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ChatGPT - Explains Victor Orban's Four Terms in Office
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( First Term - Second Term - Third Term - Fourth Term ) - ChatGPT - More
Viktor Mihály Orbán is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz, since 1993, with a brief break between 2000 and 2003. Orban's tenure has seen Hungary government shift towards what he has called "illiberal democracy" — citing countries such as China, Russia, India, Singapore, and Turkey as models of governance— while simultaneously promoting anti-Americanism, Euroscepticism, and opposition to Western democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Orban
In more than a decade in power, Mr. Orban has not hesitated to use the levers of government power to erode democratic norms and cement one-party rule. He has rewritten the Constitution, remade the courts and used state-run and privately-owned television stations — even school textbooks — to advance his agenda or push misinformation about his rivals.
He has always justified his brand of what he calls “illiberal democracy” by pointing out that, like other European leaders, he has won free and fair elections. Now, though, as he stands on Sunday for re-election against an unexpectedly organized opposition, Mr. Orban is using the power of his office to shape the contours of the election more to his liking.
He has unleashed a fresh round of election law changes that benefit his party. He put an inflammatory but ultimately symbolic L.G.B.T. referendum up for a vote, a move that is likely to rally his most strident supporters. And he legalized the registration of voters outside of their home districts — a common practice, until now criminal, that is known as “voter tourism.”
All of that is playing out in a media echo chamber, since Mr. Orban has cemented control of public television to the point where stories, photos and guests are handpicked to align with his talking points. Many of the largest independent news outlets have been taken over by Mr. Orban’s supporters.
https://dnyuz.com/2022/03/31/in-hungary-viktor-orban-remakes-an-election-to-his-liking/
First Term - as Prime Minister
As prime minister, Orbán appointed a number of young ministers who had no associations with earlier governments; he also took steps to move Hungary further toward a free-market economy. At the same time, he claimed an active role for Hungary in European affairs and oversaw Hungary’s entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999.
Orbán stepped down as leader of Fidesz when, in January 2000, a party congress voted to separate the posts of prime minister and party head. He was ousted from the premiership in 2002, after Fidesz lost to the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP) in parliamentary elections. Shortly thereafter he was elected as a vice president of the European People’s Party. In 2003 Orbán returned to lead Fidesz, but, when his party lost again to the MSzP in 2006, there were calls for his resignation. Orbán’s popularity rebounded, however, after it was discovered that the ruling MSzP had lied about the state of the country’s economy in order to gain votes. Orbán supported the resulting protests at first but distanced himself when the demonstrations turned violent.
In June 2009 Orbán was reelected leader of Fidesz, which won 14 of Hungary’s 22 seats in the European Parliament that same month. Hungary continued to struggle in the wake of its economic collapse of 2008, and, after Fidesz scored an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections in mid-April 2010, Orbán again became prime minister.
Second Term - as Prime Minister
Throughout 2010 and 2011 Orbán exploited his party’s supermajority in Parliament to push through a series of broad legislative measures that culminated in the adoption on January 1, 2012, of a new constitution embodying conservative moral and religious themes. The new constitution elicited protest both at home and abroad, including a report by the Council of Europe that questioned judicial reforms that curtailed the independence of Hungarian courts. Largely in response to foreign criticism, the Orbán government scaled back a proposed media law that would have given Fidesz significant direct control over the press.
In 2013 his government continued to implement a moderate austerity program, introduced a new set of crisis taxes on banking and selected industries, and ordered utility companies to reduce charges for all Hungarian households. At least partly as a result of the popularity of that last initiative, Fidesz and its junior electoral partner, the Christian Democratic People’s Party, swept to another commanding victory in the national parliamentary elections in April 2014, earning Orbán another term as prime minister. That success was mirrored in Fidesz’s triumph in the elections to the European Parliament the next month, in which it won more than 50 percent of the total vote.
Despite the opposition’s claims that poverty was increasing and the economy stagnating—as well as its accusations of authoritarianism and corruption by Fidesz—the 2014 election results reaffirmed that there was strong support for Orbán’s government, Moreover, Orbán argued that Fidesz had created many jobs, improved the lot of working families, asserted Hungarian interests internationally, and defended national sovereignty. His government also introduced a new tax on advertising revenue that appeared to have been specifically targeted at handcuffing the commercial broadcaster RTL and generally was viewed as squelching media freedom. The government also cracked down on civil society by carrying out surprise inspections of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Orbán stated that he considered NGOs that received funding from abroad as agents of foreign powers whose activities need to be monitored closely.
