Mentionsy

In this episode, philosopher and sociologist Michał Kozłowski speaks with Professor Andrea Pető, one of the leading scholars of gender, memory politics, and illiberalism, to explore contemporary Hungary as a political laboratory of the 21st century.

The conversation offers a deep analysis of Viktor Orbán’s regime, understood not as a coherent ideological project, but as a system driven by what Pető calls illiberal pragmatism. Rather than producing stable values, this model operates through flexibility, opportunism, and strategic adaptation to shifting political and economic conditions.

A central concept discussed is the “polypore state”—a parasitic structure that feeds on external resources, particularly those of the European Union, while redistributing them to sustain a loyal political elite. This framework reveals how power can be maintained without ideological consistency, relying instead on control over institutions, narratives, and material flows.

The episode also addresses the paradox of women’s support for the regime, initially mobilized through the promise of “emancipation within the home” and the symbolic valorization of motherhood. Today, however, these policies are evolving toward more restrictive measures, including challenges to women’s higher education and reproductive rights.

A significant part of the discussion focuses on memory politics and historical revisionism, particularly the narrative of Hungary as a “double victim” of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This framing obscures local responsibility and is accompanied by a broader geopolitical and cultural shift toward Eastern affiliations.The conversation further examines Hungary’s complex relationship with Russia, highlighting the tension between historical trauma and present-day political alliance, as well as the selective suppression of historical narratives that conflict with current geopolitical interests.

Ultimately, Hungary emerges as a model case of democratic erosion, whose mechanisms are increasingly observed—and in some cases replicated—by political movements worldwide. The episode concludes with reflections on the durability of such systems and the challenges of rebuilding democratic discourse in deeply polarized societies.

Guest: Andrea Pető – Professor of Gender Studies at Central European University (Vienna), research affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute, and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her work on gender, illiberalism, and memory politics has been translated into over 25 languages.

Host: Michał Kozłowski – Philosopher, sociologist, and professor at the University of Warsaw, specializing in 17th-century philosophy, the history of the far right, and the social function of art.