CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Turcsán, Balázs |
|---|---|
| Title | Dominating the Right: Post-Liberal National Conservatives in Hungary and the United States |
| Summary | Ruling right-wing parties in the United States and Hungary and their intellectual apparatuses increasingly identify as “post-liberal national conservative”. In this research I argue that the relationship between the two nations’ prominent right-wing academic and political figures has helped facilitate an ideational shift from previously hegemonic forms of conservatism to this new form of “post-liberal national conservatism”. Via sociological field theory I trace the coevolution of this ideational shift within American and Hungarian rightwing institutions, and explore the defining characteristics of this movement through identifying the ruptures between old conservatism and new conservatism. I contend that the these defining characteristics can be grasped in 1) the post-liberal right’s preference for strong, personalized, and dynamic governing styles, which I analyze through the Weberian concept of plebiscitary leadership, and 2) their justificatory method for such governing styles in the form of a shared rejection of liberalism. I argue, furthermore, that the conflicts of interest that arise from the different geopolitical positions as well as from the dynamic interpretations of post-liberalism are navigated by American and Hungarian post-liberal national conservatives through the narrative of their two charismatic leaders’, Orbán and Trump’s “heroic” struggle to navigate the unpredictability of this transitionary era between liberalism and post-liberalism. |
| Supervisor | Prem Kumar Rajaram; Balázs Vedres |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/turcsan_balazs.pdf |
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