Abstract
The demand side of populism has been in the scope of social scientists since the early 2010s. Since then, ample scholarly evidence has suggested that populist attitudes are strongly tied to the feeling of relative deprivation. Our study’s focal point revolves around the above findings and focuses on Hungary, a country where populism flourishes. This study analyses the possible connections between the populist attitudes of Hungarian citizens and their feelings of relative deprivation using a representative sample (n = 994). Regression analyses revealed that relative deprivation is a significant predictor of populist attitudes in Hungary regardless of age, sex, and education.
1 Introduction
Populism is one of the hot topics in social sciences. In the last couple of decades, many publications have introduced and analysed the theoretical background of this global phenomenon.1 These works have emphasized that populism revolves around the idea that there is a moral distinction between the “good” people and the “corrupt” elite.2 Researchers also argue that anti-elitism, majoritarianism, anti-institutionalism, and protectionism are essential features of populism.3 Scholars have assumed that the feeling of relative deprivation, which is a perception that an individual or their ingroups do not receive what they deserve while others thrive, could be intertwined with the upsurge in populism.4 Ample empirical evidence supports the above presumption: researchers have revealed that relative deprivation can pave the way for populism, which manifests in stronger populist attitudes, support for populist parties, susceptibility to populist messages, or participation in demonstrations that revolve around populist issues.5
While populism has emerged in many countries, only a few of these have experienced a milieu in which populism has become an essential part of the dominant political ideology, communication, and attitudes for more than a decade. Hungary is among these few states.6 One in which the conservative, right-wing Fidesz-KDNP alliance, led by Viktor Orbán, has won the parliamentary elections with a two-thirds majority on four consecutive occasions since 2010. Populist appeals in political communication are prevalent among most Hungarian political agents, particularly since the onset of the 2015 refugee crisis.7 Although many scholars argue that populism prevails in Hungary,8 there is very little knowledge regarding the way in which the populist attitudes of Hungarian citizens connect to the perception of relative deprivation. This research aims to fill that gap.
Scholarly evidence demonstrates that the perception of a declining national economy is an important predictor of populist attitudes.9 We analyse populist attitudes in a country that has been extremely sensitive to economic crisis since the collapse of state socialism10 and struggled with an inflation rate above twenty per cent between September 2022 and June 2023, the most severe national economic crisis since the mid-1990s.11 In other words, this study scrutinizes how relative deprivation – an important, if not essential condition for populism – is related to the populist attitudes held by Hungarian citizens when economic crisis surges in their homeland. The linear regression analyses – which analysed representative survey data to reveal the extent to which relative deprivation and populist attitudes are intertwined in Hungary’s population – show that the more relative deprivation Hungarians feel, the stronger their populist attitudes are. Additionally, our descriptive analyses show there are no statistically significant differences among the Hungarian government’s supporters and the non-supporters of the Hungarian government in terms of the feeling of relative deprivation. In contrast, those participants who would not vote for the Hungarian government have statistically significantly stronger populist attitudes compared to the supporters of Fidesz-KDNP.
This article has the following structure: first, we introduce the most important theoretical background to populism and findings related to the connections between relative deprivation and populism. Then, we briefly summarise the Hungarian context. Following the methodology section, we introduce our results, followed by the discussion and conclusions. The paper ends with a description of the limitations of this study.
2 Scientific Approaches to Populism with a Specific Focus on Attitudes
Populism emerges in political communication, legislative actions, movements, the media, and in the attitudes of citizens. Scholars, therefore, utilize several approaches to populism to provide accurate research perspectives. One popular, if not the most utilized, approach to populism is the ideational one. This approach outlines the populist idea that separates society into two homogenous groups, the “corrupt elite” and the “good people” and emphasizes that the elite disregards the “general will” while prioritising its own interests and those of other harmful minorities.12 The ideational approach helps scholars identify populist political agents. The second approach, which is a philosophical one, considers populism a logic by which the people could be united regardless of their demands and ideological positions.13 Anti-elitism is the feature that paves the way for unification because regardless of citizens’ diverging political views and demands, everyone is able to lose trust in the elite, especially in the post-truth era. This approach is useful in understanding why populist (legislative) actions are charming. The third approach focuses on the communication style and analyses people-centrist, anti-elitist, exclusionary, empty,14 implicit or explicit populist styles15 in verbal and non-verbal content types.16 The stylistic approach is useful in depicting the agendas of various political agents, and it is an essential tool in exploring the effects of populist messages. The approach to attitudes aims to tap the populist characteristics of the citizenry, and to understand the people’s relation to the elite. Additionally, attitude studies analyse populism’s connections to other attitudes, such as conspiracy beliefs, relative deprivation, collective narcissism, and so on.
