The Hungarian Patient is the first book-length treatment in English of the remarkable changes Hungary has been undergoing since the Fidesz party’s landslide victory in the 2010 national parliamentary elections. Contributors document Fidesz’s centralization of power and its drive to dismantle the liberal state but also the social opposition these efforts have engendered. The contributions will serve as an invaluable resource for those wishing to learn more about a country in political and social upheaval. At the same time, the volume suffers from two shortcomings that limit its broader relevance. First, as with any work that provides a snapshot of a rapidly evolving situation, it is already a little out of date. For example, Hungary’s regime type in 2016 is more difficult to classify than it was in 2014, the end of the period the book considers. Second, the volume gives short shrift to why what is happening in Hungary matters for other countries. This brief commentary describes three ways contemporary Hungary can tell us about democracy and its vulnerabilities.

First, the erosion of liberal democracy is happening in a country that was supposed to be insulated from such reversals. The post-communist world has been no stranger to authoritarian takeover attempts. From Belarus to the Caucasus and Central Asia, autocrats of various sorts have tried, and in many cases succeeded, in hijacking nascent democratic systems. Although these outcomes are unfortunate, they are also not surprising. These countries had little prior democratic experience, suffered catastrophic economic decline following the exit from communism, lacked the incentives for democratic change provided by the prospect of EU membership, and were riven with corruption. In short, they were not fertile ground for democracy to begin with.

The situation was much different for Hungary. Between the collapse of state-socialism and Fidesz’s 2010 electoral victory there was broad consensus in the country on the need to reintegrate with Western economic and political institutions. Hungary was at the forefront of market and democratic reform. Though it suffered a transition recession, it also experienced robust economic growth between the mid-1990s and the 2008 financial crisis. It enjoyed a stable party system, with regularly scheduled elections and peaceful turnovers of power between left and right. Hungary was in the first wave of Eastern European entries into both NATO and the European Union. The fact that it could backtrack even under such propitious circumstances suggests one of two things: either consolidated democracies are more vulnerable to political slippage than we imagine, or we desperately need to reconsider our indicators of what counts as democratic success in transitioning countries.

Second, it is happening in large part legally, or at least according to the letter of the law. Fidesz has not entrenched its power by stuffing the ballot boxes, arresting opposition leaders and journalists, or declaring a state of emergency, much less by abrogating elections entirely. Instead it has exploited its parliamentary supermajority to centralize power and dismantle the liberal state through constitutional and legislative means. Fidesz has been criticized by the United States, the EU, and a host of prominent individuals and organizations inside and outside Hungary for its dictatorial tendencies. These accusations are not wholly unfounded. Fidesz’s parliamentary super-majority does grant it the authority to legalize any policy it deems appropriate, and it has used this power with gusto. Fidesz has weakened if not eliminated checks and balances, especially the constitutional court; tilted the playing field in favor of itself through partisan media and electoral laws, infringed on individual rights, stifled press freedom, and tied the hands of future governments through the excessive use of so-called cardinal laws that require a parliamentary super-majority to overturn.

Yet there is a way in which Hungary nonetheless remains on the democratic side of the democratic-authoritarian divide, if perhaps less clearly than before. There is no gainsaying that the system Fidesz is creating does not resemble a conventional picture of democracy that includes an independent judiciary, separation of powers, consultation between government and opposition, a freewheeling media landscape, and a liberal understanding of individual rights and freedoms. However, nothing in the theory or practice of democracy requires a separation of powers, consultation with the opposition when it is not legally required or mathematically necessary to pass legislation, or permissive laws regarding the press, religion, gay rights, minority rights, abortion, and other lifestyle issues. These common characteristics of democracy may well increase democratic quality, but they are not necessary features. Hungarian opposition parties still function and mobilize their voters, newspapers and other media still criticize the government, and people are still free to organize themselves in pursuit of common aims, including replacing the government. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets since 2010 in anti-government protests, with nary a water cannon, tear gas canister, or police truncheon in sight.

