall into five broad categories, namely history, leisure, minorities, politics, and radical right culture. It is clear that the organizers of the festivals wanted to offer daytime leisure activities for their guests. A permanent feature of the radical right festivals studied were craft activities, folk performances, reenactments of historical battles, archery, horse riding, archery themed performances, and training courses. Activities for children included crafts, archery, hiking, and folktales. Other leisure activities included body painting, collective singing, photography, board games, and more. As these were summer rock festivals, it is no coincidence that wine tasting and gastronomy were also frequent recurring activities. Beyond leisure activities, most daytime programs dealt directly with politics. Festival participants could discuss a variety of political issues with invited politicians, journalists, and other well-known opinion leaders. This included issues such as everyday political developments, the national strategy of the radical right, international politics, the meaning of conservatism, but also political issues such as demography, ecology, or natural disasters. Programs that deal with the opponent groups identified by the movement, such as Freemasonry, Zionism, or the Roma people, also fall into this category.

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Table 4.17 Themes of the programs of radical right music festivals Categories

N

Leisure activities Crafts, folk art, art, exhibition, film screening Historical role play, horse riding, archery Activities for children Other hobbies, leisure and collective activities Gastronomy, wine tasting Folk music, folk dance Hiking, natural and built environment Insect writing Baranta (Hungarian martial art), self-defense training Politics National strategy, policy Economy, capitalism, globalization Youth Natural disasters, rescue teams Demographics Ecology, sustainability Foreign policy, International relations, EU “Gypsy crime,” public safety, criminality Legal aid, human rights violations in 2006 Freemasonry, Zionism Conservatism, nationalism, patriotism Liberalism Prejudice and tolerance Radical right wing culture Religion, Church Hungarian literature Personal life, family, relationships, health, alternative medicine Mysticism, mythology, meditation Hungarian identity, destiny Sport, fan culture National rock Alcoholism, addiction Evolution, constructivism Science

796 200 159 147 93 64 53 45 20 15 229 68 26 26 22 19 17 14 10 10 7 5 4 1 194 48 35 31 27 20 16 9 4 3 1 (Continued)

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Table 4.17 Continued Categories

N

History The Second World War, the period between the two wars Hungarian history and state up to the 20th century Hungarian resistance Trianon 1956 Communist era, opposition, regime change The origin of Hungarians Minorities Minority rights, minorities, autonomies Culture, politics and everyday life in Transylvania Hungarian language, language rights

187 55 47 22 21 17 16 9 130 96 26 8

The category of radical right culture encompasses a variety of activities. Some require active participation, while others, like political issues, have taken the form of lectures and round tables. The themes here are less directly related to politics and more to the radical right lifestyle. This category partly overlaps with leisure activities. These activities nevertheless emphasized the historical heritage and militancy of the radical right scene. This is more evident in the case of the Hungarian martial art, baranta, which has been developed since the 1990s mainly through folk dances. Similarly, runic writing is an important cultural asset of the Hungarian radical right. Both baranta and runic writing are typical of the radical right, while archery, reenacting historical battles, or wine tasting do not necessarily bear the identity of the radical right. However, in the context of radical right festivals, they also acquire this function. Didactic, informative presentations on Hungarian history emphasize the value and glory of the Hungarian past, but also draw attention to the grievances of Hungarians. Likewise, political issues such as the situation of Hungarian minorities, demography, and ecology also highlight this aspect. In the case of demography, the problem, as interpreted by the radical right, is the declining number of Hungarians and the simultaneous increase in the number of Romanis in Hungary and the decreasing number of ethnic

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Hungarians in neighboring countries. On ecology, the debates are about the harmful nature of global capitalism, the disadvantages of overpopulation, and the protection of Hungarian sacral nature. This sacral character, the symbolic meaning of nature, is also reflected in hiking as a leisure activity. In the case of minority rights and territorial autonomy, the issue was not only the Hungarian minority in neighboring countries, but also Uyghur, Irish, Catalan, Tibetan, and South Tyrolean independence aspirations. The importance of the minority issue was enhanced by the fact that the EMI camps in neighboring countries were organized by young people from the local Hungarian minority. This theme was mainly presented in the form of lectures, roundtable discussions, and film screenings. This didactic form was also typical of historical topics such as the Second World War, Trianon, the period between the two world wars, Hungarian history up to the 20th century, the 1956 Hungarian uprising, and the Hungarian resistance. Based on the results, two functions of radical right preconfiguration can be distinguished. Festival discussions and leisure activities can be used to create a coherent world for their supporters, providing a radical right wing explanation for all segments of politics and social existence. For example, a number of activities addressed the content of the “good life,” meaning the ideal relationship and family life. In addition to personal issues, an important requirement is to demonstrate that this radical right framing is professionally and scientifically sound. In many cases, the alternative radical right explanation is underpinned by the conviction that the scientific, professional mainstream is in fact representing alien interests. This element can be detected, for example, in lectures on the origins of Hungarians or Hungarian literature. In the latter case, the works of radical right wing authors from the interwar period are presented as banned or censored literature. Here again, the sense of persecution of the political community reappears. Intellectual grounding helps to achieve more confident and conscious political action and a sense of threat makes action inevitable. The second function of the prefiguration is directed towards outsiders, potential supporters. The prefiguration shows that the festivals and the radical right movement are not extreme, nor harmful to society. The children’s programs

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and leisure activities suggest that these are not violent concerts of far right football fans, but family-friendly summer camps. This function allows for the “management” of the stigma of extremism (Simi and Futrell 2009). Furthermore, both functions ultimately serve the cultural, anti-hegemonic struggle of the radical right.

