The Birth and Death of Liberal Democracy in Hungary: The Populist Logic of Polarisation as Hegemony is a work of political theory on populism and polarisation that examines Hungary’s political transformations between 1956 and 2010, written by political theorist Emilia Palonen.

Beginning in the final decades of state socialism and concluding with Viktor Orbán’s landslide electoral victory in 2010 – often described as Hungary’s ‘illiberal’ turn (Orbán Reference Orbán2014) – Palonen presents her longitudinal findings as a coherent chronological reading of the many transformations that Hungarian democracy has undergone. She situates Orbán’s more than 15-year ‘illiberal state’ within a broad historical context, thereby clarifying the roots and political processes that enabled this system to emerge (Orbán Reference Orbán2014). The book’s central argument is that Orbán’s ‘illiberalism’ is a product of political polarisation that began under state socialism and reached its peak in the 2002 Hungarian elections. In addition, the book contributes to political theories on populism and polarisation. Chapter 1 outlines the key theoretical concepts, which then serve as the backbone of empirical analyses in the nine subsequent chapters through examinations of specific periods in Hungary’s political history.

Following the intellectual traditions of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (Laclau and Mouffe Reference Laclau and Mouffe2001; Laclau Reference Laclau2005; Mouffe Reference Mouffe2005), Palonen defines populism as a political logic through which actors seek to seize and maintain hegemonic power rather than as a static party label. Populism is conceptualised as a mode of articulation that constructs an exclusionary political identity through the negation of the Other (for example, a political opponent, the establishment, or a ruling hegemonic order).

The book offers three principal theoretical contributions. First, by theorising about populism as a political logic and heuristic tool, Palonen distinguishes between different populist movements that occupy various positions within political struggles, provided that their identities are articulated through an antagonistic enemy construction. Viewed through the lens of populism as a heuristic tool, political polarisation is conceptualised as one type of populism, alongside fringe (disruptive or anti-hegemonic) and mainstream (hegemonic or incumbent) populist formations.

Second, in theorising political polarisation as a competing populism, Palonen moves beyond the political theories of Laclau and Mouffe (Laclau and Mouffe Reference Laclau and Mouffe2001; Laclau Reference Laclau2005). Whereas Laclau elaborated on the dynamics through which newly emerging political movements challenge the hegemonic (incumbent) order by disrupting it, Palonen shows how this fringe type of populism (her own term) becomes political polarisation – namely, a competing populism – when antagonism becomes a reciprocal point of (dis)identification for both political camps and their voters. In other words, antagonism itself becomes a form of political consensus, and political identities are constituted through mutual opposition.

Palonen demonstrates, first, how the struggle for political power ended up in party polarisation in Hungary, producing a totalised political frontier between the major parties, around which smaller parties also organised themselves – whether out of political strategy or failure. Second, she shows how party polarisation evolved into broader political polarisation, in which polarisation structures not only the political arena but also other areas of life, such as culture, architecture, everyday symbols, and language use.

Third, Palonen contributes to the widely discussed populism-versus-democracy debate by arguing that populist movements do not necessarily oppose liberal democracy per se, but rather totalise democratic logic to a degree that hinders democratic functioning. In this sense, populist movements expose the paradoxes of liberal democracies, which themselves operate through temporary political frontiers. Undemocratic tendencies arise when such frontiers become sedimented and spill over into other spheres of life. As the book shows, authoritarian tendencies may therefore emerge over time through democratic logic itself, rather than appearing initially as explicitly anti-democratic. Fidesz – originally a young liberal party – serves as a compelling example supporting this argument.

The book’s theoretical contributions are convincing; however, its categorisation of populist movements might benefit from a more explicit theoretical elaboration of power, a concept that is often underdeveloped in discourse-analytical approaches.

Moreover, although the author employs ‘immersive strategies’ (7) and a ‘creative, interpretive political analysis’ (28) to capture emerging political frontiers and the affects that give them mobilising force, a more fully articulated methodological framework would be beneficial for other researchers to operationalise the book’s otherwise highly valuable theories on populism and polarisation.

The book is a highly interesting read for anyone interested in Hungarian politics, its history, and the broader history of democratic transition in the region. In addition to political theorists and students of political science who want to learn more about populism, polarisation, and democracy, scholars interested in discourse analysis will also benefit from this work, as it analyses discourse across diverse forms of data, ranging from political speeches and YouTube videos to material artefacts.