Third Term - as Prime Minister & “illiberal” Democracy
In a speech in July 2014, Orbán declared that his government aimed to build a “workfare” society, which would be “illiberal” in nature. He cited Russia, China, and Turkey as examples. Orbán’s pronouncement highly alarmed the opposition and prompted an outraged reaction in the foreign press. His response to Europe’s migrant crisis was equally dismaying for many of his critics at home and abroad. In 2015 Orbán’s government constructed a barbed-wire fence along Hungary’s border with Serbia to stanch the wave of migrants and refugees seeking to enter the country, en route from turmoil in the Middle East and Africa to a hoped-for home in Europe. By the time the fence was completed in September 2015, Orbán had outraged many observers by characterizing the migrant crisis as a “German problem” (many of the migrants hoped to settle in prosperous Germany) and had joined other eastern European leaders in rejecting calls for mandatory quotas for sharing migrant settlement across the countries of the European Union (EU).
Before Hungarians voted on October 2, 2016, on a referendum on the EU’s migrant-resettlement policy (which asked, “Do you want the European Union to be entitled to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without the consent of parliament?”), Orbán made his opposition to the proposition abundantly clear, saying, “We will never, never, ever accept the mandatory quota for migrants.” In the event, more than 98 percent of those who voted rejected EU imposition of migrant quotas, but, because only about 40 percent of eligible voters went to the polls—less than the 50 percent required to make the result legitimate—the referendum was invalid. Nonetheless, Orbán spun the result as a victory, promised that the Hungarian constitution would be amended to prevent the EU from requiring migrant settlement, and called on other EU members to take similar votes.
Orbán’s focus on nationalism and his anti-immigrant rhetoric only escalated in the run-up to Hungary’s legislative elections in April 2018. He cast himself as the protector not only of Hungary but also of Christian Europe against a supposed invasion of nefarious Islamic immigrants, despite the reality that the wall on the country’s southern border virtually eliminated ingress into Hungary for migrants and refugees. At the same time, Orbán claimed that the opposition, his former sponsor Soros, the EU, and the United Nations were conspiring to transform Hungary into a country of immigrants. Fidesz and Orbán used their dominance of the media to drive home this message with xenophobic fearmongering. For their part, the opposition parties failed to arrive at a consistent message, notwithstanding their efforts to identify and support those candidates among them who appeared to have the best chance of defeating their Fidesz counterparts. Orbán and Fidesz also capitalized on a strong economy that continued to steadily expand to the benefit of the flourishing middle class and on the popularity of generous tax breaks for young families with multiple children.
Fourth Term - as Prime Minister & the EU Backlash
A high voter turnout (nearly 70 percent of eligible voters) initially buoyed the hopes of the opposition, but, when the ballots were counted, Fidesz and its junior coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, swept to a landslide victory, winning some 48 percent of the vote (as opposed to about 45 percent of the vote in 2014). The ruling coalition maintained its supermajority (two-thirds majority) in the 199-seat Parliament by once again capturing 133 seats. The right-wing Jobbik party, which had tacked to the centre for the election, finished second with 26 seats. The Socialist-led leftist coalition took 20 seats. Voters cast one ballot for a list of national candidates to fill 93 seats and another to elect 106 local representatives. There was a pronounced split between the desires of voters in metropolitan Budapest, where leftist candidates won 12 of 18 seats, and those in the rest of the country, where Fidesz took 85 of 88 seats.
The results accorded Orbán a fourth term as prime minister. Having made a speech in March promising to “seek moral, political, and legal amends” from his enemies, he was poised to further centralize his increasingly autocratic rule. So-called Stop Soros legislation was already in the works that would force NGOs involved in immigration issues to apply to the government for a license and that would impose a 25 percent tax on foreign contributions to those organizations. By June the National Assembly had enacted legislation that criminalized NGO involvement with undocumented immigrants altogether.
To this point Orbán’s march toward autocratic rule had been largely unopposed—at least publicly—by the leaders of the other national parties that with Fidesz made up the European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-right coalition that was the largest pan-European presence in the European Parliament. By September 2018, however, Orbán’s outspoken criticism of not just the EU but also the EPP had eroded support for him within the coalition. In particular, Orbán had intimated that if coalition policy did not change more to his liking, he might lead a far-right breakaway group into the 2019 elections for the European Parliament. Moreover, his increasing overtures to Russia’s Vladimir Putin did not sit well with some of Orbán’s EPP colleagues.
Responding to a report by a Dutch Green Party member of the European Parliament that condemned policies of the Orbán regime as antidemocratic, in September 2018 the European Parliament voted 448–197 (with 48 abstentions) to invoke seldom-used Article 7, also called the “nuclear option,” against Hungary, launching proceedings that could lead to sanctions against the country, including suspension of its voting rights in the European Council. Orbán’s foreign minister complained that the action was pro-immigration politicians’ revenge for Hungary’s strong anti-immigration stance. Orbán himself argued that the criticism of his government was predicated on opposition to its hard-line immigration policies: “This is the first case in the history of Europe where a community condemns its own border guards.” Although the vote to open the way for sanctions against Hungary was a setback for Orbán, the probability of their coming into force was slim: among other steps before they could be imposed, at least four-fifths of the European Council would have to find Hungary in violation of EU “founding values,” and the council (excluding Hungary) would have to vote unanimously in favour of imposing sanctions—a measure that Poland, which was facing the same threat of sanctions, would likely oppose.