Populist Political Activism The last type of political activism is populist political activism, which is characterized by its exclusive nature, that is the benefits available only to a specific group, and is based on a political community, on collective participation. It is distinguished from other types of activism by the fact that it is not necessarily directed towards decisionmakers but outwards, towards other political communities. The basis for joining is therefore membership of a particular political community. In contemporary Hungarian and international political science, the description and classification of populist tendencies in Hungary, the political system and regime that emerged after 2010 is a research topic that has received special attention (Antal 2019; Körösényi et al. 2020; Böcskei and Hajdu 2022). However, the academic and public discourse on populism is made difficult by its perceived pejorative political connotation, but also by its exciting challenge. Academic works aim to provide an objective definition of populism that is both applicable regardless of political context and capable of operationalizing research questions on the phenomenon of populism. The challenge with regard to populism in general is to conceptualize it, but with regard to populism and social movements. However, the question remains as to whether and how the two concepts can be linked. In academic and public reflection, one of the characteristics of populism is mobilization beyond elections. In the popular imagination, a populist is a politician who speaks directly to a wide audience. On the other hand, social movements are characterized by grievance, challenging decision-makers, direct pressure, and mobilization. Populism therefore has a movement element, and movements have a populism element. In Hungary, under the Orbán regime, two cases of mobilization can be distinguished on the basis of the academic definition of populism and populist movements. These include the pro-regime

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top-down mobilization, a collection of various techniques by the Orbán regime to mobilize their supporters, and the anti-regime protests, where opponents of the Orbán governments can express their general discontent with the political situation of the country.

Populism in Academic Literature One of the most frequently cited authors for understanding contemporary populism is Cas Mudde. In order to grasp the phenomenon of populism in a scholarly way, Mudde separates it from the meanings that are often found in public discourse. Examples include when populism is understood as simplistic, emotionally overwrought politicking, and the pursuit of momentary gains rather than long-term interests and sustained political commitment in electoral behavior. The former can be described as demagogy, the latter as opportunism. In contrast, academic definitions have at least two elements in common; the existence of elites and the people, and the conflicting relationship between the two. On this basis, Mudde’s defines populism as an ideology according to which society can be divided into two finitely distinct, homogeneous and antagonistic groups, the “pure people” opposing the “corrupt elite,” with politics being the expression of the volonté générale, the general will (Mudde 2004). Mudde also gives a negative definition of populism when he contrasts it with elitism and pluralism. Elitism, he writes, is the mirror image of populism, which is also based on the opposition between elites and the people. The difference, however, is that elitism accepts as legitimate the political preferences and opinions of the morally superior, the rationally minded, and the competent alone. Pluralism, as opposed to elitism, is not a negative political and social formula. Unlike populism and elitism, pluralism does not divide society into two opposing and homogeneous groups, but recognizes the diversity and heterogeneity of social groups and interests (Mudde 2004). The liberal character of Mudde’s description can be seen in this latter aspect. Mudde’s definition captures populism not as a style, method, or process, but as an ideology. However, it is more precise in that it describes ideology as a vague, superficial ideology, which is not as elaborate as socialism or liberalism. A further characteristic of

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populism, according to Mudde, is the uncertainty as to which social group is referred to. However, it is not possible to define precisely the boundaries of the people; it is an imagined, constructed group, in Mudde’s description, which is characterized by the fact that it is a single, homogeneous category of reference, not covering the whole of society, yet at the same time acting as a source of pure morality and merit (Mudde 2004). The populist politician, however, does not seek to change the status, morals, or way of life of the people, but rather to recognize them. Mudde thus recognizes the responsive nature of populism, and that it follows popular, public political attitudes and opinions. In this respect, the question of whether the populist politician manipulates his/her followers or whether he/ she serves their material and symbolic needs is unclear. However, Mudde argues that it is easier to define what populism defines itself against. In liberal democracies, it is these political parties, such as the populist politician, that break the natural link between the people and the political leader, creating unnecessary divisions. Populist politics is therefore anti-political in this respect, and this resonates well with Hungarian social sentiments (Mudde 2004). Together with his co-author Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Mudde also specifically addresses the issue of populist mobilization. Thus, a distinction is made between mobilization by the populist single leader, the party, and the social movement. The leader mobilizes from above, the movement from below, and the party from both directions. For the purposes of our topic, the latter deserves more attention, but the other two are also worth mentioning because of the role of institutions and personalization. The essence of mobilization by populist leaders is the impersonalization of the people by leaders (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). This involves leaders emphasizing their recognition of popular culture and preference to place themselves in situations that demonstrate their cultural and social proximity to “ordinary people.” Although there is usually some kind of organization to rely on, which does not function as a real party, its sole purpose is to ensure votes and electoral success for the populist leader (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). A characteristic feature of populist social movements is that they do not act on behalf of a definable social group or seek to bring about social and political changes that are favorable to them but refer to the people (Mudde

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and Kaltwasser 2017). Although the central figure in the concept of populism is the populist leader, the authors point out that populist movements do not usually have a single prominent leader. Populist social movements are able to force mainstream political forces to react and influence public discourse, but the political party, according to Mudde and Kaltwasser, is more effective by winning votes. However, their function is often exhausted in this latter function, and they are not able to engage their voters in the longer term beyond their specific issue (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017). Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populism is similar to Cas Mudde’s concept of populism in that he also sees it as a method of doing politics, but for him populism is an essential element of politicization. Previous definitions have attempted to define populism in negative terms and have mostly concluded that it is “manipulative,” “vague,” “poor in spirit,” and irrational (Laclau 2005). In his view, these approaches ultimately seek to answer the question of “what social reality or situation is populism an expression of,” and do not even raise the question of “why certain political alternatives or goals can only be expressed by populist means” (Laclau 2005). Laclau’s theory is in fact a left wing reception of Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy political logic. Populism’s appeal to the people is not a denial of pluralism, but a presupposition of the ability of challengers to act politically. The populist’s aim is thus to construct the people through discursive means. The essence of the people, according to Laclau, is the creation of group unity. Populism is able to construct this unity by bringing together previously unmet needs and creating a relationship of equivalence. This articulation of equivalence is able to involve broader masses in the political conflict, thus creating popular demands. In contrast, Laclau calls isolated demands and claims democratic (Laclau 2005). Laclau thus distinguishes two ways of constructing social demands. According to the logic of difference, individual demands are unrelated or only partially equivalent. The logic of equivalence, however, already includes a sharp, antagonistic demarcation, that is the exclusion and resolution of differences within the equivalence (Laclau 2005). To establish equivalence and antagonistic demarcation, a discursive procedure is required. Using so-called “empty signifiers,” it is possible to give a definition that applies to the equivalence as a whole. The broader this equivalence,

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the more claims it encompasses, and the more the empty signifier is disconnected from the concrete claims (Laclau 2005). However, empty signifiers cannot be stable, as political and hegemonic struggles give rise to discursive devices, which Laclau calls floating signifiers, capable of breaking the chain of equivalence that has been established (Laclau 2005).

