Rising Anti-Pluralism in Hungary’s Fidesz Party
By: Samuele Arioli
Jan 15, 2025
Hungary is the “worst” autocratizer in the world today, in terms of magnitude of change. This week’s graph shows Orbán’s Fidesz party increasing lacking commitment to democratic norms (anti-pluralism) from 1990 to 2018.
Varieties of Party Identity and Organization (V-Party) is a dataset examining the policy positions and organizational structures of political parties across the world.
Scaled from 0 (low anti-pluralism) to 1 (high anti-pluralism), the V-Party Anti-Pluralism Index assesses political parties based on a weighted average of four indicators: low commitment to the democratic process; demonization of political opponents; encouragement of political violence; and disrespect for fundamental minority rights.
The limited anti-pluralism during Fidesz’s first time in government (1998-2002) changed during the party’s time in opposition. The very high levels of anti-pluralism of Orbán and Fidesz’s government since returning to power in 2010, peaked at 0.88 right before the 2018 election. This radical change is also associated with a progressive reduction of institutional constraints, vilification of opponents, restrictions on civil society, and a systematic crackdown on refugee and migrants rights.
The second graph shows that electoral democracy during the same time deteriorated substantially in Hungary, turning it into an electoral autocracy already by 2019. The European Parliament confirmed this deterioration in 2022 by announcing that Hungary was no longer a “full democracy”.
While autocratization continues through 2023, the rapid emergence of a potential challenger in early 2024 threatens Orbán’s hold on power.
Note: V-Party data runs up until 2018, and the current V-Dem dataset covers until the end of 2023. The respective graphs do not reflect developments after those years.
More about the V-Party Dataset: https://v-dem.net/data/v-party-dataset/
V-Party Explorer: https://v-dem.net/vparty_dash
V-Dem Graphing Tools: https://v-dem.net/graphing/graphing-tools/