Since the early 2010s, researchers have developed several scales with which the populist attitudes of citizens can be analysed.17 Although these scales differ to some extent, all of them rely on the ideational approach of populism that juxtaposes the “good” people with the “corrupt” elite in a moral argument.18 This argument revolves around the claim that the elite does not serve the people but rather focuses on maintaining its own power by (1) disregarding the volonté générale, (2) participating and triggering issues of corruption at the expense of the people, (3) misleading ordinary citizens, (4) supporting small minorities instead of the majority, (5) risking the safety of the people by allowing “dangerous” immigrants into the homeland, and (6) creating financial difficulties for the people.19 Based on the populist logic, the aforementioned alleged actions create a situation in which small minorities, including the elite, are the winners and the people are the losers in an endless political battle.20 In this struggle between “good” and “evil” the people are always held to be morally superior in contrast to the culprits.
Many scholars argue that populism would be unimaginable without the people and their general will playing a central role.21 Populist logic asserts that the people’s will has to be followed in every political decision, and that there is no need for other agents (regardless of whether they are expert or professional politicians) in decision-making processes.22 The elite or other “harmful” outgroups can be defined in contrast to the vague notion of the people;23 they are not and can never be numbered among ordinary citizens because they take advantage of the vulnerable position of the masses. The elite can consist of “mainstream” politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, academics, and journalists, while the other “harmful” outgroups can imply ethnic minorities, immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, LGBTQ+ members, and so on.24 While many groups can be viewed as culprits, the majority of scholars accept that the political elite is the primary enemy of people in the populist phantasmagoria.25
Following the above arguments, most of the populist attitude scales imply three core elements in populism.26 First, the sovereignty of the people (e.g., people-centrism) emerges in these scales, claiming that the will of the people has to be followed unconditionally.27 Also, anti-pluralism is part of the populist scales: this item suggests that the people would prefer to be represented by one of their peers rather than a professional politician or an expert.28 Finally, anti-elitism is an important feature of these scales since this concept completes the populist distinction of the glorious people and the culprits.29 Since populism has a thin core, relying on an “us versus them” approach, it can emerge in any segment of the political spectrum, from the far-left to the far-right and everything in between.30 Additionally, theoretical assumptions and empirical evidence suggest that populism can exist beyond the left-right political ideological spectrum.31 In other words, populism has a chameleonic nature per se; therefore, it can be attached to several ideologies.32 In consequence, most of the populist attitude scales utilize neither left- nor right-wing items.33 Therefore, it is not a surprise that a comprehensive study analysing eleven countries found that populist attitudes connect to those citizens who have right- or left-wing political positions.34
We introduce some pivotal findings from those attitude studies that have analysed populist citizens. Scholars found a significant and positive correlation between populist attitudes and willingness to vote for populist parties in the Netherlands,35 Chile, and Greece.36 In Portugal, researchers found that populist citizens are willing to vote for those parties that utilise the populist style rather than for the non-populist political forces.37 Another research project that analysed Turkey found that populist attitudes are not associated with the support of the populist incumbent political force because citizens regard the government as part of the elite.38 Researchers also explored in a comprehensive study that populist citizens reject pluralism and the representative forms of the political establishment.39 Another study found that higher scores on populist attitudes attract lower scores on supporting liberal democracy among university students.40 Finally, a recent study found that openness to change (e.g., exploring new experiences) is an essential part of left-wing populist attitudes, while it is not associated with right-wing populist attitudes.41
3 Relative Deprivation and Populism
Many scholars argue that relative deprivation is strongly connected to populism.42 Researchers claim that since the late 1970s, neo-liberal policies have focused on cutting taxes, keeping inflation low, deregulating businesses, globalizing markets, and importing foreign and cheap labour.43 Meanwhile, these policies did not mitigate social problems such as unemployment, which could fuel discontent about the political elite among citizens.44 Additionally, economic growth rates have been disappointing over the last couple of decades, especially since the Great Recession of 2007–2009, which could have escalated frustration among the citizenry.
