Political Critique: Neoliberalism and ‘Illiberal Democracy’ in the EU: A New (Gender) Regime in Today’s Hungary

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.

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CityLab: The Geography of Populist Discontent

The economic strategies of populists are territorial: walls, immigration restrictions, and rules based on national origin. But populism’s rise in Europe as well as the United States is less a product of economic inequality per se or even of economic anxiety; it is a cultural backlash against urbanism and the values of openness, globalism, tolerance, and diversity that are the hallmark of great cities. [...]

The decline of the middle class and the broken escalator of social mobility are no fiction. Before the 2016 U.S. election, Le Monde published maps about the geography of disparities in the U.S. Did you know that the size of the middle class shrank by more than 7 percent between 2000 and 2013 in New England, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona? Some of these were red states, others blue. But the trend shaped the political narrative. [...]

There are times when rational, well-educated societies lose a sense of perspective, and become overly sensitive, reacting emotionally. We are at peace; the post-2008 recovery, although shallow, is underway. But the general atmosphere, conditioned by fear of terrorism, is pernicious. Studies show that people are poor judges of the risks they do face, exaggerating some which are highly unlikely, underestimating others for which the odds of probability are great. Meanwhile, the security state keeps expanding through a combination of rules, mandates, and direct expenditure. We have to look at what is on the front page of the news, and it is not the economy. Is it any wonder that people feel their way of life is under threat? [...]

Why is this necessary? National policies are spatially blind. National macroeconomic policy treats culture, geography, language, and religion as irrelevant at best, or as handicaps at worst, barriers to the smooth workings of economic rationality. After all, these are endowments which economic trends are unlikely to affect, for better or worse.

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Jacobin Magazine: How the Donald Came to Rule

Since the 1960s, the voter base of the Republican Party has been made up primarily of older, suburban, white, middle-class, small businesspeople, professionals, and managers, and a minority of older white workers. Until recently, the particular passions of that base — especially its hostility to the democratic gains of people of color, women, and LGBT people — could be contained. Minor concessions to social conservatives on abortion, affirmative action, voter restrictions, and same-sex marriage/legal equality maintained their loyalty, while capitalists set the substantive neoliberal agenda for the Republicans. As with the Democrats, the non-capitalist elements of the Republican coalition were clearly junior partners to capital.

The Bush and Obama administrations’ bailouts of banks, the auto industry, and some homeowners changed this dynamic, catalyzing a radicalization of the Republican electorate. The Tea Party began as an alliance between a grassroots rebellion of older, white, suburban small businesspeople, professionals, and managers, and elements of the capitalist class. While the middle-class ranks of the Tea Party railed against “corporate welfare” and “bailouts for undeserving homeowners,” in particular people of color who held subprime mortgages, capitalists like the Koch brothers saw an opportunity to advance their libertarian agenda of defeating Obamacare and privatizing Medicare and Social Security. Broader layers of the capitalist class encouraged the Tea Party’s mobilizations as long as they targeted unions and social services, and supported the continued deregulation of capital. [...]

The two most important “business lobbying” organizations — the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable — oppose wholesale deportations and other policies that reduce the size of the immigrant workforce. Instead, they are leading the fight for an immigration reform that would create massive “guest worker” programs and a difficult “path to citizenship” for those in the United States without papers. [...]

What made Trump unacceptable to the Republican establishment and their corporate backers was not merely his unabashed racism and misogyny, or his casual references to his penis size. Trump champions an economic nationalism that rejects central tenets of the bipartisan neoliberal agenda that has impoverished segments of the middle and working classes. Capital was uneasy with Trump’s stance on immigration and the federal debt — he floated the idea of trying to persuade creditors to accept less than full payment on loans to the US government. [...]

