Popülizm ve Liberal Demokrasi İlişkisinde ‘Demokratik Gerileme’: Macaristan Örneği
'Democratic Backsliding’ in the Relationship Between Populism and Liberal Democracy: the Case of Hungary

Summary/Abstract: The present study analyses the relationship between populism and liberal democracy through the Hungarian case study. Populism is predicated on the conceptualisation of a dichotomy between allies and adversaries. The term 'charismatic leader' is defined as follows: the term refers to a leader who derives their legitimacy from the people. In the context of liberal democracy, the legitimacy of the state is derived from the rule of law. Populism has been shown to erode the liberal democratic principles that guarantee values such as individual equality and freedom under the rule of law, and to harbour an "empty locus of power". In the contemporary context, rising populism poses a grave threat to Europe, widely regarded as the cradle of liberal democracy. In this article, the threat posed to liberal democracy by rising populism is analysed through a case study of Hungary. In this context, Hungary's "democratic decline" is analysed on the basis of quantitative Data from the V-Dem indices. The objective of this article is to make a modest contribution to the extant literature by demonstrating that the emergence of populism erodes liberal democratic principles and causes "democratic regression".

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