While economic hardship can be an important component in the rise of populism, another factor, namely relative deprivation, is also a pivotal consideration in analyses and in their interpretations. People who feel relatively deprived perceive that their (and their ingroup’s) status in society diminishes while other groups thrive.45 Aligned with the above argument, scholars claim that social identity theory, by which people aim to achieve or maintain a positive social identity by ingroup bias and being hostile to certain outgroups,46 “can be seen as an attempt to articulate some of the social psychological processes which are responsible for the genesis and functioning of relative deprivation.”47 Furthermore, as Eatwell and Goodwin48 argue, relative deprivation “may be reflected in the feeling that the economic settlement is no longer working for ordinary people, that politicians and government are giving priority to the rich and powerful … at the expense of the national group.” Empirical evidence demonstrates that people who feel that they are not represented in policy issues have stronger populist attitudes than those citizens who lack this feeling.49 Consequently, citizens are open to more radical political alternatives, one of which is populism. Since the focus of this paper is the demand side of populism, the recent scientific results that have analysed the possible ties between populist attitudes and relative deprivation have been summarized.
Elchardus and Spruyt researched50 the possible connections between economic position, relative deprivation, and populism among the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium. They found that people who feel relatively deprived are more susceptible to populism than individuals who lack this perception. Additionally, the above study also explored that relative deprivation has a significant mediator effect between economic vulnerability and populist attitudes. Spruyt and colleagues found51 similar results in Flanders: those citizens who felt that they had not received what they deserved, embraced populism. Filsinger found52 that (group) relative deprivation and populist attitudes are positively related reciprocally to each other in six Western democracies. Researchers aimed to analyse the structure of populist attitudes and found that the more strongly Dutch citizens feel relative deprivation, the stronger their anti-elitist and exclusionary attitudes are.53
The perception of relative deprivation significantly predicted populist attitudes among the Yellow Vest protest participants in France,54 as well as predicting participation in the demonstrations.55 Scholars researched the attitudes of the demonstrators who participated in either the 2016 Democratic or the Republican National Convention in the United States.56 The results showed that those participants who felt that their anger represented the anger of all Americans, which is considered “prototypical anger,” predicted the feeling of relative deprivation. Additionally, they also found that relative deprivation “mediated the relationship between relative anger prototypicality and populism for those categorized as having prototypical anger.”57
Another study revealed that group-based discontent was a significant predictor of support in Germany for the populist Alternative for Germany.58 Müller and Schulz59 studied the differences between those individuals who occasionally and frequently utilize alternative media with an affinity to populism (AMP) on Twitter and Facebook. The outcomes suggest that frequent AMP users perceive a higher level of relative deprivation, they have stronger populist attitudes, and they tend to be more likely to vote for the Alternative for Germany.60
Hameleers and colleagues61 analysed in an experiment the conditions that can trigger exposure to populist content among Dutch participants. The results revealed that those participants who felt stronger relative deprivation tended to choose populist media content more frequently than individuals who perceived relative deprivation less.62 Another experiment conducted in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Netherlands analysed the effects of populist messages via social media sites among citizens with different levels of populist attitudes.63 The above research found that populist messages have stronger effects on populist attitudes if the participants feel relative deprivation more.
4 Individual versus Collective Relative Deprivation
In recent years, individual and collective relative deprivation items have been utilized in research as possible predictors of populism.64 Below, we explain why we chose individual rather than collective relative deprivation as a predictor of populist attitudes. Even though some scholars suggest that collective relative deprivation is a vital predictor of populist attitudes, they also acknowledge the difficulty of distinguishing it from populism conceptually.65 In other words, the basic idea of populism, namely the moral juxtaposition of the good people and the corrupt elite66 and collective relative deprivation can easily overlap, resulting in strong correlations between these variables.67 For instance, items implying collective relative deprivation such as “Government doesn’t do enough for people like me, others are always advantaged.”68 “If we need anything from the government, ordinary people like us always have to wait longer than others”,69 explicitly stress the differences between the ordinary people and the establishment, which is aligned with the core concept of populism.70 Other items aiming to measure collective relative deprivation such as “People like me have been systematically disadvantaged, while other groups have received more than they deserve” or “It bothers me when other groups are undeservedly better off than people like me”71 suggest that ordinary people suffer, while other groups thrive. The above suggestion is also part of the populist logic.72 We do not question the validity of the aforementioned studies; we rather aim to highlight the conceptual challenges that collective relative deprivation items and scales propose for analyses dealing with populism. In order to avoid the overlap between the operationalization of populism and relative deprivation, we chose to focus on individual deprivation here. Additionally, we presume that survey respondents can evaluate their individual relative deprivation more accurately than they can assess the relative deprivation of their ingroup.