Populism in Movement Research Recently, the research of social movements, the study of populism and populist movements became an increasingly studied field (Aslanidis 2017; Schmidt 2017; Pirro and Portos 2020). The main reason for the previous neglect of the populist dimension of social movements was the highly pejorative connotation of populism, although Laclau’s research has since led to the emergence of a non judgmental interpretation of it. An important milestone in the research on social movements in the 1970s was the beginning of a process of understanding movements as non-irrational actors. This led to the development of the theory of resource mobilization (McAdam 1982), a concept according to which social movements themselves consciously plan their actions, have a long-term strategy, and assess what is effective and results-oriented on the basis of a cost-benefit calculation. The aim of social movements is to mobilize resources to achieve the desired social and political change, hence the name of the theory. These resources can be finances, symbols, alliance networks, and voluntary work. Many movement researchers are themselves former activists turned scientists, or simply sympathetic to movement objectives. This sympathy, however, tends towards progressive, left wing movements. Therefore, researchers have thoroughly researched these movements, acknowledging their rational nature, but paid less attention to the otherwise more inaccessible right wing movements. In the end, for various reasons, research on populism as a movement phenomenon has been marginalized. Populism on the right has been excluded from the research focus because of political antipathy, while populism on the left has been excluded because of the pejorative connotation of the term. The concept’s pejorative has also prevented it from being applied in academic research. Thus, the

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mainstream of populism research developed not by social movement research, but by party research, including research on radical parties. Paris Aslanidis’s study on populism from the perspective of social movement research (Aslanidis 2017) is a valuable contribution. The author examines the process of populist mobilization and the populist interpretative framework, that is the interpretative schema through which populist movements identify their goals, opponents, and allies. The impact of populist movements on political parties, cross-border populist mobilization, and the relationship between democracy and populism are also discussed. According to Aslandis, populist movements differ from ordinary social movements in two ways. Firstly, they seek to represent the social totality and do not express the interests of a narrow social group. On the other hand, they are not willing to consult decisionmakers on narrow policy issues as their aim is to change the whole system and redefine sovereignty (Aslanidis 2017). Other research highlights the role of the group trapped outside antagonistic boundaries in populist mobilization and emphasizes the exclusivist nature of populism, which can be directed not only against elites but also against their perceived allies (Jagers and Walgrave 2007). In this context, Aslandis uses examples from the 19th century to illustrate the movement of populism, such as the 19th century machine-breakers and Chartists, Polish Solidarity, the East German opposition movement, the anti-austerity movements in Latin America at the end of the 20th century, the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street, the Spanish Indignados movement and Podemos party in 2011, the Arab Spring movements, the 2014 Hong Kong umbrella protests, Greek Syriza, and the radical right wing German Pegida. The list shows that not only right wing movements but also, as the author notes, movements that do not necessarily distort democracy fall within the definition. This approach to movement studies thus uses the concept of a populist movement in a non-normative sense. Thanks to Aslandis’s heavy reliance on Laclau’s concept, it is possible operationalize the populist movement approach in research. In Hungary two cases of populist mobilization can be distinguished, the pro-regime, top-down mobilization of Fidesz supporters and the anti-regime

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mobilization of opposition voters, who wish to express their general criticism of the government.

Pro-regime Top-down Mobilization A distinct feature of the Orbán regime is the frequent mobilization of their core voters and possible supporters with the help of various means. The top-down mobilization by the Orbán governments relies on the distinct features of Hungarian political culture, such as anti-Western sentiments, isolation, victimhood, and also a certain exceptionalism of Hungarians. Partly in connection with these elements of Hungarian political culture, a substantial element of the pro-regime top-down mobilization is the creation of enemy images. The antagonizing politics became a central element in Hungary and also in the broader region of East Central Europe due to various reasons, that is the elite-led democratic transition, the 2008 financial crisis, and the European Union as a multi-level governance (Gerő et al. 2017). Nevertheless, top-down mobilization is not a new tool in the repertoire of Fidesz and Viktor Orbán. After the 2002 elections, the outgoing prime minister set up the Civic Circles, whose task was to cultivate the civic political ethos and maintain the mobilization of Fidesz voters in the opposition. Civic circles linked grassroots right wing initiatives with Fidesz and helped to create a civil society with its own symbols and symbolic events (Greskovits 2020). The growing importance of executive power, the presidentialization of parliamentary systems, and the personalization of politics are also not a new phenomena in Hungary. The Hungarian political scientist András Körösényi used Max Weber’s terminology of leader democracy to describe the first Orbán government between 1998 and 2002 (Körösényi 2003). During this period, the parliament met every three weeks, the government reduced the importance of the reconciliation of interests, including the income agreement, and the prime minister put non-party affiliated persons in government who were loyal to him. An important characteristic of a leader democracy is a charismatic political leader who can bypass the political institutions and address his message directly to the electorate. Modern mass media, especially television and the tabloid press, play

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an important role in the development of leader democracies and the direct contact with the electorate (Körösényi 2003). The best known example of leader democracy was not the first Orbán government, but the Forza Italia party and movement of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who used mobilizing politics, especially after 2006 (Donovan 2007). In early 2015, after the internet tax protest wave, Viktor Orbán already talked about a return to “movement governance” in a television interview (ECHO TV 2015). The whole interview was about the challenges facing the government and their decline in popularity. The movement governance, that is top-down mobilization of sympathizers could be a solution to these problems. At first glance, movement governance may seem to be a wooden spoon, but it is in fact a form of politicking based on continuous mobilization. The instruments of the top-down mobilization of the Orbán-regime since 2010 are referendums, the national consultations, and the most spectacular of these forms, the Peace Marches. Government initiated referendums have been held in 2016 about the EU’s refugee resettlement quota, and in 2022 about the protection of minors from LGBTQ media content and sexual education. National consultations are held more frequently. The Fidesz held the first national consultation as an oppositional party in 2005 as part of their election campaign. Between 2010 and 2022 twelve consultations were held from state resources. The consultations are conducted with hard copy and online questionnaires and accompanied by massive communication campaigns. Nevertheless, the consultation is framed according to the political narrative of the Fidesz party and the government (Bocskor 2018), and can be interpreted as a “hijacking” of deliberative democracy (Oross and Tap 2021). The Peace March is a recurring rally of Orbán supporters, which is organized by an auxiliary organization of the Fidesz party, the Civil Union Forum. According to the proclamation of the organizers of the first Peace March in 2012, they identified themselves as “Hungarian democrats,” who believe in a “virtuous civic democracy” and “national independence” The international “public sphere” that is the media, was identified as an adversary, which depicts Hungary in an “unworthy and unfair” way (Bene 2014). The organizers of the Peace March called all those for whom “the independence and rise of Hungary and civic