In the run-up to the May 2019 elections for the European Parliament, Fidesz undertook a media campaign featuring posters depicting Soros and European Commission Pres. Jean-Claude Juncker that intimated that they had conspired on EU migrant policy to threaten Hungarian security. In March, members of the EPP—many of them already arguing that Orbán had violated the rule of law—voted overwhelmingly to suspend (but not expel) Fidesz from the EPP. The group established a three-member panel to consider Fidesz’s future in the EPP and to evaluate its “respect for the rule of law.”
In capturing more than 52 percent of the vote and gaining an additional seat (going from 12 to 13 of 21 seats), Fidesz mirrored the broader trend of populist anti-immigrant parties of the right making significant gains in the elections but failing to achieve the sweeping turnover of power that had been predicted by some political pundits. In the immediate aftermath of the elections, Orbán seem to strike a stance that would keep his political options open, as he chose not to rush to join a pan-European anti-immigrant far-right coalition. Instead, for the moment at least, he opted to keep Fidesz within the EPP, reserving the option of withdrawing should its policies not serve what Orbán deemed to be the national interest of Hungary. He told supporters that, with the victory, “Hungarians have given us a directive on three things: first of all, to stop immigration across Europe; they’ve tasked us to defend the Europe of nations; and they’ve tasked us to defend Christian culture in Europe.”
In late March 2020, as the deadly COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world began to claim lives in Hungary, Parliament passed a bill that gave Orbán the emergency power to rule by decree, ostensibly to better address the health crisis confronting the country. The law, passed by the Fidesz-controlled Parliament over the strenuous objections of the opposition, suspended elections, mandated stringent penalties for spreading false news, and contained no end for Orbán’s expanded powers. “When this emergency ends, we will give back all powers, without exception,” Orbán promised the legislators, but critics argued that he was simply using the crisis as an excuse to extend his authoritarian reach.
Checkered at best, the Hungarian response to the pandemic suffered from the general decline in the country’s health care system that had occurred on Orbán’s watch as a result of significant funding cuts and the large-scale emigration of doctors and other health care workers. Although Hungary admirably withstood the first wave of the pandemic, Orbán’s government was criticized for having cleared hospital beds for COVID-19 patients by discharging non-COVID-19 patients, including cancer patients. Hungary fared less well during the second wave of the pandemic late in 2020 and the third wave in the spring of 2021, when its per capita death rate was among the highest in the world. By the end of June 2021, nearly 30,000 Hungarians had died from COVID-19-related causes.
That month Orbán became the target of extreme outrage at home and throughout the EU after the Fidesz-dominated Parliament enacted flagrantly anti-LGBTQ legislation that banned content that was “deemed to promote homosexuality and gender change” in school sex-education programs and media aimed at those under age 18. The law passed by a 157–1 margin, with the bulk of the opposition parties boycotting the vote. At an EU summit about a week after the vote, Orbán stood firmly by the law despite being excoriated by other national leaders.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Orban
ChatGPT - Summary of Victor Orban's 4 Terms
> > ChatGPT Can You Summarize Victor Orban's Four Terms?
Viktor Orbán is a Hungarian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Hungary for four non-consecutive terms.
Here is a summary of his four terms:
> > What Happenned During Victor Orban's 1st Term?
During Viktor Orbán's first term as Prime Minister of Hungary, which lasted from 1998 to 2002, his government implemented several economic and social reforms aimed at boosting economic growth and reducing unemployment. The government introduced a flat income tax, reduced public debt, and created a system of private pension funds.
However, his government was criticized for its authoritarian tendencies and corruption. Orbán's government was accused of politicizing the judiciary, and several high-profile corruption cases involving members of the government and ruling party were reported.
Orbán's government also faced criticism for limiting freedom of the press and restricting media access to government officials. These actions led to tensions between Hungary and the European Union, which criticized Hungary's actions as a threat to democracy and the rule of law.
- > >
expand on victor orban's 1st term
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authoritarianism tendencies and corruption.
During Viktor Orbán's first term as Prime Minister of Hungary, his government was accused of authoritarian tendencies and corruption. Here are some examples:
Politicization of the Judiciary: Orbán's government was accused of stacking the judiciary with loyalists and removing independent-minded judges. The government also established a new system for appointing judges, which was criticized for being opaque and susceptible to political interference.
