In 2014, Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, announced the institutional system of ‘illiberal democracy’ as the new form of the Hungarian state. A year later, during a news conference with Angela Merkel, he asserted that ‘liberalism demands a privilege for itself which we cannot allow,’ calling into question the legitimacy of democracy. However, this assertion was also an open rejection to EU norms that essentially determine the foundation of the EU – such as democracy, freedom and equality – which Hungary accepted during its 2004 EU accession. I argue that this current normative paradigm shift in democratic rights – in particular the shift in gender equality – has created a new gender regime in Hungary today. Hungary outright declaring itself to be posed against liberalism not only signifies a threat to the cohesion of the EU, it also warns of unexpected challenges that many countries could face, at a global level.
During Hungary’s transition phase from state-socialism to democracy in the 1990s, the process of transition turned into a high-level integration procedure of privatization, so as to bring Hungary into the fold of the global capitalist market. Despite new themes of gender equality being introduced to political discourse – i.e. violence against women, domestic violence, and the legal recognition of homosexual civil partnerships – discussions on gender equality within the Hungarian politic sphere continue to remain fundamentally conflicted. This is due to the narrative that follows the “real historical heritage” of Hungary, a historical heritage that never considered and represented gender inequality as a social and political problem. Unfortunately, Hungary’s stance on the issue has not changed much despite its EU accession, and problems continue to surround gender equality in the region due to the 2008 economic crisis and the current refugee crisis. [...]
Although the EU had an important role in promoting equal opportunities and gender equality throughout Europe, EU gender policy has traditionally been designed in accordance with the economic objectives of the EU. The EU’s aim was primarily to increase women’s employment and thus ensure economic growth in the region; but this is more to secure the EU’s power, rather than to combat gender inequality. Indeed, the “reconciliation of work and family” in order to relieve the ‘double burden’ on women that was integrated into the EU’s employment directives only came to be understood as women’s flexible working conditions. I regard this contradiction and normative shift to be very problematic, especially in post-socialist EU member countries like Hungary, because of the subversive expectation to comply with EU-established norms. How can conditions for the successful implementation of gender equality norms be ensured if, within the EU itself, these norms are conflictingly defined within a dominant, neoliberal, and normative notion of gender equality, rather than within a framework that approaches gender equality as a basic human right? More worrisome is that the foundation of illiberal democracy is actually just neoliberalism rewriting liberal-democratic norms: By making these norms coincide with market-oriented interests and goals, the norms themselves become subsumed within/by the market.
No comments:
Post a Comment