Virtual Event: Understanding the Outcome of Hungary’s Elections

After sixteen years of increasingly autocratic rule under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungarians showed their dissatisfaction with his government by voting en masse and overwhelmingly electing the opposition party, Tisza, and thus a new prime minister, Péter Magyar.

At a time of global democratic backsliding, what does Orbán’s remarkable defeat mean for the future of democracy worldwide? What does this signal for Hungary’s future, both domestically and in Europe? Globally, what does it mean for the populist right? Join Perry World House for a timely and in-depth discussion of these questions and more.

Panelists

Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers challenges to democracy in the United States and abroad, right-wing populism, and the world of ideas. He has received funding awards from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to report on democratic decline in Israel and Hungary in the field, and is the author of On The Right, a newsletter on the American conservative movement. He has appeared on a wide range of television and radio networks, including MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, BBC, CBC, ABC (Australia), and Al Jazeera.

Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor of Russian and East European Studies at University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute. His sole-authored and co-authored works on the political economy and international affairs of Central and Eastern Europe have won numerous prizes. 

His most recent book, Taking Stock of Shock (Oxford University Press, 2021), co-authored with Prof. Kristen Ghodsee, evaluates the social consequences of the 1989 revolutions that ended communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It explores two theories: 1. After a short recession, everyone has done fine and achieved a new level of prosperity, and 2. 1989 unleased an economic catastrophe of enormous proportions that requires a strong hand to put right. Unexpectedly, Taking Stock of Shock finds strong support for both theories. While many people experienced a short dip followed by increased prosperity, a majority suffered an economic decline six times greater on average than the Great Depression. Meanwhile, Western international organizations tried to convince everyone that all was well, creating a bizarre political, economic, and social legacy of transition that remains to be overcome.

Orenstein is also the author of The Lands in Between: Russia vs. The West and the New Politics of Hybrid War (Oxford University Press, 2019), a study of how intensifying geopolitical conflict has shaped politics in the lands in between Russia and the West. It documents the “civilizational choice” faced by these countries, the resulting sharp polarization of politics, and the rise of corrupt power brokers who balance between both sides. While this politics is most evident in the lands in between, it is increasingly prevalent throughout Europe and the West. We are all lands in between.

Prior to this, Orenstein co-authored From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Economic Reform in Postcommunist Countries (Cambridge University Press, 2018) with Prof. Hilary Appel. Based on newly available archives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, From Triumph to Crisis develops a new theory of the political economy of transition that explains the enduring triumph of neoliberalism in the region from 1989-2008, as capital-starved countries sought to signal their openness to investment with policy reforms. From Triumph to Crisis won the Laura Shannon Prize Silver Medal of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in 2021.

Moderator

Marie Harf comes to Penn with two decades of varied experience in the U.S. federal government, higher education, media, and politics. Previously she worked as senior advisor for strategic communications to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and deputy spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, as the foreign policy director on Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, and as a Middle East analyst and spokesperson at the Central Intelligence Agency. She has also held senior roles at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and for Congressman Seth Moulton’s political organization. Since 2017, Harf has been an on-air commentator for Fox News. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Indiana University with concentrations in Jewish Studies and Russian and Eastern European Studies, and a master’s degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.