Trump’s nomination sent the majority of the capitalist class, including traditionally Republican capitalists, running to support the reliable neoliberal imperialist, Hillary Clinton. According to OpenSecrets.org, Clinton received over 92 percent of corporate contributions in the 2016 election cycle, including over 80 percent of the contributions from finance, insurance, and real estate; communications/electronics; health care, defense, and “miscellaneous business.” Trump’s support was limited to 60–70 percent of contributions from construction, energy and natural resources, transportation, and agribusiness — which together accounted for less than 10 percent of total capitalist donations. [...]

Trump’s margin of victory came from a small minority of voters who had supported Obama in 2008 and 2012. Of 700 counties that had voted for Obama twice, nearly one-third (209) swung to Trump; and of 207 counties that Obama won once, almost 94 percent (194) went to Trump. The shift to Trump was concentrated in traditionally Democratic states of the Great Lakes and Midwest that had suffered the loss of manufacturing jobs and were experiencing a rise in the Latino population. However, Trump’s victory was primarily a result of a sharp drop in the participation of traditionally Democratic voters, rather than a sharp swing to Trump.

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Vintage Everyday: Stunning Vintage Pictures of Everyday Life in Netherlands in 1904

Here are some stunning black and white photos of everyday life in cities in Netherlands that were shot by an unknown photographer from a trip in 1904.

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VICE: Cheap Pints and Sanctuary in the UK's 'Most Remote' Gay Bar

"I always thought there was a market for a gay bar in the area," owner James Mccarran explains over the phone. He's 46, heterosexual and unashamedly proud to be the landlord of the UK's most remote gay bar. James has been in the bar business since the age of 13, and time and time again would ask his bosses to put on a gay night. "They'd always refuse to," he says, "so I knew I wanted to open my own – it's a market that needed to be tapped into." [...]

In gay bars in larger towns and cities, straight invasions are often bemoaned by the queer clientele. But if Stonewall's estimate that 6 percent of Brits are gay is correct, it stands to reason that, here, straight people are a necessary demographic to keep business ticking over.

Outside in the courtyard 18-year-old Steven Patton is drinking, and welcomes me over when I ask for a chat. "I'm here because I'm gay," he tells me matter-of-factly, "and to be honest it's the only bar I feel comfortable in in the town." Born and bred in this small community, the bar has been a godsend for Steven. "This place normalised being gay in the town," he continues, "so when I came out it wasn't such a shock. Knowing there's a gay bar in the town has helped people understand, to see. I already know so many trans people coming out here – I never thought that would happen in this town."

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The Guardian: Welcome to Yiwu: China's testing ground for a multicultural city

Inside the adjoining Erbil restaurant, two Jordanian men share a plate heaped with barbecued meat and vegetables, while on the street corner two men sit smoking shisha pipes. The Zekeen supermarket sells both instant noodles and halal meat, and an African woman wearing a hijab carries out bags of shopping. Opposite, two young Russian women emerge from a shop that sells the unlikely combination of trainers and sex toys.

This mix of communities, religions and languages has augmented Yiwu’s reputation as one of China’s most multicultural cities; a risk-taking new frontier drawing fortune hunters from across the world. As Mark Jacobs puts it in his book Yiwu, China: A Study of the World’s Largest Small Commodities Market, “anything can be had for a dollar or a yuan”.

The reason they come here is simple. Yiwu boasts a breathtaking emporium covering 5.5 million sq metres with more than 75,000 shops and stalls. This is the supplier of stuff for discount stores the world over: fake flowers, coloured beads, hair ties, inflatable toys, tinsel, party hats, umbrellas – Yiwu is the source of more than 1.8m products, including 70% of all of the world’s Christmas decorations. [...]

Keenly aware a market needs a steady flow of buyers, the government has been pushing the message that all foreigners are welcome. Signs at the train station are in Chinese, English and Arabic, the government publishes a weekly newspaper in English, recently opened the city’s first international school, and is considering teaching Arabic in public schools, given the large number of traders from the Middle East and North Africa.

