Magyars and Political Discourses in the New Millennium
Magyars and Political Discourses in the New Millennium

Author: Melinda Kovács

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0739179470

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In this book, Melinda Kovács analyzes various areas of Hungarian political discourse: newspapers, party websites, informational books on the EU, and government-produced brochures sent to all households in Hungary. The inquiry is supported by an understanding of politics as achieving and negotiating change in discourse, which is not to be equated with simple language use. In addition to language, discourse also encompasses the meanings shared by members of a political community, along with the conventions of what is possible or plausible in politics. In the case of Hungary at the start of the twenty-first century, it is quite plausible to promote ethno-nationalism and it is quite possible to understand Hungarian political community in terms of historical references different from or devoid of communism and post-communism. An exploration of discourses generated between 1999 and 2013 reveals that while political developments in recent years have been a cause for legitimate concern, Hungarian political discourse has been making these developments plausible.

Foreign Policy Discourses of the Obama Years
Foreign Policy Discourses of the Obama Years

Author: Melinda Kovács

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-12-18

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1498520812

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For any action in foreign policy to be possible, it has to first appear as plausible in the spoken and written discourses of foreign policy. This is the basic axiom at the core of the case studies that Kovács carries out in Foreign Policy Discourses of the Obama Years. In each case study, she investigates discursive products such as presidential speeches and news accounts, with the purpose of teasing out the types of meanings that emerge. These meanings, she argues, have an impact on the types of foreign policy action the Obama administration could plausibly undertake. The findings show both that foreign policy in the US is mostly understood and evaluated in terms of its impact on domestic politics, and that the study of discourses surrounding foreign policy is a useful tool for assessing administrations.

Populism and the European Culture Wars
Populism and the European Culture Wars

Author: Frank Furedi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-08-10

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1351599496

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Concern and hostility towards populism has become a distinctive feature of contemporary political culture. In Europe such concerns are frequently directed at Eurosceptics, whose opposition to the European Union is often portrayed as a cultural crime. Ancient anti-democratic claims about the gullibility, ignorance and irrationality of the masses are frequently recycled through the anti-populist condemnation of people who vote the wrong way. This book argues that the current outburst of anti-populist anxiety is symptomatic of a loss of faith in democracy and in the ability of the demos to assume the role of responsible citizens. Distrust of the people and of parliamentary sovereignty is reinforced by the concern that, on its own, liberal democracy lacks the normative foundation to inspire the loyalty and affection of ordinary citizens. Through focusing on the conflict between the European Union’s Commission and the Government of Hungary, this book explores contrasting attitudes towards national sovereignty, popular sovereignty and the question of tradition and the past as the main drivers of the culture war in Europe.

The China-led Belt and Road Initiative and its Reflections
The China-led Belt and Road Initiative and its Reflections

Author: Mehdi Parvizi Amineh

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-07-12

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1000597229

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This book analyzes the origins and the impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on diplomacy, economy (trade, investment, finance), and security among selected host countries and regions in Asia, Africa, and the European Union. By examining the geopolitical economy of BRI activities, it concisely describes the impact of the rise of China and its BRI policy strategy on the reshaping of world order and global governance. This volume explores the BRI by addressing several key questions including: • Why did the Chinese leadership set up the BRI? • What are the activities of BRI projects in the participating countries and related regions? • What are the challenges to the successful implementation of the BRI in the various countries and regions? Moreover, through its analysis of the abovementioned questions, it provides novel contributions to the ongoing scholarly debates between Chinese and non-Chinese scholars – among others, the debate surrounding the “rise of China” and its impact on global governance. Featuring an extensive variety of expert contributors, this study will be an essential reading for students and scholars of International Relations and Global Political Economy as well as Chinese politics and those with an interest in the Belt and Road Initiative more broadly.

Politics in Color and Concrete
Politics in Color and Concrete

Author: Krisztina Fehérváry

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2013-09-16

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0253009960

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A historical anthropology of material transformations of homes in Hungary from the 1950s o the 1990s. Material culture in Eastern Europe under state socialism is remembered as uniformly gray, shabby, and monotonous—the worst of postwar modernist architecture and design. Politics in Color and Concrete revisits this history by exploring domestic space in Hungary from the 1950s through the 1990s and reconstructs the multi-textured and politicized aesthetics of daily life through the objects, spaces, and colors that made up this lived environment. Krisztina Féherváry shows that contemporary standards of living and ideas about normalcy have roots in late socialist consumer culture and are not merely products of postsocialist transitions or neoliberalism. This engaging study decenters conventional perspectives on consumer capitalism, home ownership, and citizenship in the new Europe. “A major reinterpretation of Soviet-style socialism and an innovative model for analyzing consumption.” —Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York “Politics in Color and Concrete explains why the everyday is important, and shows why domestic aesthetics embody a crucially significant politics.” —Judith Farquhar, University of Chicago “The topic is extremely timely and relevant; the writing is lucid and thorough; the theory is complex and sophisticated without being overly dense, or daunting. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.” —Brad Weiss, College of William and Mary

Contesting Europe
Contesting Europe

Author: Pieter de Wilde

Publisher: ECPR Press

Published: 2013-06-20

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 190730164X

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The book compares EU coverage in main online news forums during the 2009 European Parliamentary campaigns.

