“​​Countering national-level populism with local politics? Broadening participatory processes in Budapest in illiberal Hungary”

The European Studies Unit of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences (ESU IFiS PAN) cordially invites you to the next seminar in the series titled “The Making of European Society: Towards the Sociology of European Integration”.

The presentation by Dr Edit Zgut-Przybylska of the ESU IFiS PAN titled
“​​Countering national-level populism with local politics? Broadening
participatory processes in Budapest in illiberal Hungary”

will be followed by a discussion.
Moderation: Prof. Joanna Fomina

When: 6 th of March, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Where: IFiS PAN, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330 Warszawa, room 161.

The seminar will have a hybrid form. We strongly encourage you take part in person, but it is also possible to participate online. Please, confirm your participation with Dr Edit Zgut- Przybylska edit.zgut@ifispan.edu.pl or prof. Joanna Fomina: joanna.fomina@ifispan.edu.pln by March 2, 2024.

About the Author:
Dr Edit Zgut-Przybylska is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology (IFIS) in the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and a visiting fellow at CEU Democracy Institute. She received her PhD in Sociology from GSSR at IFIS PAN. She holds an MA in Political Science from ELTE TÁTK and graduated as a journalist at Bálint György Journalism
Academy. Her research interest covers informality and populism in the context of democratic backsliding and the constraining role of the European Union. She published in peer-reviewed journals like the European Politics and Society and the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law. She is the Vice-Chair of Amnesty International Hungary and a visiting lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute of the US State Department. She previously worked at Political Capital Research Institute and before that, she was a journalist at various media outlets in Hungary.

Abstract:
Despite an interest in populism, the way political opposition reacts to the populist challenge is seriously understudied. This paper aims to fill this gap by looking at the case of Budapest and how it has dealt with Viktor Orbán’s populism for the past few years. Theoretically, the paper problematizes the national-local nexus within populism research and concentrates on responses to populism. With this, it not only adds to existing research that only considers local manifestations of populism rather than local opposition to populism, but it also carries an added-value in terms of mapping reactions to the populist governance. The overall expectation is that local-level counter-populism repeals anti-democratic and anti-plural dynamics pursued by a populist national government. The paper provides a summary of the responsive strategies of the lord mayor, the district mayors, and their teams which were gathered through semi-structured interviews and an analysis of official documents and media reports.

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