Discover, instrumentalize, monopolize: Fidesz’s three-step blueprint for a populist take-over of referendums

Abstract

This article assesses the referendums in Hungary in 2004, 2008, and 2016 diachroni-cally. The review is framed by two competing liberal parliamentary approaches to direct democracy: A useful democratic corrective to the distortions of particracy, or a risky option leading to tyranny of the majority? Rather than choosing sides, this article shows how the conundrum conceals another, more interesting question: Which are the constraints under which the liberal parliamentary viewpoint shifts from the one to the other? Theorizing on post-democracy and populism provides a provisional answer: A consensualized, “post-political” parliament is key, as this, in combination with widening social-economic disparities, incentivizes illiberal populist parties to harness referendums, which prompts liberal parliamentarianists to change their minds. The referendums in 2004, 2008, and 2016 in Hungary substantiate this suspicion. Taken together, they offer a step-by-step blueprint for how, in a thoroughly postpolitical situation, a referendum evolves into a perfect catalyst for populists on their road to power, enabling them with (a) agenda-setting; (b) an explosive emphasis on popular legitimacy; (c) arousing voluntarism, while luring opponents into campaigning for boycott and political apathy; (d) combining social equalitarianism with identarian protectionism, and most importantly; (e) bypassing parliament itself.