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The New York Review of Books: Turkey: The Return of the Sultan

On April 16, Turks will vote in a national referendum that will, if successful, give President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan increased powers over parliament, the judiciary, and other parts of the civil bureaucracy. The offices of head of government and head of state will be unified in the person of Erdoğan, and the clock will also restart on his presidential tenure; he could stay in power until 2029. To many Western observers, this will be but the latest step in a return to the kind of authoritarianism that is common to many countries of the Middle East. It also seems to accord with the increasing turn away from democratic practices in many parts of the world, from Putin’s Russia to Trump’s America.

On closer inspection, however, what is happening in Turkey shows distinct traces of an earlier phase of Islamic-minded autocracy in the country’s history. Coming after an era of pro-Western democratization early in Erdoğan’s tenure, the recent shift toward Islamist rule under an unassailable ruler is a reaction to the Turkish Republic’s secular, rationalist twentieth-century founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as well as to the pluralist strain of modernization that more liberal Turks have advocated. Furthermore, it derives much inspiration from the late Ottoman Empire under Abdülhamid II, who ruled for more than thirty years in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [...]

In recent years, Abdülhamid has been the prime beneficiary of this revisionist current. He is spoken of with admiration by government ministers, who refer to him as the “Great Emperor” and—again in reaction to Atatürk, whose campaign of language reform removed many Arabic words from the Turkish lexicon—couch his name with reverential, Arabic adjectives. In stark contrast to the generally hostile silence surrounding the Ottoman ruler as recently as fifteen years ago, he is now remembered in events such as concerts and exhibitions, and an Istanbul hospital was recently renamed after him. On February 24, the state broadcaster aired the first episode of a major new series recounting the last thirteen years of the sultan’s reign, which shows him to be a steadfast, honorable, and pious ruler beset by scurrilous courtiers, iniquitous foreign powers, and a youthful Theodor Herzl scheming for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine. The descendants of the Ottoman royal family, who were exiled from Turkey when Atatürk abolished the dynasty in 1923, have been welcomed back onto ancestral soil. One of these ex-royals, Nilhan Osmanoğlu, recently articulated the nostalgia felt by many Turks when she said, “When we look at the confusion in the Middle East…we see how well the Ottomans administered this part of the world.”

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The Guardian: Europe poised for total ban on bee-harming pesticides

The world’s most widely used insecticides would be banned from all fields across Europe under draft regulations from the European commission, seen by the Guardian.

The documents are the first indication that the powerful commission wants a complete ban and cite “high acute risks to bees”. A ban could be in place this year if the proposals are approved by a majority of EU member states. [...]

The EU imposed a temporary ban on the use of the three key neonicotinoids on some crops in 2013. However, the new proposals are for a complete ban on their use in fields, with the only exception being for plants entirely grown in greenhouses. The proposals could be voted on as soon as May and, if approved, would enter force within months.

The 2013 ban went ahead after those nations opposing the measure, including the UK, failed to muster enough votes. However, since then, the UK government seems to have softened its opposition, having rejected repeated requests from British farmers for “emergency” authorisation to use the banned pesticides.

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CityLab: Where the American Dream Lives and Dies

Researchers there compared the economic conditions in U.S. counties with Chetty’s data on intergenerational mobility. The main takeaway? There’s a strong correlation between the two—particularly in rural areas. A poor kid growing up in a languishing area in the countryside faces tougher odds of prospering than one in the cities. Growing up in a rich rural area, however, gives kids more of a leg up than living in the rich city.

But underneath this broad urban-rural divide lies quite a bit of nuance. In their analysis, EIG researchers divide U.S. counties into four groups (pictured on the left). Below are some interesting geographical and political facts about these categories: [...]

How will these embattled American Dream-seekers fare under the new presidential administration? Trump seeks to cut key programs that offer food and rental assistance in poor urban and rural populations and foster economic development in Appalachia, and the GOP health care plan, experts say, will particularly hurt older, low-income rural voters. In other words: Some of the economic conditions have led voters to put their trust in Trump are likely to be exacerbated further by his administration’s policies.

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