Despite the scholarly debate on whether relative deprivation precedes populist attitudes or vice versa,73 we adopted Elchardus and Spruyt’s presumption74 that the perception of being deprived is one of the predictors of populist attitudes. They argue that “one expects not that economic vulnerability as such, but an interpretation of that vulnerability that relates it to a view of a just society will lead to populism.”75 Following the above argument, we chose relative deprivation as a predictor of populist attitudes because, after the collapse of state socialism, most Hungarian citizens embraced liberal democracy, and many thought that Hungary would prosper. Instead, economic recession, privatization, unemployment, and severe inflation crushed the economy, creating disappointment in citizens who expected the Hungarian political elite to mitigate the abovementioned challenges.76 We chose to analyse relative deprivation in an economic sense and not from a cultural perspective because Hungary has serially experienced severe economic recessions in the 1990s, since the Great Recession (2008–2012), and since the fall of 2022.
Against this backdrop, our hypothesis is the following:
H 1: Personal relative deprivation significantly predicts populist attitudes among Hungarian citizens.
5 The Hungarian Context
To understand the reasons behind populism’s success and the ties to relative deprivation in Hungary, a brief outline of some pivotal economic occurrences from the last couple of decades is offered below. A few years after the collapse of the state socialist regime, Hungary faced an unemployment rate of 12–13 per cent.77 Additionally, there were regions (especially in the northern part of the country) where the unemployment rate was over twenty per cent.78 In contrast, the unemployment rate was only half a per cent in 1989, which was the last year of state socialism.79 As the above facts show, transition from state socialism to capitalism brought anxiety and stress for millions of Hungarians since their economic positions had become extremely vulnerable.80 At the same time, massive and rapid privatization kicked in for Hungary: by the end of 1992, 36.1 per cent of Hungarian companies had already been privatized, and by 2002, this number had risen to 93.6 per cent.81 At that time, many deprived citizens might have felt that their economic status had worsened while a narrow group such as (foreign) investors thrived. Additionally, the Hungarian political elite did not resist but supported the privatisation process at that time without serious criticism, in alignment with the policies of most of the Central and Eastern European political elite.82 Later on, another crisis shocked many Hungarians from the second half of the 2000s, namely the mortgage crisis, where the mortgages of many Hungary citizens were issued in Swiss franc, exposing “private households to a major exchange rate risk.”83 Hungarian households were struggling with the above mortgage issues at the time of the Great Recession, putting the economic position of many families in peril. That situation has engendered an anti-elitist point of view in many Hungarians, who blamed foreign interests and the former Hungarian government that had supported the mortgage boom.84 Finally, Hungary could not have caught up with the per capita GDP of Western European countries since it joined the European Union in 2004: Hungary’s GDP per capita85 is 74 per cent of the EU average, and that too could have created discontent and disappointment for many Hungarians.
Although a few empirical analyses have focused on populist attitudes in Hungary, it is important to summarize the results here. Extensive research found that Hungarian people do not support the establishment in general, especially if a citizen is in a bad economic situation.86 The abovementioned study revealed that Hungarian citizens tend to justify the system less than their Western peers.87 Researchers studied the pro-Trump and anti-Trump attitudes of Hungarian citizens and found that there was no significant difference between the anti-elitisms of those groups.88 By contrast, the ingroup solidarity and preference for a homogenous society were stronger for pro-Trump participants than those of anti-Trump citizens.89 Another study found that collective narcissism, which suggests that the exceptionality of one’s own ingroup is not recognized by others,90 is an important predictor of supporting Fidesz-KDNP but relative deprivation was not.91 Finally, in the context of the 2015 immigration crisis’ aftermath, Forgas and Lantos showed92 that economic relative deprivation in relation to a typical immigrant living in Hungary was related to more conservative political beliefs.