Restriction of Media Freedom: Orbán's government introduced new media laws that were criticized for limiting press freedom and stifling critical journalism. The laws created a media council, whose members were appointed by the ruling party, and which had the power to fine media outlets for content that was deemed to be offensive or harmful to public morality.
Corruption: Orbán's government was accused of being involved in several high-profile corruption cases. One of the most notable was the "Tungsram Affair," in which a state-owned company was sold to a private buyer for a fraction of its actual value. The deal was allegedly orchestrated by members of the government and ruling party, and Orbán's own brother was implicated in the scandal.
These actions led to accusations that Orbán was undermining democratic institutions and creating a system of crony capitalism. His government's authoritarian tendencies and corruption were criticized by the opposition, civil society groups, and international organizations.
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expand on victor orban's 1st term limiting of freedom
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of the press and restriction of media access to officials.
During Viktor Orbán's first term as Prime Minister of Hungary, his government introduced new media laws that were criticized for limiting press freedom and restricting media access to government officials. Here are some examples:
Media Council: Orbán's government established a new Media Council, whose members were appointed by the ruling party. The council was given the power to fine media outlets for content that was deemed to be offensive or harmful to public morality. Critics argued that this gave the government the ability to censor critical reporting.
Control of State Media: Orbán's government took control of state-owned media, which was criticized for turning the outlets into government propaganda tools. Journalists were fired and replaced with loyalists, and critical reporting was discouraged.
Limited Access to Government Officials: Orbán's government limited access to government officials, making it difficult for journalists to ask questions or report on official government business. Journalists who were critical of the government were often excluded from press conferences and other official events.
These actions were seen as a threat to press freedom and the ability of journalists to hold the government accountable. The restrictions on media access and the government's control of the media were criticized by civil society groups and international organizations, who saw it as an attempt to undermine democratic institutions and stifle critical reporting.
> > What Happenned During Victor Orban's 2nd Term?
During Viktor Orbán's second term as Prime Minister of Hungary, which lasted from 2010 to 2014, his government implemented several controversial reforms. Here are some examples:
New Constitution: Orbán's government introduced a new constitution in 2011, which was criticized for limiting democratic checks and balances. The constitution reduced the power of the judiciary, expanded the power of the executive, and increased government control over the media.
Media Reforms: Orbán's government introduced a new Media Law, which was criticized for limiting press freedom and stifling critical reporting. The law created a new Media Council, whose members were appointed by the ruling party, and which had the power to fine media outlets for content that was deemed to be offensive or harmful to public morality.
Education Reforms: Orbán's government implemented controversial reforms in the education system, which were criticized for being politically motivated and reducing academic freedom. The reforms included changes to the curriculum, the appointment of government loyalists to key positions in the education system, and the closure of some universities and colleges.
Judicial Reforms: Orbán's government introduced new laws that were criticized for limiting the independence of the judiciary. The laws increased government control over the appointment of judges, reduced the power of the Constitutional Court, and gave the government the power to force judges into retirement.
These actions led to criticism from civil society groups, opposition parties, and international organizations, who saw them as an attempt to undermine democratic institutions and concentrate power in the hands of the ruling party. The European Union also expressed concerns over Hungary's democratic backsliding, leading to tensions between Hungary and the EU.
> > What Happenned During Victor Orban's 3rd Term?
During Viktor Orbán's third term as Prime Minister of Hungary, which began in 2014 and is still ongoing, his government continued to implement controversial reforms and policies. Here are some examples:
Crackdown on NGOs: Orbán's government introduced laws that required NGOs to register with the government and disclose their sources of funding. NGOs that receive funding from foreign sources are required to label themselves as "foreign-funded organizations." Critics argue that these laws are intended to stigmatize and intimidate civil society groups that are critical of the government.
Anti-Immigrant Policies: Orbán's government implemented policies that were criticized for being anti-immigrant and Islamophobic. The government built a border fence to keep out migrants and refugees, and introduced laws that criminalized aid to refugees and asylum seekers.
Attacks on Academic Freedom: Orbán's government introduced laws that were criticized for limiting academic freedom and restricting the autonomy of universities. The government introduced new rules for universities that required them to obtain government approval for foreign-funded programs, and introduced a new law that forced the Central European University, a prestigious university in Budapest, to move its operations to Vienna.
Increasing Control over the Media: Orbán's government continued to exert control over the media, with government allies taking over many independent news outlets. Critics argue that the government is using its control over the media to promote its own narrative and suppress critical reporting.
These actions have led to widespread criticism from civil society groups, opposition parties, and international organizations, who see them as a threat to democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. The European Union has launched several investigations into Hungary's adherence to EU values and has initiated legal action against the country for violating EU laws.
> > What Happenned During Victor Orban's 4th Term?
