The Populist Crackdown on Human Rights Organizations in Hungary

Abstract: During recent years, the world has experienced a trend of diminishing freedoms. The failure of governments around the world to tackle polarization and inequality has resulted in a discontent amongst people. A discontent which has been exploited by autocratic and populist leaders claiming to have the right answers. Such a development has occurred in Hungary, where the Fidesz government has transformed what used to be a liberal democracy into a competitive authoritarian regime, all since their victory in the 2010 elections. Through a qualitative content analysis, this thesis has gathered, and analysed data related to the case of Hungary, based on five populist strategies which are commonly used to restrict human rights organizations globally. The material used in the analysis have been gathered from 10 reports by various CSOs, along with 20 news articles. This thesis has thereby tested theory by investigating if the Hungarian government have used the five populist strategies to restrict domestic human rights organizations since 2010. The findings show that the Hungarian government indeed has used all such populist strategies to restrain actors in civil society since 2010, which raises questions concerning how such a development could have occurred so rapidly and without ample international constrains, within the context of the EU.