Movement entrepreneurship of an incumbent party. The story of the Hungarian incumbent party Fidesz and the Civil Cooperation Forum

Abstract

This paper discusses movements created, initiated and maintained by political parties: a quite neglected area of social movement studies. Between 2010 and 2014, the biggest demonstrations were pro-government marches in Hungary. The engine of pro-government actions was the movement of the Civil Cooperation Forum (CCF) implicitly founded by the incumbent party Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Alliance. The purpose of this article is to analyze this relationship within a constructivist analytical framework. Through intertextual analyses I will draw up the narrative of the movement focusing on four key challenges (constructing identity, strategic visions, organizational tactics, appropriate and persuading communication). I will demonstrate how independent the movement is. After the descriptive case study, two hypotheses will be generated about the political parties' reason for launching a movement entrepreneurship; and the citizens' motivation for participating and expressing their preferences between elections through a collateral organization like CCF.