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democracy are important” to join the march. The event has been framed as a march of a right wing, conservative rally of pride, as the organizers asked the participants to bring national flags, candles, and “pick up their finest cloth” (Bayer et al. 2012). The street presence and the organization of demonstrations is not entirely uncommon among opposition parties, but it is more typical of smaller, younger parties, such as ecological or right wing populist parties. However, the Peace March is a very specific phenomenon, as the organization of demonstrations by a government is unusual in representative democracies. Such top-down mobilization are referred in the literature as astroturf mobilization, namely fake grassroots, which is an elite strategy to stimulate mass participation. The defining features of astroturf mobilization are the mostly material incentives for the participants, the incomprehensibleness of claims for the participants, and the concealment of the organizatorship (Walker 2016). Nevertheless, Peace March cannot be described as an astroturf mobilization according to these concepts, since participants gain symbolic incentives, claims are clearly understandable, and as the final stage of the Peace March is usually a speech by Viktor Orbán, the sponsorship is not hidden, although the rallies are organized by a collateral organization and not by the Fidesz party. Compared to South American populist mobilizations, where a typology can be made according to the level of organization in the partisan and the civil society arena (Roberts 2006), the pro-regime top-down mobilization resembles organic populism, with high level of organizations in the civil society and electoral spheres as well. Furthermore, the Peace March fits to Aslanidis’ category of a populist movement as it contradicts the totality of Hungarians with foreign interests and political actors. Furthermore, the main goal is the protection of sovereignty. As the slogan of the first Peace March expresses it: “We won’t be a colony!” Nevertheless, from a party politics approach, the Peace March can be understood as a collateral organization (Metz 2015; Poguntke 2000). According to Metz (2015), the Peace March as a movement entrepreneurship helps the political party to realign supporters and strengthen the bonds between the party and sympathizers, which is crucial due to general party dealignment. Secondly such top-down organized movements serve as a

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locus to express voters’ identities. However, it is important to note, that the Peace Marches have been attended by tens of thousands of Orbán supporters, hence it cannot be denied that there is a real demand for the Peace March and it could effectively mobilize the Fidesz voters. Nevertheless, the mobilization from above fits the broader tendencies of political participation and even experience-orientation also. The large number of people who have turned up at Peace Marches shows the need for top-down mobilization. Declining trust in political institutions, decreasing number of membership of political parties, and the need for emotional attachment, have also made unconventional means of governmental politicization, such as top-down movements like the Peace March, more relevant and applicable. With the transformation of employment, leisure, and family life, and the spread of an assertive political culture, citizens are slowly becoming representatives of their own cause rather than partaking in politics as members of a collective. This individualization creates the need for direct contact with the political leader on the part of the citizen and the need for short-term and superficial commitment to particular causes.

Anti-regime Protests The second case of populist political activism in Hungary after 2010 are the anti-regime protests. While many anti-government protests can be classified into other forms, especially the civic ethos pattern, populism, as a political logic in a Laclauian sense can be discovered among these movements as well. In the Hungarian political discourse, the political right was typically labeled as populist for “taking politics to the streets” as in the case of Civic Circles or during the protest against the liberal left wing government between 2006 and 2010. Also, the Fidesz party, both in opposition and especially in government since 2010, is a textbook case of populism as defined by Cas Mudde. The features of Orbán’s party are the assumption of a homogeneous nation, anti-elitism, scapegoating, direct contact with citizens by bypassing intermediaries (NGOs, trade unions), a charismatic leader, the emptying out of institutionalized organizations (Fidesz as a party), the articulation of the voice

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of the people, and mobilization from above (Peace March, national consultations). After the 2010 elections, the perception of protest action among the wider liberal and left wing public has changed dramatically. Especially since 2014, opposition voters have looked to street protests as a source of credible politicking. Based on Mudde’s statement on populist movements and movement studies’ definitions of populism, it cannot be assumed at first glance that protests against particular government measures are populist. The protests against the new media law in 2011, the student movement in 2012-2013, the internet tax protests in 2014, the teacher’s movements events in 2016 and 2022, and the CEU demonstrations in 2017 were all organized around a relevant policy issue. The demonstrations critical of the government were usually backed by a colorful coalition of civil society organizations, corresponding to the pluralism of Mudde’s concept. These demonstrations did not aim to artificially divide the Hungarian society into two opposing groups, nor was there a single leader of the protests. In a later stage, beyond the narrow, policy related grievances such protests increasingly became a field of general discontent against the government, as in the case of the internet tax protests (Szabó and Mikecz 2015). For a movement with a narrow policy focus, it might be important to gain solidarity and support from those, who are not directly affected. However, protesters who were not directly affected were not supportive bystanders at these demonstrations, but active participants who saw the policy protests as an opportunity for participation. In the extremely demobilized Hungarian society, policy protests critical of the government have become valorized as a relatively easy form of participation, requiring little commitment. A struggle for hegemony was thus created, the aim of which was to create an equivalence critical of the government rather than a logic of difference in the Laclauian sense of politics. Based on Laclau’s theory of populism, an aim of the anti-government protests would have been to create an empty signifier capable of integrating the various movements organized around different grievances and interests, even if there had been a plurality of organizations and groups at opposition demonstrations. However, while Fidesz was able to create a camp of very diverse social groups

