The European Populist Wave - Threats for the European Values and the Case of Hungary

Abstract

Over the last two decades, populism has gained more and more prominence in the academic and public debate, as much as in the political field. Nevertheless, the term populism remains elusive and its conceptualisation theoretically challenging. To the purposes of this dissertation, we will combine two different theoretical approaches, defining populism as a set of ideas which manifest through specific political appeals. The dissertation has a twofold goal which has been operationalised through two interweaved sets of research questions. Firstly, it aims at assessing to which extent populism in the European Union is more successful than in the past and which are the reasons that led to its rise. Secondly, it wants to understand whether populism should be considered as a threat for democratic values. We argue that, depending on specific sets of variables such as political strength and the international context, populism can represent both a threat and a restorative for the European democratic order. The dangers that populism might pose will be exemplified through the analysis of the case of Hungary and Fidesz, the party of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán