Although difficult to prove statistically, there is good reason to assume that what is often called “democratic backslash” generated by the Viktor Orbán regime since 2010 has already sparked more interpretive concepts and social science theories in Hungary than the historic regime change, in 1989. Deemed a departure from the principles of humanist rationality, commonly recognized today as the values of the European Union, the regime has been characterized in relevant academic literature with descriptors including illiberal state, autocracy, semi-hybrid regime, state-capitalism, developmental state, party-state, predatory authoritarian state, dependent state, accumulating state, competitive authoritarianism, crony system, Potemkin democracy, mafia-state, and kleptocracy—to name the more moderate ones. Consequently, Mária Csanádi and her co-authors faced a challenge navigating through this web of concepts to develop a clear explanation that sheds light on the gradual expansion of the System of National Cooperation (SNC, newspeak codename for how the state operates). Their argument is that while some existing concepts can describe certain aspects of the system, none fully captures its complexity or its dynamic nature.
This volume represents a monumental academic endeavor written in the best traditions of Hungarian positivist social sciences, aiming to create a comprehensive itinerary of the SNC; some kind of Grand Encyclopedia of the transgressions of the SNC by compiling facts from various sources. In the first section, Csanádi meticulously recalls and systematizes over 700 events and political decisions, effectively demonstrating how the ruling party elite captured the country's economy and society. Employing the concept of “diffusion,” the author unravels a process of a centrally managed network of influence infiltrating every facet of social functioning, gradually asserting control over the country. While theoretically she does not go too far beyond often-referred to forerunners like János Kornai and Bálint Magyar, the empirical material presented here constitutes an astonishing historical indictment against the assault on democracy and process of modernization in Hungary.
The concept of diffusion, originally used in physics, is adeptly transposed to the social sciences. It not only clarifies the spread of authoritarian practices within a country but also provides insight into the productive interaction between two anti-democratic regimes (Hungary and Russia). The study could have extended its focus to investigate the dynamics of interplay between the anti-Enlightenment ideologies propelling the two regimes. This would have expanded diffusion theory to explore both external and internal impacts on the system. Furthermore, the author contends that conceptualizing the system is challenging due to the permanent and deliberate modifications in which the regime's dynamism originates from. This notion clearly echoes Samuel Huntington's description of the (communist) single-party regimes’ dynamic, published in 1970 (Huntington and Clement Moore, Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society: The Dynamics of One-Party Systems). Referring to Huntington's insights could have enriched Csanádi's narrative with a deeper historical and temporal perspective regarding the diffusion of repressive practices and ideology from the state socialist autocracy to the present one.
In the volume's second part, three strictly empirical studies provide further evidence to support Csanádi's thesis. All three present and analyze the self-reproductive mechanisms of the emerging authoritarian system in maximum detail and with impeccable methodological consistency. In the second chapter, Márton Gerő and Imre Kovách present the redistributive mechanisms of the Orbán regime and make a compelling argument that the growing number of state welfare projects is a blind to build clientele and expand a system-dependent voter base, while actual social spending and subsidies are steadily declining. In the third chapter, János Tóth and Miklós Hajdu analyze the risk of corruption and the competitive intensity of public tenders between 2005 and 2021, processing a stunning 242,000 public procurement contracts. Their research proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the Orbán regime systematically distributes public funding almost exclusively to “crony companies,” as well as creating a legal background for corruption. In the final study, Mihály Laki concludes that crony entrepreneurs have a comparatively greater chance of getting rich than outsiders, unravelling the contact networks of the 100 richest Hungarians. All three studies have the merit of presenting relevant, evidence-based results in a political environment that has perfected the technique of concealing economic facts. In addition to scientific rigor, the authors have also carried out virtuoso detective work to draw their conclusions.
Given its academic style and highly scholarly content one can assume that this book is mainly targeted at academics. Hungarian readers following fact-finding sites and news will enjoy its form and consistently executed methodology, however, they would find the conclusions less than revelatory, because corruption, violations of European standards, and disregard for social justice are to them commonplace. Yet there are dilemmas about some issues that the book treats as categorical facts. For example, there is no certainty that authoritarian regimes only “diffuse” downward and poison society from above, or that the power elite exploits and utilizes historically inherited pre-existing social patterns with simply better sensitivity to voter demands than its political predecessors. Historical and social psychological approaches have thus far paid much more attention to the Orbán regime's communication (propaganda and adaptation to social demands as well as power techniques based on memory politics, which are used to exploit existing voter attitudes and successively win big). It is just as difficult to avoid the question of why nobody stops this regime's shameful practices: where is civil society and the political opposition? It would be difficult to understand the whole Orbanian construct without reference to one of the regime's greatest innovations in power technology: the concept of a “central power field,” by which the ruling party effectively paralyzes its political opponents.
As for international readers, this book will certainly have a mind-opening and revelatory effect. Despite the above criticisms, this is a highly valuable academic work offering an ambitious and accurate vision of a dictatorship in the making.