Viktor Orbán's fourth term as Prime Minister of Hungary began in 2018 and is still ongoing. During this time, his government has continued to implement controversial policies and reforms, often criticized as authoritarian and undemocratic. Here are some examples:
Attacks on the Judiciary: Orbán's government has continued to implement policies that limit the independence of the judiciary, including the appointment of loyalists to key positions and changes to the system for appointing judges. The government has also increased its control over the prosecutor's office and undermined the Constitutional Court.
Restrictions on Academic Freedom: Orbán's government has continued to restrict academic freedom, with measures aimed at curtailing the independence of universities and undermining the autonomy of academics. The government has also targeted the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a leading scientific institution in the country, by reorganizing it and reducing its funding.
Anti-Immigrant Policies: Orbán's government has continued to implement policies that are seen as anti-immigrant and xenophobic, including the construction of additional border fences and a crackdown on NGOs that work with refugees and migrants.
Restrictions on Civil Society: Orbán's government has continued to restrict the work of civil society groups, including NGOs that receive funding from abroad. The government has imposed new reporting requirements and introduced penalties for groups that fail to comply with the rules.
These policies have led to growing criticism from opposition parties, civil society groups, and international organizations, who see them as a threat to democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. The European Union has continued to investigate Hungary's adherence to EU values, and in 2021, it launched new legal proceedings against the country over a controversial law that targets LGBTQ+ people.
Text Generated by ChatGPT - https://www.openai.com/
List of Links to Pages Like Those Above
Living With Corruption: An Examination of Viktor Orbán’s
Hungary
http://www.cpreview.org/blog/2020/12/living-with-corruption-an-examination-of-viktor-orbns-hungary
A brief history of graft in Orbán’s Hungary https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/opinion/a-brief-history-of-graft-in-orbans-hungary/
The Autocrat’s Legacy - Defeating Viktor Orbán will be hard, but undoing Hungary’s democratic decline will be harder. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/07/viktor-orban-autocracy-hungary-election/619351/
The Real Story in Hungary Isn’t Orban
https://www.diplomaticourier.com/posts/the-real-story-in-hungary-isnt-orban
It can't happen here? Viktor Orban's Hungary shows how democracy
dies
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/564965-it-cant-happen-here-viktor-orbans-hungary-shows-how-democracy-dies
Why Conservatives Around the World Have Embraced Hungary’s Viktor
Orbán | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-conservatives-around-the-world-have-embraced-hungarys-viktor-orban
How Orbán broke the EU — and got away with it - Hungary’s prime minister exploited vulnerabilities in the bloc’s legal and political systems. https://www.politico.eu/article/how-viktor-orban-broke-the-eu-and-got-away-with-it-hungary-rule-of-law/
The Euros haven’t started, but Hungary’s Viktor Orbán is already a winner https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/the-euros-havent-started-but-hungarys-viktor-orban-is-already-a-winner/
Hungary's A Textbook Case For Democracy In Decline. Is America Next? https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/06/23/viktor-orban-hungary-teach-america
The Two Faces of Orban’s Hungary: Christian and Neo-Ottoman | Balkan
Insight
https://balkaninsight.com/2021/11/08/the-two-faces-of-orbans-hungary-christian-and-neo-ottoman/
The Two Faces of Orban’s Hungary: Christian and Neo-Ottoman | Balkan
Insight
https://balkaninsight.com/2021/11/08/the-two-faces-of-orbans-hungary-christian-and-neo-ottoman/
Why Hungary’s opposition parties are uniting against Viktor
Orbán
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2021/10/why-hungarys-opposition-parties-are-uniting-against-viktor-orban
What American apologists for a Hungarian autocrat reveal about themselves https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/8/12/22621794/viktor-orban-hungary-political-tourism-american-conservatives-nationalism-mona-charen
What American conservatives really admire about Orbán's Hungary https://theweek.com/politics/1003529/what-hungary-really-signifies-for-the-american-right
Episode 4: Rewriting History in Hungary
https://thegroundtruthproject.org/rewrite-history-hungary-viktor-orban-authoritarianism-authoritarians-playbook/
Illiberal Democracy in Hungary: The Social Background and Practical
Steps of Building an Illiberal State
https://www.cidob.org/en/articulos/monografias/illiberals/illiberal_democracy_in_hungary_the_social_background_and_practical_steps_of_building_an_illiberal_state
Explaining Eastern Europe: Orbán’s Laboratory of Illiberalism
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/explaining-eastern-europe-orbans-laboratory-of-illiberalism/
Dismantling Democracy: The Orbánization of Hungary
https://www.illiberalism.org/dismantling-democracy-the-orbanization-of-hungary/
‘The Hungary model’: How Poland copied illiberal tactics for
weakening independent media
https://ipi.media/the-hungary-model-how-poland-copied-illiberal-tactics-for-weakening-independent-media/
Beauchamp, Zack. “The American Right’s Favorite Strongman,” Vox,
August 10, 2020,
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/21/21256324/viktor-orban-hungary-american-conservatives
Caldwell, Christopher. “Hungary and the Future of
Europe,” Claremont Review of Books, Spring 2019,
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/hungary-and-the-future-of-europe/
Dreher, Rod. “The Situation With Viktor Orban,” The American
Conservative, April 6, 2020,
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-situation-with-viktor-orban-hungary-emergency/
Zerofsky, Elisabeth. “Viktor Orbán’s Far-Right Vision for
Europe,” The New Yorker, January 2, 2019,
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/14/viktor-orbans-far-right-vision-for-europe
What is Constitutionalism
- populists use constitutional change to carry out three functions:
- deconstructing the old institutional order,
- developing a substantive project rooted in a critique of that order,
- consolidating power in the hands of populists.
