The Orbán Enigma (how A Former Liberal Turned Hungary Into A Global Illiberal Laboratory)

Exposes the inner workings of Orbán’s Hungary and assesses how his style of politics has affected states and electorates worldwide.

Exposes the inner workings of Orbán’s Hungary and assesses how his style of politics has affected states and electorates worldwide.

How did a simple boy from the Hungarian countryside end up leading political life in his country for decades? How, as Prime Minister of a small Central European state, did he become one of the most influential illiberal rulers in the world? How and why did Hungary turn into a neo-authoritarian laboratory? And what geopolitical game is Viktor Orbán playing between continental alliances and global powers?

This book is a political biography of Orbán, but also offers first-hand historical analysis of Hungary post-1989. What started as an imperfect, albeit fully-fledged, democracy has been replaced by a new constitutional system. Orbán’s Hungary is a constantly radicalising electoral autocracy, with two intertwined role models: Putin’s Russia and Trump’s new America.

The Orbán Enigma explains how Hungarian democratic backsliding has become a hot-button issue for the Western political community; and charts how, over the course of fifteen years, the Orbán regime has ushered in illiberal rule while maintaining Hungary’s global connections via the EU and NATO. Stefano Bottoni’s timely study reminds us that democracy dies if it loses its spirit and civic commitment.

Stefano Bottoni is a senior fellow at the Institute of History, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities, within the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; a former senior fellow at the Institut Montaigne; and author of Long Awaited West: Eastern Europe since 1944. He holds a PhD from the University of Bologna.