The 2014 national parliamentary elections, the first under Fidesz’s reforms, took place with full opposition participation and gave voters an opportunity to express their displeasure with the changes Fidesz had made. It must be said that while these elections were free—no major candidate or party was prevented from competing—they were not entirely fair. For example, in advance of the election Fidesz passed a law allowing citizens not present in Hungary at the time of the election to vote absentee by mail, but only if the voter does not have a permanent address in Hungary. While ostensibly neutral, in keeping with Fidesz fidelity to outward democratic procedure, in reality this rule discriminates against the opposition. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hungarians who dwell in the Habsburg successor states have taken Hungarian citizenship but typically do not have permanent Hungarian addresses because they were born outside of Hungary. They could vote by mail, and in very large proportion supported Fidesz, the party that granted them citizenship rights. Other hundreds of thousands of Hungarian citizens have left Hungary for better opportunities elsewhere, but have retained their permanent Hungarian addresses. These Hungarians, who are much less supportive of Fidesz, have to vote in person at their local Hungarian consulate, a significant hurdle. This law is blatantly discriminatory (refer to Gabriela Balassa, “Hungary’s good and bad voters,” available online at http://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/opinion/hungary-s-good-and-bad-voters/).

Still, Fidesz remained, by a large margin, the most popular political party, at roughly 45 percent (of the party list vote) compared to the leftist Unity coalition, at 26 percent. Fidesz received nearly one million more list votes than Unity, so its clear victory holds even discounting the 125,000 mail-in votes (96 percent of which went to Fidesz). (Refer to Cas Mudde, “The 2014 Hungarian parliamentary elections, or how to craft a constitutional majority,” available online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/14/the-2014-hungarian-parliamentary-elections-or-how-to-craft-a-constitutional-majority/). Of course, 45 percent is still a minority of voters, so a majority did in fact oppose Fidesz. However, some of that opposition came from Jobbik, a party that garnered roughly 20 percent of the party list vote and whose electorate is much less liberal even than that of Fidesz. Taking Fidesz and Jobbik together, 65 percent of voters supported openly and expressly illiberal parties. Whatever opinion one might have of Fidesz’s illiberal reforms, it is difficult not to conclude that a commanding majority of Hungarian voters are at the very least indifferent to if not supportive of them.

Third, any democracy that concentrates power in the hands of a governing party to the extent that Hungary’s does is more vulnerable to open authoritarianism. Hungary is not the first country where a democratically-elected leader has legally and gradually chipped away at constitutional limits on executive power while trouncing the opposition in elections. It already happened in Venezuela under Chavez, Russia under Putin, and Turkey under Erdogan. The current political trajectory of these countries does not give much cause for optimism that Hungary under Prime Minister Orbán, or for that matter any majoritarian democracy, will remain democratic. In Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela what began as a centralization of power by extraordinarily popular leaders in pursuit of particular policy aims devolved into a frontal assault on democracy, including the arrest, imprisonment, and in some cases killing of opposition leaders and journalists.

Will Hungary gravitate toward dictatorship? Hungary’s membership in the EU and ties with the United States would substantially raise the cost of taking Hungary into the authoritarian orbit. Still, while Prime Minister Orbán has unambiguously criticized liberalism, he has been more equivocal regarding democracy. In the same July 2014 speech in which he excoriated liberalism he also praised Singapore, China, India, Turkey, and Russia as successful “stars of international analyses” that are “not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies, maybe not even democracies” (refer to Csaba Tóth, “Full text of Viktor Orbán’s speech at Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádfürdő) of July 26, 2014,” available online at http://budapestbeacon.com/public-policy/full-text-of-viktor-orbans-speech-at-baile-tusnad-tusnadfurdo-of-26-july-2014/10592). In a country where there remain domestic institutional safeguards against autocratic seizures of power, such comments would be merely scandalous. In Hungary, where Fidesz seeks to establish itself as a hegemonic party, they are cause for genuine alarm.

As long as Fidesz can remain in power through democratic means then the costs of an authoritarian turn will outweigh any benefits. But there are worrying signs that Fidesz no longer trusts the people. For example, in February 2016 a gang of skinheads prevented the leftist opposition from submitting a referendum initiative to the National Election Office that would allow a popular vote on Fidesz’s law restricting Sunday opening hours for shops. Fidesz has denied involvement in the incident, but this is precisely the sort of action that we expect to take place in faltering democracies. The real danger will come when Fidesz finally faces a credible political challenger. Will it attempt to silence that challenger, or face the possibility of losing power? The fate of democracy is not supposed to hang on the whim of a ruling party, but those are the wages of removing constraints on executive power.