populism as a corrective to stagnating liberal democracies
and the threat that it poses to those constitutional orders.
- populist constitutions begin by emphasizing their promise to improve on existing liberal-democratic constitutional orders and obscuring their underlying consolidation of power,
- but if populists are able to maintain power for long periods of time, they will likely become overtly illiberal, arguing that their substantive goals cannot be met within the confines of liberal democracy.
- one that prevents the forms of constitutional change that allow populists to mold the constitutional order so that they become difficult to dislodge
- second that makes a stronger affirmative case for the virtues of liberal democracy.
central concern. The rising importance of populism in the West follows a period in which it has seen a resurgence in other regions, particularly Latin America—former Presidents Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador are leading examples—and Eastern Europe, where political parties in Hungary and Poland won power while wielding populist discourses. A large body of scholarship analyzes the definition of populism, its complex causes, and its ambiguous impact on liberal democracy.
Some emphasize a promise for rejuvenation,
others the threat of erosion.
| - either replaced their existing constitutions entirely
| - or adopted sweeping packages of amendments.
- a “pure people” represented by the populist leaders and
- a “corrupt elite” against whom they struggle,
Large-scale constitutional change allows populist leaders to wipe away the existing institutional order and consolidate power in a particularly rapid and durable way while also permitting experimentation with constitutional forms that might rejuvenate ossified or failing constitutional orders.
rule of law and democracy within the European Union. Constitutionalists
often assume a relation of mutual exclusion between populism and constitutionalism. In contrast, I argue that while populism ought to be understood as a rejection of liberal constitutionalism, it equally constitutes a competing political force regarding the definition of constitutional democracy.
Populist Constitutionalism? (1): Populism and Constituent Power
Constituent Power - Definition
Abstract - The concept of constituent power is a purely
democratic one, and democracy (in literal translation "leadership by the
people", from the Greek word "demokratia", from demos, "people" +
kratos, "power") is a political regime which is based on the will of the
people.
In a democracy, constituent power belongs to the people, this freedom initially belonged to the individuals who, accepting the
social pact, gave their share of sovereignty to the community and so
they received a freedom guaranteed and protected by the law.
The People as constituent power has the will to organize
themselves,
to establish a legal system and a form of government, only in this form
is a Government legitimate. However we shall
consider one of the problems debated in this matter:
"The people can't decide until someone decides who the people are", so we face a constitutional dilemma, democracy implies a certain group of members who are actively involved in the democratic process, to express their opinion, to participate in the democratic process of decision-making.
However, for the initial founding decision of the demos, its boundaries are not yet established and it is therefore unclear who should take part in the decision-making (Jennings, 1956: 56).
This means that setting a government and setting limits to their governance takes place outside the democratic process -
This is the dilemma of the demos' limits in democracy that has been widely discussed in the literature. This study aims to clarify these conceptual and normative dimensions. Essentially, the question guiding this paper is: what is the link between democracy and constituent power and how can this influence the legitimacy? This means addressing the demos not only as the basis, but also the object of legitimacy (Scherz, 2013: 1).
Alexe, Andreea Ana-Maria.
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1721941782
The complacency of legality: Constitutionalist vulnerabilities
towards populist constituent power
- by Julian Scholtes -
European University Institute
Political populism appears to be omnipresent nowadays. From Viktor Orbàn’s pledge to ‘build an illiberal state’ in Europe to Narendra Modi in India and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, populists are challenging constitutional democracy everywhere. When confronting populism, one question that we need to ask is: how come populists are so successful in this?
The answer, to my mind, lies quite deep: populism attacks public law at its root – at its conception of constituent power. It is not the specific political ideas that populists disseminate, be they on the left or on the right, are what pose the main threat to constitutionalism.
Rather, the threat lies in the way populists frame their ideas within a specific conception of how political power is generated. Populists can attack constitutionalism because of the deficient conception of constituent power that underlies the latter.