Even though scholars argue that populism is an important feature of the most prominent political agents in Hungary,93 it is possible that differences exist between the political attitudes of the government’s supporters and those individuals who would not vote for the Hungarian government.94 Therefore, we also analyse whether there are any differences between Fidesz-KDNP supporters and the non-supporters of the Hungarian government in the sense of (1) how relative deprivation and populist attitudes are associated (2) and the extent of relative deprivation and populist attitudes. Therefore, our research questions are the following:
RQ 1: How are relative deprivation and populist attitudes associated among Fidesz-KDNP supporters and those who would not vote for the Hungarian government?
RQ 2: Is there a statistically significant difference in the extent of feeling of relative deprivation between Fidesz-KDNP supporters and those who would not vote for the Hungarian government?
RQ 3: Is there a statistically significant difference in the extent of populist attitudes between Fidesz-KDNP supporters and those who would not vote for the Hungarian government?
6 Data and Methods
6.1 Sample
The survey data collection was conducted by Társadalomkutató Ltd. between 2 February and 23 February 2023. Our sample (n= 994) is representative considering the Hungarian adult population’s sex (females = 53.7%, males = 46.3%), age (min. 18, max. 95, M = 49.89, SD = 17.67), education (elementary school/technical school = 48.7%, high school = 41%, college degree or higher = 10.2%), settlement type (capital city = 18.4%, county seat = 20.3%, other city = 31.2%, village = 30%), and region (Northern Hungary = 11.9%, Northern Great Plain = 14.5%, Southern Great Plain = 12.5%, Central Hungary = 30.5%, Central Transdanubia = 10.7%, Western Transdanubia = 10.1%, Southern Transdanubia = 9.7%). The data was collected using a live interview method with the assistance of professional interviewers in the respondents’ place of residence.
6.2 Measures
To measure populist attitudes, we utilized Akkerman and colleagues measurement95 because theirs is the most frequently used with considerable validity that assesses the three vital components of populism: the general will of the people, the distinction between the people and the political elite, and the Manichean worldview.96 Additionally, this scale refers to the political elite as “politicians,” “politicians in the national parliament,” or as a “specialized politician.”97 This wording suits our research and the Hungarian political sphere because both the establishment and the opposition have major ties to populism, at least at the communicative level.98 The shortcoming of the selected scale’s universal wording is that it is not possible to identify who the elected officials are: the members of the establishment or the opposition.99 Populism was measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = Fully disagree, 5 = Fully agree), where higher scores indicate stronger populist attitudes. The index score was created by averaging participants’ responses across all items where no reversed scoring was implied (e.g., “The politicians in the Hungarian Parliament need to follow the will of the people.” M = 3.83, SD = 0.79). The populist scale’s reliability was high (Chronbach’s
Individual relative deprivation was measured by utilizing Callan’s scale.100 The measurement was conducted on a five-point Likert scale (1 = Fully disagree, 5 = Fully agree). Two items were reverse scored to ensure that higher scores indicated a stronger feeling of relative deprivation.101 The index scores were calculated by averaging participants’ responses across all items (e.g., “I feel resentful when I see how prosperous other people seem to be.” M = 3.38, SD = 0.67). The scale’s reliability was high (Chronbach’s
In this scrutiny, we operationalized Pearson correlation to study the relationship between the feeling of relative deprivation and populist attitudes. We operationalized linear regressions to find out whether relative deprivation and control variables (age, gender, and education) can predict populist attitudes. We also ran independent sample t-tests to analyse whether there are significant differences between the means of relative deprivation and populist attitudes among Fidesz-KDNP supporters and other individuals. To differentiate between these two groups (e.g., “If the elections were this Sunday, which party would you vote for?”) we ran separate analyses for both of them.
7 Results
We ran bivariate correlations among the key variables (the mean scores of relative deprivation and populist attitudes) to explore the relationships among them. Relative deprivation was significantly positively related to populism (r = 0.29, p < 0.001). To test the hypothesis that personal relative deprivation significantly predicts populist attitudes, we conducted multiple linear regressions, entering individual relative deprivation as the predictor variable and populism as the outcome variable. We further included gender, age, and education as covariates. The results support our hypothesis (H 1), suggesting that personal relative deprivation significantly predicts populism, even when controlling for gender, age, and education, F(4, 926) = 21.35, R2 = 0.08, p < 0.001 (see Table 1, note that the pattern of results is identical when removing the covariates, see OSF for syntax and data). In other words, when (most) Hungarians perceive that they do not get what they deserve while others thrive, anti-elitist and people-centrist attitudes start to surge. Populist attitudes are predicted by the perception of being relatively deprived: in our model, relative deprivation precedes and indicates populist attitudes, which revolve around the moral distinction between the good people and the corrupt elite and the need to follow the general will. The more citizens feel relative deprivation, the higher the chance of their disillusionment with the political elite.
