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HUMAN DIGNITY AND ‘ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY’ IN TIME OF CRISIS
Central and Eastern European states’ dependence on foreign capital — as Bojan
Bugari¢ and Mitchel Orenstein argue — also seemed to force governments in this
region to endorse neoliberal economics especially prior to 2008. This has created
a greater possibility of populist backlash, and after the global financial crisis right¬
wing populist parties’ policies shifted towards economic nationalism based on
‘work, family, fatherland.’ In the case of the Orban governments since 2010 this
does not mean that they are against globalisation and big businesses with trans¬
national corporations.'* According to Gabor Scheirig the Orbanomics’ propagates
a social-Darwinist model of work-based society’, based on ’neo-illiberalism.’”
The packed Hungarian Constitutional Court rubber stamped the government’s
neoliberal economic policy, changing its predecessor’s practice, which in the mid
1990’s was willing to strike down austerity measures for the protection of social
rights closely tying them to the protection of equal human dignity. Although
social solidarity was an underdeveloped societal practice from the beginning
of the democratic transition for several reasons, originally the Constitutional
Court strongly committed itself to the protection of human dignity and this way
guaranteed a higher profile for social (solidarity) rights, especially in case of social
care based on neediness.
Then, as a contrast, in the ‘non-solidary’ system of the Hungarian Fundamental
Law of 2011 social security does not appear as a fundamental right, but merely
https://www.socialeurope.eu/where-did-trumpism-come-from?fbclid=IwA R1C) YiPF_6uF
alCGgHB9TKIDTk-ppcu3ZFnfAPpyoZYxGaSE5ccpugcCnw.
Similarly, Simon Wren-Lewis, Why neoliberalism can end in autocratic, populist and
incompetent plutocrac, Mainly Macro (22 September 2020), https://mainlymacro.blogspot.
com/2020/09/why-neoliberalism-can-end-in-autocratic.html.
See Mitchel Orenstein — Bojan Bugari¢, How Populism Emerged from the Shadow of
Neoliberalism in Central and Eastern Europe, LSEblogpost (October 21, 2020), https://
blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2020/10/21/how-populism-emerged-from-the-shadow- of¬
neoliberalism-in-central-and-eastern-europe/.
Mitchel Orenstein — Bojan Bugari¢, Work, Family, Fatherland: the political economy of populism
in central and Eastern Europe, Journal of European Public Policy (19 October 2020), https://
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501763.2020.1832557?journalCode=rjpp20.
See Gabor Scheiring, The Retreat of Liberal Democracy. Authoritarian Capitalism and the
Accumulative State in Hungary, London, Palgrave MacMillan, 2020.
Gabor Scheiring, Why businesses embrace populists and what to do about it: lessons
from Hungary, The Conversation (September 8, 2020), https://theconversation.com/why¬
businesses-embrace-populists-and-what-to-do-about-it-lessons-from-hungary-141757?fb
clid=IwAR1CJYiPF_6uFalCGgHBITKIDTk-ppcu3ZFnfAPpyoZYxGaSE5ccpugcCnw.
The term ‘neo-illiberalism’ first appeared in Reijer Hendrikse, Neoliberalism is over
— welcome to the era of neo-illiberalism, openDemocracy (7 May, 2020), https://www.
opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/neoliberalism-is-over-welcome-to-the-era-of-neo-il
liberalism/?fbclid=IwAR1CJ YiPF_6uFalCGgHB9TKIDTk-ppcu3ZFnfAPpyoZYxGaSE5c
cpugcCnw.
+ 375 *