In the absence of a strong constitutional culture that anchors constitutionalism within society, constitutionalism seems like a lost enterprise.
Populists challenge constitutions, because they believe that the democratic mandate supersedes constitutional legality. Accordingly, constitutions are drawn into the political sphere through aggressive constitutional politics – they become a political topic like any other. The very core idea of constitutionalism – that constitutions should constrain politics – can only work if politics is willing to be thus constrained. In the absence of a strong constitutional culture that anchors constitutionalism within society, constitutionalism seems like a lost enterprise.
This is problematic for lawyers, because lawyers love thinking in terms of legality. They take comfort in the myth “that an answer to any issue can be found in the law”.1 Accordingly, they take the law as a given and presume the existence of the constitution as the most natural thing in the world.
However, constitutions cannot be taken for granted. Where populism erodes their authority, they often fail to bridge the gap between validity and effectiveness. Constitutions – as constitutional text – thus do not seem to be a sufficient scope for thinking about the relationship between populism and constitutionalism. We must move beyond (or, rather: before) the constitution: to the concept of constituent power.
Constituent power is the power to make constitutions. The constitutionalist and populist conceptions of constituent power are fundamentally different from one another. And, as I will argue, the reason constitutionalism is so vulnerable to populism lies in its conception of constituent power. Constitutionalism can only wield real authority if it recognises the weaknesses of this conception.
Normativism, or: How Constitutions are like the Big Bang
Normativism, the constitutionalist conception of constituent power, goes back to the Austrian legal theorist Hans Kelsen. For Kelsen, the question of constituent power vanishes once an order is constituted. Norms derive their validity from other norms, and anything that stands outside the system of norms is incapable of affecting this system. Even new constitutions are always founded on and derive their legality from prior constitutions. Constituent power, for normativists, is akin to the unmoved mover or the big bang of a legal system. It must have been there, but that is all there is to it. What matters is what it set in motion.
Normativism is the basis of the processes of constitutionalisation that have taken place over the past decades. Post-war European constitutionalism strived to ‘lock away’ certain parts of public life from the political sphere.
The positivisation of rights and the construction of the European transnational order are two examples for this. The positivisation of rights in national constitutional orders was part of the project to remove from the political sphere those parts of public life that were deemed ‘untouchable’. What Loughlin coins the “rights revolution” is the judicial unravelling of these rights from abstract norms into concrete legal rules that ‘constitutionalise’ ever larger parts of the public sphere. 2
Similarly, the Europeanisation of public law has taken place by judicial rather than democratic or political means – above all through the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. Normativism is the conceptual foundation for these developments.
By framing issues as being regulated by constitutionally sanctioned rules, they could be justifiably withdrawn from the ambit of democratic decision-making: where constituent power has vanished, there is nothing but the authoritative legal order and the rules that emanate from it. The authority of law was simply presumed. Norms have validity “not because they have been authorised by a people but because of the self-evident rationality of their claims”.3
Constitutionalism v Democracy?
If previously political issues could be constitutionalised, who is to say that the reverse is impossible?
One can see how the normativist conception would run into problems when confronted with claims of ‘popular sovereignty’. Normativism diminishes the need for constituted order to be somehow democratically founded. Democracy cannot step outside the frame of the law and exercise constituent power, because constituent power, through the normativist lens, has vanished once an order is constituted.
The processes of constitutionalisation, enabled by a normativist conception of constituent power, further exacerbate this tension. In fact, one cannot help but think that constitutionalisation is the result of a somehow harboured fear of democracy revolting against the flourishing of constitutionalism. Lon Fuller notes that, concerning some provisions included in post-war constitutions, “one suspects that the reason for their inclusion is […] a fear that they would not be able to survive the vicissitudes of an ordinary exercise of parliamentary power”. 4 Similarly, European integration through law might have simply been a comfortable way to circumvent democratic procedure and “a convenient expedient for politics”.5
There is a complacency in the legality-based normativist axiomatic that can be easily exploited. If previously political issues could be constitutionalised, who is to say that the reverse is impossible? The idea that, by framing certain parts of public life as constitutional, they could be entirely locked away from the reach of politics is naive and formalistic. Populists can exploit this complacency by juxtaposing a Schmittian, decisionist conception of constituent power.
Decisionism, or: Is the frame part of the canvas?
Populists can present the deconstruction of a constitution as a democratic exercise in its purest form.
For Carl Schmitt, Kelsen’s ideological adversary, constituent power could never be based on a norm nor could it vanish. The basis of the constitution, in Schmitt’s view, is “a political decision concerning the type and form of its own being”. This decision is made by the people as a “political unity”. Constituent power is exercised “according to the principle of democratic legitimacy through the free will of the people”.6
Democracy, for decisionists, is the basis of the constitution, as opposed to the constitution being the frame for democracy. Constituent power does not recede once an order has been constituted. It remains present within the constituted order. The transformation of constituent power into constituted power thus does not signify any kind of irreversible change. A constitution is simply an expression of the political will at a certain point in time. For decisionists, constitutions are not the frame of politics: they are part of the canvas.