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe
A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe

Author: Balázs Trencsenyi

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-11-10

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0192565079

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A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a synthetic work, authored by an international team of researchers, covering twenty national cultures and 250 years. It goes beyond the conventional nation-centered narratives and presents a novel vision especially sensitive to the cross-cultural entanglement of political ideas and discourses. Its principal aim is to make these cultures available for the global 'market of ideas' and revisit some of the basic assumptions about the history of modern political thought, and modernity as such. The present volume is the final part of the project, following Volume I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Long Nineteenth Century', and Volume II, Part I: Negotiating Modernity in the 'Short Twentieth Century' (1918-1968) (OUP, 2018). Its starting point is the defeat of the vision of 'socialism with a human face' in 1968 and the political discourses produced by the various 'consolidation' or 'normalization' regimes. It continues with mapping the exile communities' and domestic dissidents' critical engagement with the local democratic and anti-democratic traditions as well as with global trends. Rather than achieving the coveted 'end of history', however, the liberal democratic order created in East Central Europe after 1989 became increasingly contested from left and right alike. Thus, instead of a comfortable conclusion pointing to the European integration of most of these countries, the book closes with a reflection on the fragility of democracy in this part of the world and beyond.

A Contemporary History of Exclusion
A Contemporary History of Exclusion

Author: Balázs Majtényi

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2016-01-01

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 9633867274

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The volume presents the changing situation of the Roma in the second half of the 20th century and examines the politics of the Hungarian state regarding minorities by analyzing legal regulations, policy documents, archival sources and sociological surveys. In the first phase analyzed (1945-61), the authors show the efforts of forced assimilation by the communist state. The second phase (1961-89) began with the party resolution denying nationality status to the Roma. Gypsy culture was equivalent with culture of poverty that must be eliminated. Forced assimilation through labor activities continued. The Roma adapted to new conditions and yet kept their distinct identity. From the 1970s, Roma intellectuals began an emancipatory movement, and its legacy is felt until this day. Although the third phase (1989-2010) brought about freedoms and rights for the Roma, with large sums spent on various Roma-related programs, the situation on the ground nevertheless did not improve. Segregation and marginalization continues, and it is rampant. The authors powerfully conclude: while Roma became part of the political community, they are still not part of the national one. Subjects: Romanies—Hungary. Romanies—Hungary—Social conditions. Marginality, Social—Hungary. Romanies—Legal status, laws, etc.—Hungary. Minorities—Government policy—Hungary. Hungary—Ethnic relations. Hungary—Social policy.

Brave New Hungary
Brave New Hungary

Author: János Matyas Kovács

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 1498543677

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Brave New Hungaryfocuses on the rise of a “brave new” anti-liberal regime led by Viktor Orbán who made a decisive contribution to the transformation of a poorly managed liberal democracy to a well-organized authoritarian rule bordering on autocracy during the past decade. Emerging capitalism in post-1989 Hungary that once took pride in winning the Eastern European race for catching up with the West has evolved into a reclusive, statist, national-populist system reminding the observers of its communist and pre-communist predecessors. Going beyond the self-description of the Orbán regime that emphasizes its Christian-conservative and illiberal nature, the authors, leading experts of Hungarian politics, history, society, and economy, suggest new ways to comprehend the sharp decline of the rule of law in an EU member state. Their case studies cover crucial fields of the new authoritarian power, ranging from its historical roots and constitutional properties to media and social policies. The volume presents the Hungarian “System of National Cooperation” as a pervasive but in many respects improvised and vulnerable experiment in social engineering, rather than a set of mature and irreversible institutions. The originality of this dystopian “new world” does not stem from the transition to authoritarian control per se but its plurality of meanings. It can be seen as a simulacrum that shows different images to different viewers and perpetuates itself by its post-truth variability. Rather than pathologizing the current Hungarian regime as a result of a unique master plan designed by a cynical political entrepreneur, the authors show the transnational dynamic of backsliding – a warning for other countries that suffer from comparable deadlocks of liberal democracy.

Genocide in the Carpathians
Genocide in the Carpathians

Author: Raz Segal

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2016-05-18

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0804798974

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Genocide in the Carpathians presents the history of Subcarpathian Rus', a multiethnic and multireligious borderland in the heart of Europe. This society of Carpatho-Ruthenians, Jews, Magyars, and Roma disintegrated under pressure of state building in interwar Czechoslovakia and, during World War II, from the onslaught of the Hungarian occupation. Charges of "foreignness" and disloyalty to the Hungarian state linked antisemitism to xenophobia and national security anxieties. Genocide unfolded as a Hungarian policy, and Hungarian authorities committed mass robbery, deportations, and killings against all non-Magyar groups in their efforts to recast the region as part of an ethnonational "Greater Hungary." In considering the events that preceded the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, this book reorients our view of the Holocaust not simply as a German drive for continent-wide genocide, but as a truly international campaign of mass murder, related to violence against non-Jews unleashed by projects of state and nation building. Focusing on both state and society, Raz Segal shows how Hungary's genocidal attack on Subcarpathian Rus' obliterated not only tens of thousands of lives but also a diverse society and way of life that today, from the vantage point of our world of nation-states, we find difficult to imagine.