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by 2018, the anti-government protesters failed to do so. According to the framing, messages and banners at anti-government protests an antagonistic distinction can be drawn, based on the signifiers of Westernism, Europe, and supposed cultural superiority. However, these have been floating signifiers since 2006-2008 and they are unable to create a chain of equivalence. The obstacles to the emergence of left wing populism were thus structural features such as low willingness to participate and a struggle for hegemony within the left, which has existed since the early 2000s but has been visible to the wider public since 2008-2009. Such anti-government protests in Hungary belong to a broader regional tendency. Since the early 2010s, movements in East Central Europe have been organized not only to achieve political change or the emancipation of certain social groups, but also to express dissatisfaction with political regimes. According to Stephen Skowronek’s definition, regimes are situated between constitutional and governmental systems, as they include state-society relations, powersharing patterns, sociopolitical alliance networks, and dominant political paradigms (Illés et al. 2017). Regimes aim at establishing, among other things, cultural hegemony, which refers to the control over cultural practices, social norms, values, and social attitudes. In Western democracies, social movements can be anti-regime if they criticize the dominant political or economic system, such as the global justice movement from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s or the Occupy Wall Street movement in the early 2010s. Yet the focus of the anti-regime movements in Central and Eastern Europe is not the political or global economic system, but the national governments and political leaders who built the regime. However, the antiregime protests have a narrower theme that is a vehicle for more general discontent, such as cultural freedom, political centralization, education, academic freedom, or anti-corruption.

Chapter 5 CONCLUSIONS

The shrinking space for civil society beyond NGOs since the early 2010s has been noted and referred to in academia as well (Alsher et al. 2017; Anheier et al. 2019). The reasons for the decreased opportunities of civil society, at least in East Central Europe, are the illiberal tendencies and democratic backlash in the region, especially in Hungary and Poland (Kocyba and Lewicki 2020; Ploszka 2020). Furthermore, the refugee crisis in 2015 also contributed to the development of hostile sentiments and harsher regulations of civil society altruism, hence solidarity became more contentious (della Porta and Steinhilper 2021). Nevertheless, in Hungary the illiberal tendency affected civil society not only due to the victimization of NGOs, but also because the direct political role of civil society became more prominent. In the 2010s, as left wing and liberal parties weakened in Hungary, government critical social movements and civic initiatives gained more importance and attention. The weakening and loss of credibility of the institutionalized opposition, that is the party-political opposition, sharpened the anti-political sentiments and ethos of civil society that can be found in the political culture of Central and Eastern Europe and Hungary, and which can be traced back to the opposition strategies developed during the democratic transition. The valorization of movement politics on the opposition side and the practice of top-down pro-government mobilization have made visible the distinction between different forms of activism, such as civil ethos, transactional, experiencedriven, advocacy, exclusive, and populist activism. Civil ethos refers to the classic concept of inclusive activism based on collective participation and the advocacy pattern of labor unions’ mobilization, and the activity of professionalized NGOs, although the latter belongs to transactional activism. A new logic 

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of political activism is the experience-driven, which involves emotional mobilization, political altruism, and prefigurative action. This also corresponds to more general tendencies of political participation and to opportunities of activism and social movements in an illiberal regime. Emotions, namely grief-based activism, influenced the Living Memorial movement in the mid-2010s to deconstruct the memorial of German occupation of Hungary, which depicted the country’s innocence during the Holocaust. The activists aimed to reframe the government’s interpretation of loss and mourning. It also involved the deliberate easing of social conflicts by endorsing different historical grievances and traditions of remembrance. At the same time, the participants wished to become agents rather than passive victims by protesting against the denial of the Hungarian state’s responsibility during the Holocaust. The grief and personal commitment helped to maintain the group since 2014 as visiting the Living Memorial discussions became an everyday activity for the participants—without losing its political character. Thus, the resilience in the case of the Living Memorial was built upon grief and was realized by a continuous process of reframing, community building, and by strengthening their competencies, that is the political knowledge, debate culture, and self-esteem of the group (Mikecz 2021). After the change of government in 2010 the central topic of alternative, New Left initiatives became solidarity with those affected by housing poverty and homelessness. During the refugee crisis of 2015, a new solidarity movement emerged, which grew out of spontaneous organizations helping refugees. The two solidarity movements linked to altruistic activism addressed their messages mostly to policy makers and authorities. One of the main demands of refugee aid groups has been to alleviate anti-refugee sentiment, and they have sought to change public attitudes towards refugees in the hostile environment created by government campaigns. One of the tools they used was to invoke the human rights of refugees. These demands for a welcoming, tolerant society, respecting the rights of refugees, were also invoked as a framework for action by referring to voluntary practices. Moreover, the claims related to human rights and tolerance were not primarily driven by political positions or ideology, but by the expression of a benevolent self. The homeless solidarity movement called for solidarity with homeless people by

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pointing out the discrimination they face and stressing the importance of harmful housing policies. At the beginning and end of the decade, there were some highprofile occupations of universities, which can be classified as experience-oriented activism. In 2020, students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts occupied their university in protest against the restructuring of the educational institution. Prior to this, the first prolonged occupation of a university took place in 2013, which was a novelty, despite the fact that the action was actually limited to a large lecture hall on the campus of the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. The occupation was part of a protest wave that reached its peak in the winter of 2012–2013. The occupation of the university—or more precisely of one of its lecture halls—can be linked to the tradition of student movements in Western Europe and North America in the second half of the 1960s. On the one hand, social movements choose their repertoire of protest according to the means at their disposal, and on the other hand, the adoption of the protest form in this case is a way of expressing continuity with previous student movements and solidarity with contemporaries, such as the Croatian student movement. The occupation of a university has the effect of disrupting the normal functioning of the institution and drawing the attention of the protest recipients and the press. Secondly, by occupying the university, the protesters were demonstrating their determination to take retaliatory measures resulting from their illegal action and, through the horizontal forms of decision-making exercised during the action, to demonstrate the political structures and procedures they consider ideal. The university lecture hall was “liberated” as a consequence of the university occupation and it can thus be considered a free space for the movement. Free spaces can play an important function in the periods between protests and during mobilization. The students managed to organize an autonomous, non-hierarchical space, a movement center, which could serve as a starting point for further mobilizations, a place to discuss strategy and demands, and as a “home” for the activists themselves. In the period under review radical right wing mobilization became less and less common during the decade. However, until the mid-2010s, radical right music festivals were prominent venues

