Photo: “02/01/2019 Audiência com Viktor Orban, Primeiro Ministro da Hungria“, by Palácio do Planalto, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Hue modified from the original
Plattner, Marc F. “Illiberal Democracy and the Struggle on the Right.” Journal of Democracy 30, no. 1 (2019): 5-19.
Abstract
With the longstanding dominance of center-left and center-right parties ebbing across Europe and Latin America, there is a growing danger that substantial segments of the right will be captured by tendencies indifferent or even hostile to liberal democracy. The 2019 elections to the European Parliament will provide a key test. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has transformed the debate by openly promoting the concept of “illiberal democracy.” Orbán seeks to equate liberal democracy as such with a set of policy positions supported by forces on the left, thereby prying conservatives away from their fundamental commitment to liberal democracy. This rising challenge has manifested itself in a struggle for control of the European Union’s center-right bloc, the European People’s Party, as well as in the recent writings of several political theorists identified with the conservative side of the political spectrum.
