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Chapter 10 - Populism or Authoritarianism? A Plaidoyer Against Illiberal or Authoritarian Constitutionalism

from III - Anti-Constitutionalism After Post-Communism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2022

By
Gábor Halmai
Edited by
Martin Krygier ,
Adam Czarnota  and
Wojciech Sadurski
Martin Krygier
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales, Sydney
Adam Czarnota
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales, Sydney
Wojciech Sadurski
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Summary

In an infamous speech delivered on July 26, 2014, the populist and autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán proclaimed his intention to turn Hungary into a state that ‘will undertake the odium of expressing that in character it is not of liberal nature’. Citing as models he added:

We have abandoned liberal methods and principles of organizing society, as well as the liberal way to look at the world … Today, the stars of international analyses are Singapore, China, India, Turkey, Russia … and if we think back on what we did in the last four years, and what we are going to do in the following four years, then it really can be interpreted from this angle. We are … parting ways with Western European dogmas, making ourselves independent from them … If we look at civil organizations in Hungary … we have to deal with paid political activists here … [T]hey would like to exercise influence … on Hungarian public life. It is vital, therefore, that if we would like to reorganize our nation state instead of it being a liberal state, that we should make it clear, that these are not civilians … opposing us, but political activists attempting to promote foreign interests … This is about the ongoing reorganization of the Hungarian state. Contrary to the liberal state organization logic of the past twenty years, this is a state organization originating in national interests.1

In a conversation with the French philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Orbán identified liberalism with totalitarianism, and illiberalism with true democracy:

Liberalism gave rise to political correctness—that is, to a form of totalitarianism, which is the opposite of democracy. That’s why I believe that illiberalism restores true freedom, true democracy.2

In a speech, delivered in mid-September 2019 at the 12th congress of the Association of Christian Intelligentsia, he said that ‘Christian liberty’ is superior to individual liberty – defined by John Stuart Mill in his On Liberty – which can only be infringed upon if the exercise of one’s liberty harms others. Christian liberty, by contrast, holds that we ought to treat others as we want to be treated.3 ‘The teachings of ‘Christian liberty’ – he added – ‘maintain that the world is divided into nations.’ As opposed to liberal liberty, which is based on individual accomplishments, the followers of ‘Christian liberty’ acknowledge only those accomplishments that also serve the common good. While liberals are convinced that liberal democracies will eventually join together to form a world government à la Immanuel Kant in the name of liberal internationalism, Christian liberty by contrast considers ‘nations to be as free and sovereign as individuals are, and therefore they cannot be forced under the laws of global governance’.

Type
Chapter
Information
Anti-Constitutional Populism , pp. 366 - 398
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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