Regression analyses predicting populism
Citation: Populism 7, 2 (2024) ; 10.1163/25888072-bja10066
We ran bivariate correlations among the key variables to explore the relationships among them considering Fidesz-KDNP coalition supporters (n = 304). Relative deprivation was significantly positively related to populism, (r = 0.32, p < 0.001). We ran bivariate correlations among the key variables to explore the relationships among them considering those citizens’ (n = 690) attitudes who would not support the Fidesz-KDNP coalition at the next parliamentary elections. Relative deprivation was significantly positively related to populism (r = 0.24, p < 0.001). Even though relative deprivation and populist attitudes are significantly and positively correlated in both groups (Fidesz-KDNP supporters and non-supporters), this correlation is stronger among the Hungarian governments’ supporters (RQ 1). The size of the above effect is considered to be medium for Fidesz-KDNP supporters and small for those participants who would not vote for the Hungarian government coalition.102 An independent sample t-test reported that there is no significant difference between the feelings of relative deprivation among Fidesz-KDNP supporters (M = 3.33, SD = 0.66) and the non-supporters of the Hungarian government (M = 3.39, SD = 0.68), t (597.78) = −1.326, p = 0.417 (RQ 2). Another independent sample t-test reported that there is a significant difference in the extent of populist attitudes between Fidesz-KDNP supporters (M = 3.77, SD = 0.70) and the non-supporters of the Hungarian government (M = 3.85, SD = 0.82), t (671.66) = −1.608, p < 0.001. Those citizens who would not support the Fidesz-KDNP coalition, have significantly stronger populist attitudes compared to the supporters of the Hungarian government (RQ 3).
8 Discussion and Conclusions
Extensive research suggest that relative deprivation, which is a stressful perception of being deprived in contrast to other outgroups, paves the way for populism.103 Our results are aligned with the above scholarly experience. In this article, we focused on the possible connections between individual relative deprivation and populist attitudes in Hungary. In other words, we aimed to analyse whether individual relative deprivation104 can fuel populist attitudes in Hungary, where populism flourishes.105
Our results complete scholarly knowledge from the following aspect: although researchers have recently emphasized that populism is among the pivotal elements of Hungarian politics regardless of the positions of political agents,106 we found that populism considerably manifests in the political attitudes of Hungarian citizens. The outcomes suggest that respondents’ attitudes are closer to populist than non-populist worldviews. Second, even though both Fidesz-KDNP’s supporters and those individuals who would not vote for the Hungarian government acquired high scores on the populism scale, the latter demonstrates a significantly higher level of populism. In turn, there is no significant difference between these groups’ feelings of relative deprivation. Furthermore, we could see that the correlations between the feelings of relative deprivation and populist attitudes was positive and significant for both groups. It is noteworthy that the aforementioned correlation was larger among Fidesz-KDNP’s supporters than for the other citizens. Finally, relative deprivation is a positive and significant predictor of populist attitudes in Hungary: the stronger citizens perceive individual relative deprivation, the stronger their populist attitudes are regardless of age, education, and gender.
To interpret our results on the populist attitudes of citizens, and their strong ties to the perception of being relatively deprived, we must take into consideration that different kinds of crises could have fuelled the feelings of relative deprivation of Hungarian citizens after the collapse of state socialism, namely high unemployment rates, harsh mortgages, and the 2015 refugee crisis.107 These events have become important features in Hungarian politics and political communication, especially for the ruling coalition.108 The above events, along with the moral failure of the former “socialist-liberal” Hungarian establishment,109 could pave the way for the moral basis of populism: the politicians are corrupt and they support small groups (e.g., banks, big business, and immigrants) instead of the people. Neither political forces nor influential economic agents could mitigate the aforementioned social, economic, and political problems, thus it can be said that discontent among the citizens was predictable, if not inevitable, in Hungary after the myriad of “failures”.
