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Abstract(s)
The main objective of the thesis is to discover the most decisive factors behind the populist upsurge by comparing Hungary and Portugal. This research work also aims at unfolding the possible connections between populism and authoritarianism in order to highlight an underemphasised threat of populism and points out that their common characteristics stem from the total refusal of limited government. The paper questions the general assumptions about economic- and value-based considerations and stresses the relevance of other long-term, system-level processes. To justify the suspicion, several theories are tested for the chosen countries. Furthermore, great attention is attached to their transitions and their long-term consequences, their quality of governance and to the ideological polarisation and the separation of power in their political systems.
The results supported the initial assumption: both countries have suffered from relatively high level of distrust, their societies showed similar attachment to materialist values and Portugal has struggled with – at least – similar economic hardships as Hungary. This suggests that the generalisation of economic- and value-based explanations should be treated with great caution and policy recommendations generated by these assumptions might not succeed in the fight against populists. Instead, the responsibility of the political elite is highlighted through the comparison mentioned above: the Hungarian political elite contributed to the polarisation of the system without exceptions which has important consequences and none of the parties have made any proposals for more guarantees to secure the separation of power instead of over-centralisation. The Portuguese case showed great differences ever since the transition and their elite commitment might be the key to their resilience to populism. As this research work is based on a country comparison of Hungary and Portugal, its results are limited to these cases. Thus, further analyses with similar approach could contribute to the general understanding of these phenomena.