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within the radical right scene for the preservation of movement identity, activist recruitment, and movement prefiguration. In addition to music concerts and direct political performances and roundtable discussions, the festivals offered didactic lectures and leisure activities for visitors. One of the main features of radical right wing mobilization is exclusiveness. Another type here is populist political activism, where exclusion serves the creation of a constituency, hence mobilization focuses not on narrow issues, but aim to achieve more general changes. Two patterns of populist activism were discussed in the book. The top-down oriented mobilization by the regime aimed to engage voters, nurture a collective identity, and loyalty. For the second case, the anti-regime protests were first organized with a specific issue due to the grievances of a certain social group, yet they became an opportunity for a general critic of the government for opposition voters. Typologizing the patterns of political activism helps to understand the differences and similarities of certain protest waves. It is possible to identify trends that influence mobilization and activist engagement independently of the movement’s goals and worldview, such as the decreasing role of organizations or the spread of social media. Prefiguration can thus be observed in both radical right and New Left alternative movements. An analysis of the sociological background of demonstrators and participants in political events shows that those with high status can be mobilized in pro-government, opposition, and grassroots rallies. The regime-building intentions of the Orbán governments have turned issues such as public and higher education, freedom of the press, independence of science and culture into movement issues. Opposition protesters can easily identify themselves with these issues because of their high status. However, the processes in Hungary cannot be interpreted in isolation, as they are linked to macrosocial tendencies, namely the growing distrust of political institutions and citizens’ willingness to engage in conflict, and the structural transformation of the public sphere by social media. Mobilization opportunities and participation trends in Hungary were strongly influenced by the spread of social media from the early 2010s, a tendency which was strengthened by the decreasing access of the opposition to the public sphere. Although the emancipatory image of digital communication had

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already faded by the late 1990s, when social researchers pointed out that the internet alone did not empower individuals politically. Later, notably in 2011, following the example of the Arab Spring in Hungary during the anti-government Milla movement in the early 2010s, social media was seen as a weapon of the weak during anti-government demonstrations. However, understanding mobilization through social media raises the importance of existing social networks and organizations. While social media has proven to be a suitable tool for disseminating information and mobilizing based on emotion, prospective supporters need to be recruited into more robust networks to create deep and long-term engagement. Social media also amplifies some general social and political trends, thereby changing the general trends in political participation and social movement mobilization. Social media are increasingly built around visual content that supports emotional mobilization and emphasizes the expressive dimension of protest. In addition, mobilization through social media reinforces the blurring of the boundaries between the public and private spheres through the mediated visibility of political actors and political issues. This is closely linked to the personalization of politics, not only at the level of leaders but also at the level of citizens. As a consequence, people tend to act on the basis of personalized frameworks of action and to engage in various issues as individuals rather than as part of pre-existing networks. This trend undermines the role of social movement organizations and long-term commitment. In terms of democratization, this means that social media are not sufficient tools to counter the leaders of hybrid or authoritarian regimes with institutional resources. Individually feasible, inward-looking political action can be taken by people of higher social status, income, and education. People interested in material and not symbolic redistribution, who need advocacy and not self-expression, cannot be involved in these actions. As Michele Micheletti has noted (2003), without people of high status, organizations lose the knowledge and capacity for better, more effective advocacy and representation. Beyond the architecture of social media, the discursive opportunity structure, which refers to the social attitudes, beliefs, and cultural features that determine how the interpretive framework of the movement resonates. The analysis of the Hungarian discursive

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opportunity structure in the chapter on civil ethos activism showed that Hungarian citizens in the 2010s tend to support the integrative and charitable role of NGOs. In fact, this is also in line with the role of civic society envisioned by the Orbán government. Social movements do not necessarily need to mobilize social macro groups to achieve their goals. However, according to the civil society master frame, democracy can be restored through the active participation of civil society organizations and citizens, provided that a participatory political culture is established. This implies mobilizing the majority of voters along the civil society master frame, which does not resonate with higher status groups in society with a higher propensity to participate. The construction of discursive opportunities is not, however, the only factor limiting CSOs’ ability to act as a counterweight to democratic backlash. Notably, there is a difference between electoral and more direct forms of political participation in Hungary. According to the data of the seventh wave of the European Social Survey (2014), the rate of nonelectoral political participation in Hungary was low (Róbert and Szabó 2017), but the electoral participation rate was over 70 percent in the 2018 parliamentary elections, suggesting that political parties remain the most important means of participation for Hungarian voters. This discrepancy determines the mobilization potential of social movements and hinders the move from the street to institutionalized politics. It also means that politically active civil society organizations have a limited capacity to counteract democratic backlash on their own. Finally, the more general transformation of political participation and political culture also defines the opportunities of political activism in Hungary. In representative democracies, forms of political participation that were previously considered “nonconventional,” such as protest, direct political action, and various forms of civil disobedience, are becoming more common. The driving force of contemporary civic political action, however, is no longer a “participatory political culture,” but a self-consciously confrontational, self-advocating political culture, that is an “assertive political culture” (Dalton and Welzel 2014). Protest action is almost a civic duty for certain social groups, for instance in the case of protest waves that accompanied the Orbán governments’ educational measures, which were also events of a political coming of age

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for the participating and organizing students. However, in Pierre Rosanvallon’s interpretation, public distrust of political institutions helps to control elected politicians, and “counter-democracy” thus complements representative democracy. Nevertheless, it is not only those with lower income, education, and status who are distrustful of the institutions of representative democracy, but also members of social groups who, in addition to dissatisfaction, have the individual competences necessary for political action and self-assertion. In addition, a Central and Eastern European characteristic is that mistrust and aversion to the institutions of representative democracy is coupled with an anti-political tradition and a civil-political identity. The roots of this can be traced back to the period of democratic transition from communism, when civil society, based on self-organization and autonomous interactions of citizens, served as a quasi-ideology against the party-state. In this tradition, the civil, whether an individual or organization, appears as an entity free of particular interests that acts on the basis of moral maxims. The “civil” is thus able to function as an “empty signifier” that can encapsulate (upper) middle class dissatisfaction with politics, distrust, and the need for self-expression. Yet the anti-institutionalist, in many cases inward oriented activism cannot effectively challenge the illiberal regime, which relies on the resources of state institutions and the electoral loyalty of otherwise demobilized masses.

