Invitation to the IPW Lecture The micro-foundations of authoritarian rule: neoliberal transformation, workfare and clientelism in rural Hungary
Lecturer: Kristóf Szombati (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
Moderation: Dorothee Bohle (IPW)
When: Thursday, 17 March 2022, 17:00 h.
Where: online via Zoom (access link see below) & on-site in Konferenzraum IPW (A222), NIG, 2nd floor, Universitätsstraße 7, A-1010 Vienna.
Abstract:
In this lecture I will address the consolidation of authoritarian rule in Hungary by focusing on the ruling party's workfare programme, which has become a cornerstone of rural poverty governance. While much of the scholarship on authoritarian statecraft in Hungary has emphasized the capture of political institutions and the tilting of the political playing on the one hand, and the traction of an exclusionary populism targeting migrants and sexual minorities on the other to explain the stability of an 'illiberal' regime, I will lay the stress elsewhere. Namely, on the successful taming of the social dislocations which had been caused by neoliberal restructuring and the global economic crisis. Relying on ethnographic research I carried out in the village where the beefed up workfare program was unveiled to the public in 2011, I will argue that workfare played a pivotal role in tempering social tensions by tying previously criminalized and racialized 'surplus populations' into clientelistic relations with local mayors. My analysis calls into question the dominant interpretation of workfare as a repressive policy regime, highlighting that under certain circumstances marginalized poor populations may have an incentive to accept 'subordinate inclusion'. It also suggests that clientelism may offer an avenue for overcoming social polarization, thus highlighting the importance of uncovering the social micro-foundations of authoritarian rule.
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