The political situation has changed in Hungary since Fidesz-KDNP gained a two-thirds majority in parliament110 in 2010: the Hungarian government utilized interventionist politics fuelled by anti-capital communications juxtaposing the vulnerable people against foreign banks and financial institutions such as the IMF.111 Additionally, the Hungarian government operationalized a “strategy of pushing the costs of the various support schemes onto banks rather than tax payers and individuals.”112 Moreover, as argued above, the ruling coalition has made efforts to keep the unemployment rate low in Hungary and it kept communicating this achievement.113 However, the recent inflation crisis is a new challenge for the Hungarian government.
As was evident in the results, relative deprivation is an important predictor of populist attitudes, and the feeling of being relatively deprived significantly correlates with populist attitudes both for the supporters and non-supporters of the Hungarian government. At this point we think that it is important to understand the possible explanations of the above outcome considering both groups possible interpretations on the political and economic situations. First, there is no significant difference between these groups’ perception of relative deprivation, and it is important to note that both groups can remember vividly their vulnerable economic situations from the 1990s and the second half of the 2000s. This is important since we consider relative deprivation to be a predictor of populist attitudes, but these groups can have different understandings on the scenarios of being relatively deprived. Many Fidesz-KDNP supporters who feel relative deprivation strongly possibly think that the Hungarian government makes no compromises with dangerous others such as foreign business interests, socialist/liberal politicians, or immigrants. The endless battle between good and evil is not just the pivotal part of the populist Manichean worldview, but an essential feature of the political tribalism in which victory over the enemies is the only answer to political challenge.114 Trust in the leader who fights this cruel battle in which politics is fuelled by black and white thinking and a rejection of pluralism are also parts of populism and political tribalism.115 As scholars argue, the ruling political elite in Hungary fits this narrative.116 Therefore, Fidesz-KDNP supporters, especially if they feel deprived, could perceive the Hungarian government and the prime minister to be following the will of the people, and fighting for the glory of ordinary citizen while other domestic (or foreign) political agents care about their own interests rather than the people’s.
Those participants who would not support Fidesz-KDNP, and feel relative deprivation strongly, also hold strong populist attitudes. However, they might evaluate their situation in a different way that contrasts to the supporters of the Hungarian government. First, they possibly feel that the government does not represent them but rather its solid voter basis. Therefore, their populist attitudes rely on anti-establishment feelings. Second, many of those who would not support the Hungarian government (including non-voters, wavering citizens in terms of partisanship, and supporters of other parties), could feel that there is no real alternative beyond the Fidesz-KDNP coalition. Third, even though Péter Márki-Zay, the former challenger to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the 2022 parliamentary elections, is not considered to be a mainstream politician, the oppositional coalition that backed him could be regarded as a part of the mainstream political force by many citizens. Fourth, those who would not support Fidesz-KDNP and feel relatively deprived might (1) either vote for the “mainstream” opposition politicians since they are not the allies of Fidesz-KDNP (2) or decline to participate in the elections because they presume that other groups will thrive and theirs will always be left-behind regardless of which political force rules their homeland. Finally, since non-Fidesz supporters are also susceptible to populism and perceive relative deprivation strongly, it is possible, even though it is not axiomatic, that the core feature of egalitarian left-wing populism, namely openness to change,117 is an important characteristic of their attitudes. One of the explanations for the magnitude of their populist attitude can be that even though they are open to change, they do not see any real option for electing a political force that would focus on the people’s interests. Further research is necessary to explore this area of the Hungarian society and advance the current literature on populism studies.
9 Limitations
This study has specific limitations. First, our survey is a snapshot in a complex political context with some possible underlying political, economic, and psychological phenomena that were beyond the scope of this analysis. Second, since this is a single-country analysis, we advise caution to any reader interpreting our findings as “general”. Third, the survey questionnaire did not implement any items on anti-immigrant or anti-EU attitudes, which could be important variables in our model. Future research should mitigate this gap to get closer to understanding why Hungarians have such high scores on the radical idea that rejects pluralism and wants to give full control to the people over political decisions.
Acknowledgements
TKP2021-NKTA-51 has been implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the TKP2021-NKTA funding scheme.
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Appendix
The Populist scale and item’s means and standard deviations
Citation: Populism 7, 2 (2024) ; 10.1163/25888072-bja10066
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Gaffney, A., et al., The State of American Protest, 24.
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Müller, P. and Schulz, A. “Alternative media for a populist audience? Exploring political and media use predictors of exposure to Breitbart, Sputnik, and Co.” Information Communication and Society 24 (2021), 277–293.
Müller, P. and Schulz, A., Alternative media for a populist audience? 285.
Hameleers et al., Selective Exposure, 55.
Hameleers et al., Selective Exposure, 57.
Hamerleers, M. “Blaming in the name of our people: how attitudinal congruence conditions the effects of populist messages communicated by traditional media, politicians, and citizens.” Media Psychology 24 (2021), 666–687.
Elchardus and Spruyt, Populism, persistent republicanism, 124; Filsinger, Perceived Exclusionary Disadvantages, 1050; Müller, P. and Schulz, A., Alternative media for a populist audience?, 280; Lüders, A., et al., Bottom-up Populism, 510–513; Hamerleers and De Vreese, To whom are, 281; Hameleers, M. “Blaming in the name of our people: how attitudinal congruence conditions the effects of populist messages communicated by traditional media, politicians, and citizens.” Media Psychology 24 (5) (2021), 666–687.
Lüders, A., et al., Bottom-up Populism, 510; Giebler, H., Hirsch, M., Schürmann, B. and Veit, S., Discontent With What?, 911.
Mudde, C., An ideational approach, 153.
Lüders, A., et al., Bottom-up Populism, 515.
Elchardus and Spruyt, Populism, persistent republicanism, 123.
Hameleers and De Vreese, To whom are, 260.
Mudde, C., The populist Zeitgeist, 555.
Filsinger, Perceived Exclusionary Disadvantages, 1051.
Tóth, T., Goyanes, M. and Demeter, M. “Extend the context” 222–242.
Filsinger, M., Perceived Exclusionary Disadvantages, 1049.
Elchardus and Spruyt, Populism, persistent republicanism.
Ibid, 125.
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Dövényi, Z. “Transition and Unemployment – The Case of Hungary.” GeoJournal 32, (1994), 393–398; KSH Munkanélküliségi ráta [NSO Unemployment rate]. Központi Statisztikai Hivatal. Accessed 13 January 2024. https://www.ksh.hu/stadat?fr=mun.
Ibid, 395.
Ibid, 396.
Palonen, E. “Performing the nation: the Janus-faced populist foundations of illiberalism in Hungary.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 26 (2018), 308–321; Palonen, E. “Political Polarisation and Populism in Contemporary Hungary.” Parliamentary Affairs 62 (2009), 318–334.
Brown, J. D., Earle, John S. and Telegedy, Á. “The Productivity Effects of Privatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine.” Journal of Political Economy 114 (2006), 61–99.
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Bohle, Post-socialist housing, 921.
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Kelemen, L., et al., Social Cognition, 210.
Kelemen, L., et al., Social Cognition, 205.
Zsolt, P., Tóth, T. and Demeter, M. “We are the ones who matter! Pro and anti-Trumpists’ attitudes in Hungary.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies (4) (2021), 719–737.
Ibid, 2021.
Marchlewska, M. et al. “Superficial ingroup love? Collective narcissism predicts ingroup image defense, outgroup prejudice, and lower ingroup loyalty.” British Journal of Social Psychology 59 (4) (2020), 857–875; Author et al., 2019a).
Lantos, D. and Forgas, J. P. The role of collective, 65–78.
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Tóth, T., Kékesdi-Boldog, D., Bokor, T. and Veczán, Z. ““Protect our homeland!” Populist communication in the 2018 Hungarian election campaign on Facebook.” Central European Journal of Communication, 12 (2019), 169–186.
“Those individuals who would not vote for the Hungarian government” includes other parties’ supporters, those who do not want to participate in elections, and those who do not know whether or not they would support anyone or participate in the elections at all.
Akkerman et al., How populist are, 1324–1353.
Gonthier and Guerra, From the People, 970.
Akkerman et al., How populist are, 1330.
Tóth, Target the enemy, 366–386.
Castanho Silva, et al., An empirical comparison, 409–424.
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The following items were reversed scored in the analysis from Callan’s scale (2008, p. 1518): “I feel privileged compared to other people like me” and “When I compare what I have with others, I realize that I am quite well off”.
Cohen, J. Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioural Sciences (New York: Psychology Press, 1988).
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Brown, Social identity theory, 751.
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