illiberal

CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE ILLIBERAL STATE

by

1 October 2014

President Obama’s recent intervention in Hungarian affairs was undoubtedly unwelcome in Budapest. The Hungarian government’s dispute with a Norwegian NGO has seemed – at least on the surface – to be an unwarranted and politically motivated assault on civil liberties. Indeed, the fact that the US President saw fit to even comment on the affair was in itself interesting and in some ways a damning indictment of the Orbán government.

VIKTOR ORBÁN AND THE ILLIBERAL STATE

by

11 August 2014

Viktor Orbán’s recent speech to ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania on 26 July 2014, in which he mentioned Hungary’s movement towards the creation of a ‘workfare’ state – not per se built on current western liberal models – but rather a pragmatic response to social and economic developments, has been met by a somewhat hysterical and ill-informed reaction by Hungary’s liberals and their foreign supporters.