Populism is, albeit implicitly, founded on this decisionist conception of constituent power. On the basis of decisionism, populists can present the deconstruction of a constitution as a democratic exercise in its purest form.
Ignoring court orders and packing courts in defiance of the constitution, as is taking place in Poland, can be presented not as a constitutional transgression, but an exercise of sovereignty – a democratically legitimate decision partially re-founding the constitutional order. Similarly, there is no need for new constitutions to connect to previous ones. The preamble of the new Hungarian Constitution explicitly declares the Constitution of 1949, in force until 2011 “invalid”, potentially leading to invalidity of all previous laws and Constitutional Court case law based on it.
Populists, in their own view, are not ‘politicising the constitution’ – they are simply exercising the constituent power that was naturally vested in the people in the first place.
The ‘Paradox of Constitutionalism’
Decisionism presents a radical inversion of the constitutionalist aspiration to contain democracy in law. In doing so, it exposes a core weakness of the constitutionalist, normativist conception of constituent power:
The uncomfortable truth is that normativism does not have an answer to these questions. It simply “marginalises the significance of democratic foundation”, assuming that the order is constituted and there is no escaping it. 7 Populists can use this deficiency of normativism to exploit the human condition of indeterminacy in its most radical legal form: as the people’s constituent power.
Within constitutional democracy there inheres a tension between constituted and constituent power, between people and institutions, between democracy and law. Constitutionalists must ultimately accept that this tension cannot be resolved through legal means. Populism creates a political discourse that extends beyond its legal frame, but the legal frame is unable to contain this discourse. The political realm extends into constitutional matters, despite all efforts of constitutionalists to shield them from it. To believe that constitutional rigidity would be able to contain the tension inherent in modern constitutionalism is illusory. At worst, it only exacerbates the tension.
Conclusion: Constitutionalism as discourse
Constitutionalists must stop believing that the reasons on which constitutionalism rests are self-evident, and instead start embracing these reasons in political engagement.
Ultimately, any constitution rests on conditions that it cannot establish of itself. Constitutional democracy can only endure if “the freedom it bestows on its citizens takes some regulation from the interior, […] from a moral substance of the individuals”. However, it cannot generate or enforce these conditions by itself without “surrender[ing] its liberal character”. 8
These Verfassungsvoraussetzungen – constitutional prerequisites – are what lies at the heart of constitutionalism: The liberal constitution cannot guarantee its own existence, because it rests on conditions prior to it and thus out of its own reach. We should concede that Schmitt had a point in arguing that the people continue to be present within the constituted order as a constituent power. If they do not share the values and believe in the tenets of constitutional democracy, then constitutional democracy cannot survive. The tension inherent in constitutionalism can thus only be alleviated, but never be resolved.
The emergence of populism as a political force does not create any new tensions, it merely highlights the tension that is inherent in constitutional democracy in the first place. But this does not imply that constitutionalists must surrender to populists.
Rather, they must abandon the ‘complacency of legality’ and embrace public law in public discourse. Legality can only operate within a positive frame. Where this frame is being rejected by participants in political discourse, constitutionalism must be justified by reasons prior to legality.
Constitutionalists must stop believing that the reasons on which constitutionalism rests are self-evident, and instead start embracing these reasons in political engagement.
In an era of political populism, constitutionalism is a discourse. As such, it has a powerful role to fulfil in dismantling the populist threat.
2. See Loughlin, The Idea of Public Law, above at 128. ↩
3. Martin Loughlin, ‘What is Constitutionalisation?’ in Petra Dobner & Martin Loughlin (eds), The Twilight of Constitutionalism (OUP 2010). ↩
4. Lon L. Fuller, ‘Positivism and Fidelity to Law: A Reply to Professor Hart’ (1958) 71 HLR 630, at 643 ↩
5. Antonin Cohen, ‘Constitutionalism Without Constitution: Transnational Elites Between Political Mobilization and Legal Expertise in the Making of a Constitution for Europe (1940s-1960s)’ (2007) 32 Law and Social Inquiry 109, at 112. ↩
6. Carl Schmitt, Constitutional Theory (Duke University Press 2008). ↩
7. Loughlin in Dowdle/Wilkinson (above) at 153. ↩
8. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, ‘Die Entstehung des Staates als Vorgang der Säkularisation’, in: Säkularisation und Utopie. Ebracher Studien, Ernst Forsthoff zum 65. Geburtstag (Kohlhammer 1967), 75-94. ↩