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Appendix



AVM (A Város Mindenkié)

2009

1990

Amnesty International Magyarország

Amnesty International Hungary AVM (The City for All)

2013

ADOM Student Movement (Movement for Alternative Student-Centred Education)

ADOM Diákmozgalom (Alternatív Diákközpontú Oktatásért Mozgalom)

since 2009

since 1990

2013

Year of Years of foundation operation

Az alkotmány nem játék The Constitution Is Not a Game

English name

Hungarian name

List of groups, organizations

movement organization

NGO

movement organization

NGO

Form

a movement against housing poverty and homelessness

an organization that grew out of the student protests of 2011-2012, protesting against the new Constitution and the right-wing Fidesz government human rights organization

Main activities

218 Appendix

Interest Group of Bank Debtors

Peace March

CEU (Central European University)

Civil Union Forum

Banki Adósok Érdekvédelmi Szervezete

Békemenet

CEU (Közép-európai Egyetem)

Civil Összefogás Fórum (CÖF)

2009

1991

2012

2009

NGO

(Continued)

non-governmental organization defending the interests and rights of people affected by foreign exchange losses 2012–2018 movement a rally organized by the Civil Alliance Forum in support of the Fidesz governments since 1991 higher education international university institution founded by George Soros, operating in Budapest until 2019 since NGO an umbrella 2009 organization of NGOs supporting the rightwing government that came to power after 2010

2009– 2020

Appendix 219

Critical Mass

Democratic Charter 1991

Critical Mass

Demokratikus Charta

2004

2017

Civilization Group

Civilizáció csoport

movement organization

movement organization

Form

1991–1994 movement organization

2004– 2012

2017

Year of Years of foundation operation

English name

Hungarian name

List of groups, organizations

a protest organization bringing together NGOs formed during the conflict between politically active NGOs and the government the movement organization promoting urban cycling self-defined as a movement of liberal and leftwing individuals and parties against the radicalisation of the right-wing government that emerged after the 1990 elections

Main activities

220 Appendix

Eötvös Károly Institute

Eötvös Károly Intézet

2003

1990

Energy Club

Energiaklub

1984 2013

Danube Circle

Duna Kör

2011

Együtt (Együtt—a Together Korszakváltók Pártja)

DK (Democratic Coalition)

DK (Demokratikus Koalíció)

since 1990 since 2003

NGO

NGO

2013–2018 political party

1984–1990 movement organization

since 2011 political party

(Continued)

social-liberal, socialdemocratic political party founded by former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány and other former members of the postcommunist MSZP party the movement against the Bős-Nagymaros water step A political party led by former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, including the Milla and the Hungarian Solidarity Movement energy policy think tank, NGO rule of law think tank, NGO

Appendix 221

English name

Extinction Rebellion

Fridays For Future

Independent Student Parliament

Hungarian name

Extinction Rebellion

Fridays For Future

Független Diákparlament

List of groups, organizations

2014

2018

2018

Form

since 2014 movement organization

since 2018 movement organization

since 2018 movement organization

Year of Years of foundation operation

a movement against climate change, protesting against the responsibility of political elites and promoting a climateconscious lifestyle a movement against climate change, protesting against the responsibility of political elites, mainly composed of students a movement for a student-centred education system that creates opportunities, since 2019 it has been called ADOM Student Movement

Main activities

222 Appendix

My Home Is Not For Sale Movement

I Bike Budapest

Indignados 2011 (Indignados, also known as M-15)

Haza Nem Eladó Mozgalom Párt

I Bike Budapest

Indignados

2015

2013

2006

Student Network

Hallgatói Hálózat

2002

Greenpeace Hungary

Greenpeace Magyarország

movement organization

(Continued)

the Hungarian branch of the environmental movement 2006, movement a movement protesting 2011– organization against tuition fees in 2012 2006 and against the student contract and the reform of higher education in 2011-2012 since movement party a political party 2013 defending the interests and rights of people affected by foreign exchange losses since movement a movement 2015 organization organization promoting urban cycling 2011–2015 Spanish economic austerity, a movement movement against the political elite, a movement for democratic participation

since 2002

Appendix 223

K-Monitor

Koppány Group

City Park Defenders 2016

Politics Can Be Different (LMP)

K-Monitor

Koppány-csoport

Ligetvédők

Lehet Más a Politika (LMP)

2009

2013

2007

2003

Jobbik (Jobbik Movement for Hungary)

Jobbik (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom)

political party

Form

since 2009

political party

since 2016 movement organization

since NGO 2007 2013–2019 movement organization

since 2003

Year of Years of foundation operation

English name

Hungarian name

List of groups, organizations

a radical right-wing political party at its inception, then gradually moderating corruption think tank, NGO a movement defending the interests and rights of people affected by foreign exchange losses a movement against the building of the City Park the ecological political party that grew out of the Hungarian antiglobalisation movement

Main activities

224 Appendix

Hungarian Solidarity Movement

Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF)

Magyar Szolidaritás Mozgalom

Magyar Demokrata Fórum (MDF)

1987

2011

Hungarian Helsinki 1989 Committee Hungarian Two2006 Tailed Dog Party

Magyar Helsinki Bizottság Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt

2007

Hungarian Guard

Magyar Gárda

political party

NGO

movement organization

1987–2010 political party

since 2011 NGO

since 1994 since 2006

2007– 2009

(Continued)

radical rightwing movement organization human rights organization a political party that caricatures the political elite, builds on citizen participation and creative action a left-wing movement organization formed by groups protesting against the abolition of early retirement pensions, representing workers’ interests conservative, right-wing political party, the strongest party in the first freely elected coalition government

Appendix 225

English name

Migszol—Migrant Solidarity Group

MIÉP (Hungarian Justice and Life Party)

Milla (One Million for the Freedom of Press)

Migszol—Migrant Solidarity Group

MIÉP (Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja)

Milla, “Egymillióan a magyar sajtószabadságért”

