Fencing in the Boundaries of the Community: Migration, Nationalism and Populism in Hungary

Abstract

This chapter argues that the European migration crisis just provided more ground for nationalist populist politics of the Fidesz government of Hungary. Using a systematic content analysis of the official speeches of the PM Viktor Orbán since 2010, the chapter shows this new conception of national identity mobilizes against the collapse of traditional national values as well as the liberal rationalism embodied by EU institutions and puts Hungarian nationals above all others. In this setting, the discursive construction and use of ‘otherness’ in public discourse stand for the representations of migrants as a deviant groups of people, enemies of the Hungarian nation, of a threatening ideology/religion that must be opposed. Citizenship is hijacked as a civilizational/cultural marker to distinguish ‘us’ from the ‘other’. Europe and its common governance systems, secular organization, religious tolerance, and liberal foundation only exacerbate this threat, making the EU become ‘the other’, against what the national identity must be protected.