From ‘Return to Europe’ to ‘Return from Europe’: Resonances of Normative Dissonances in Hungary-EU Relations

Abstract

In contemporary democratisation discourse, it is widely agreed that ‘pre-Magyar Hungary’ was on a path of ‘democratic backsliding’ within the broader global autocratisation context. This article examines the underlying mechanisms of how and why Hungary has systematically contested EU normative values between 2010 and 2025, ie. during the Orban government. To fulfil this objective, the paper systematically analyses Hungarian democratic backsliding across four sectoral policy areas: curbing judicial independence, restricting media freedom, limiting academic liberties, and the securitisation of migration. While these individual sectors have been widely studied separately, the contemporary literature lacks a holistic framework to explain these normative dissonances. This study fills a research gap in the literature by arguing that the gradual decline in the quality of Hungarian democracy is driven by an illiberal counter-normative framework structured around a highly personalised political authority. The author demonstrates how the Orbán government, by constructing a top-down counter-normative narrative in terms of discourse, policy, and practice, sustains internal regime legitimation and secures the survival of its illiberal political order. Utilising the analytical tools of the social constructivist approach and qualitative document analysis, the study triangulated the EU legal framework, contemporary academic literature, and empirical data from international indices to shed light on these ongoing normative contestations. Ultimately, the selected case and theoretical framework demonstrate that social constructivist perspective possesses explanatory power to grasp the internal political logic and systemic construction of an illiberal regime.