Menedék—Migránsokat Menedék— Segítő Egyesület Hungarian Association for Migrants Migration Aid Migration Aid

Hungarian name

List of groups, organizations

2010

1993

2012

since 2015

2015

NGO

Form

political party

2010–2014 Facebook group, then association

since 1993

grassroots organization, since 2017 NGO 2012–2018 grassroots organization

since 1995

1995

Year of Years of foundation operation

radical right-wing party formed from the radical wing of the MDF organizing protests against the new media law of 2010 and the 2012 Fundamental Law

refugee and migrant aiding organization

refugee and migrant aiding organization

refugee and migrant aiding organization

Main activities

226 Appendix

movement organization French political party

since 1972

political party

movement organization

since 1994

2015

NANE (Nők a Nőkért az NANE (Women for 1994 Erőszak Ellen) Women Against Violence) Nemzeti Front National Front 1972 (Front National)

MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party)

MSZP (Magyar Szocialista Párt)

2015

since 2017 political party

since 1989

Now Us!

Most Mi!

2017

1989

Momentum (Momentum Movement)

Momentum (Momentum Mozgalom)

(Continued)

French radical right-wing political party, from 2018 Rassemblement national (National Rally)

the liberal political party that has gained national prominence through the referendum initiative on the hosting of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Budapest a group that grew out of the net tax movement in 2014 and promotes civic politics a left-wing social democratic party formed from the pre1989 state party feminist, women’s rights movement

Appendix 227

English name

Occupy Wall Street

Dialogue

Podemos

Citizens’ Circles

Populus (populus. hu)

Hungarian name

Occupy Wall Street

Párbeszéd

Podemos

Polgári Körök

Populus (populus.hu)

List of groups, organizations

2015

2002

2014

2013

2011

Form

political party

2015

2002– 2006

Website

all movement organizations

since 2014 political party

since 2013

2011–2012 American movement

Year of Years of foundation operation a movement to protest against growing wealth inequality an ecopolitical, leftwing party founded by former LMP politicians the Spanish New Left political party that grew out of the Indignados protests all local groups and organizations mobilizing the electorate after the defeat of Fidesz in the 2002 elections the social media website created after the internet-tax protests to connect citizens’ initiatives

Main activities

228 Appendix

1994 2015

I Would Teach Movement

TSociety for Civil Liberties (TASZ)

New Hungarian Republic

Társaság a Szabadságjogokért (TASZ) Új Magyar Köztársaságot

2016

1984

Tanítanék Mozgalom

Soros Alapítvány

2015

Let’s Help the Refugees Together! Soros Foundation

Segítsünk együtt a menekülteknek! NGO

2015

since 1994 association

NGO

2016–2017 movement organization

since 1984

2015–2018 social media group

(Continued)

Submission of questions for a ‘disorderly referendum,’ which sought to dismantle the Orbán regime along specific issues with public support

human rights organization

donor organization supporting civil society, NGOs a movement protesting against the restructuring and centralization of public education

refugee and migrant aiding group

Appendix 229

English name

USAID

Greens (Die Grünen)

Hungarian name

USAID

Zöldek (Die Grünen)

List of groups, organizations

1980

1961

since 1980

since 1961

Year of Years of foundation operation

a government agency in the United States that manages foreign aid and development funds

Main activities

German ecological German political party political party

US State Department foreign aid agency

Form

230 Appendix

Index

activism 83–90 anti-politics 6, 94 anti-regime protests 181–3 assertive politics 83, 181, 189

I Would Teach Movement 40–1, 50, 73, 80, 91, 95 internet tax protests 31–2, 44–8, 73, 75, 156–7, 182

Beck, Ulrich 27, 29, 116

Jobbik 45, 48, 57, 76, 105, 153, 161, 164

Central European University (CEU) protests 40–1, 157–8, 182 City Park protests 20, 41, 52–5 civil disobedience 119, 131, 134, 143, 189 civil ethos 184–5 civil society master frame 91–2, 95–9, 189 corruption 44, 70, 73, 75, 80, 82, 162, 183 Democratic Coalition (DK) 42, 81 Együtt (Together) 44, 57, 67, 80, 81 emotion management 35, 112, 134 environmental movements 49, 52, 54–6, 71, 75–6, 141 Fidesz 2, 11, 45, 48, 61, 73, 77, 123, 141, 158, 178–81 frame resonance 96 framing 92–3 free spaces 146–7, 151–2, 165 global justice movement 49, 69, 71, 122, 150, 160 Gramsci, Antonio 116–17 grief based activism 109–112, 185 Gulyás, Márton 74 Hungarian Island (Magyar Sziget) 76, 105, 167–8

Konrád, György 6, 94, 149 Márki-Zay, Péter 81 MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum) 14, 48 Michnik, Adam 5–6, 73, 149 Milla (One Million for the Freedom of Press) 44, 46, 48, 67, 91, 94, 188 Momentum Party 67–8, 73–5 moral incentives 119–120, 122, 134 MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party) 42, 95 national rock music 76, 166 new evolutionism 6 NGOization 9, 67, 72 Olson, Mancur 119 Orbán-regime 109, 172–3, 178–9 Orbán, Viktor 79–80, 95, 179–80 overtime law protests 81, 130, 152–4, 156–9 Párbeszéd (Dialogue party) 42, 80 party dealignment 2, 77, 82, 180 Peace March 35–43, 179–81 political culture 13–17, 67, 96–7, 178, 181, 184, 189 political opportunity structure 8, 10–11, 17, 33, 74 

232

Index

Politics Can Be Different (LMP) 52, 57, 74, 76, 80 populism 172–7 populist movements 176–8 postelection protests 44, 81 prefigurative politics 147–51 protest camp 20, 141 protestival 104–5, 166 radical right 9, 20–1, 48, 58–9, 76, 88, 105–6, 113, 117, 141, 147, 157, 158, 160–72, 186–7

Russia 44, 75, 78, 82, 166 Schulze, Gerhard 27, 31, 116 solidarity movements 122–134 sub-politics 29, 103, 107 SZDSZ (Alliance for Democrats) 14 Thoreau, Henry David 119 top-down mobilization 17, 77, 79, 173, 177–81 Wilberforce, William 115