Zsuzsanna Vidra

Mainstreaming of racist anti-Roma discourses in the media in Hungary

The article focuses on the rise and spread of racist language in public debate in Hungary. It investigates how radical right discourses—that is, the relegitimating of the racist idea of “Gypsy crime”—have been transmitted by the mainstream media thus contributing to the decline of a short-lived political correctness in Hungary. The analysis explores how racism has become more and more accepted and how the mainstream has embraced the radical rights propositions, turning them into a “digestible” rhetoric while “breaking the taboos” of antiracism.

Introduction to the Special Issue: New Forms of Intolerance in European Political Life

This introduction summarizes the contributions to the Special Issue that focus on the spread of intolerant and racist discourses in Denmark, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Hungary. Through a comparative approach, the issue argues that what has been decisive in this process is the role played by mainstream political parties that perceive intolerance against the “other” as the natural outcome of the failure of previous tolerant policies on immigrants and minorities. Even if brought forward with different argumentation in each case, intolerance is introduced in all five countries as a principled position under the pretext of protecting European citizens’ rights.

The Ferry-Country between East and West: Debates on Modernity and Europe in Hungary

The debates on Hungary’s role and position in Europe began with the nation-state building process in the 19th century, and — with varying degrees of intensity — continued throughout the 20th century. The overwhelming majority of these debates had a ‘top-down’ approach — with strong normative expectations and with clear and often explicitly outlined ideological-political commitments and legacies. From the outset, these debates were inseparably intertwined with the debates on the modernisation of the country. The positions taken on the focal subject of these controversies — the position of Hungary on a symbolic map of Europe — expressed the views of the participants on the debates about desirability and feasibility of the modernisation of the country, and about the possible and acceptable ways of changing the country’s face from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’. Therefore, in this chapter, the two major topics of our project — views on European identity and modernisation — will appear interconnected.

Politically Driven Mapping Political and Media Discourses of Penal Populism—The Hungarian Case

Penal populism, advocating severe punishment of criminals, has greatly influenced justice policy measures in Eastern Europe over the last decade. This article takes Hungary as a typical case in the region and based on a recent criminal policy reform it investigates the roots of the penal populist discourse, which legitimizes and supports punitive measures. The research assumes that policy discourses need specific social actors that construct and promote them. Accordingly, the article explores whether the right-wing political parties and the tabloid media have taken a leading role in constructing the discourse of penal populism as a response to public concerns about crime. Content analysis and frame analysis of political communication and media was conducted to identify the discursive positions of major political parties and selected national media sources. The research found that penal populism was dominant in Hungarian political discourse while most of the media, including the tabloid press, have been rather reluctant to adopt punitive tones. The results thus contradict previous findings and offer a more nuanced view on how penal populism is being constructed and promoted in Eastern Europe.

State policies and institutional procedures and practices addressing prostitution and sex trafficking of children in Hungary

The article, based on policy analysis, institutional interviews and community fieldwork, looks at why children in prostitution and victims of trafficking remain practically without state support and institutional assistance. It also explores to what extent the decriminalisation of the system assisting child victims of prostitution and trafficking, or the shift from the ‘punishment’ to the ‘welfare model’, has taken place. The ethnic aspect of the problem is addressed as well given that the majority of victims are of Roma origin. While Hungary has ratified all important international conventions that oblige the country to protect child victims, neither its policies and legislation nor its institutions including child protection, law enforcement and the judiciary, seem to have adequate structural frameworks and institutional practices to attend to these children and prosecute offenders. Policy gaps, institutional procedures and practices are identified and it is concluded that the country is still much closer to the ‘punishment model’.

Kényszer vagy kivonulás – élet a peremeken

In our study we investigate the past and present, the meanings and the social practices related to the ‘puszta’ (hamlet), a special Hungarian type of social space that administratively belongs to a village but is located outside of it (sometimes at quite a distance) and is usually inhabited by a population that can range from some dozens of people to several hundreds. This special type of hamlet has a long social history as an administrative unit and as a habitation of agricultural workers who worked the land surrounding it. The land usually belonged to one of the churches or to some landlords or later to the socialist agricultural cooperatives. In our study we attempt to answer the questions as to what social changes occurred in the hamlets after the political and economic transition in 1989–90, what kind of economic activities we can observe there, what caused the situation of the present-day hamlets and to find explanations for the variations found in terms of social relations, social situation and individual subsistence strategies. Applying methods of sociology, social geography, and sociography, we intended to reveal the historical roots of those variations as well. Our article is the outcome of a three-year research project in which we carried out fieldwork in four villages located in different geographical regions next to four of Hungary’s borders. The research focused on various aspects of marginality both symbolic and real: social, ethnic, geographical and economic. During our fieldwork we were faced with a special form of marginality – a ‘marginality of marginality’ – that led us to pay more attention to it and draw close-ups of the hamlets we visited. All four hamlets – Boldogasszonypuszta, Tomordpuszta, Totokfoldje, and Eperjespuszta – used to be part of the manorial system in feudal times, but their destinies began to diverge after the two World Wars when the hamlets had to play very different roles. These changes largely altered the modes of livelihood and the composition of the population of the previously more or less homogeneous hamlets. The change of the political system further influenced the fate of the hamlets, and they became even more diverse in character. Totokfoldje in Baranya county and Tomordpuszta in Komarom county became the home of outcasts and social dropouts, rootless people living just around the subsistence level. The other two hamlets, Boldogasszonypuszta and Eperjespuszta are socially more heterogeneous. We found inhabitants who do not live there by necessity but who chose to either go into hiding – because of some conflicts with the law – or seek some romantic or alternative lifestyle there. According to our observations, all hamlets are doomed to slowly becoming slums since it is not the job opportunities but the property status that determines their further existence. Those who settle there voluntarily are smaller or bigger capital owners who buy property in the hamlets. They, however, do not create any job opportunities that the other inhabitants could benefit from. Due to this process the hamlet is turning into a social space of ultimate exclusion.