(Un)Deserving Refugees: The Migration Discourse in Hungary, 2015 and 2022
(Un)Deserving Refugees: The Migration Discourse in Hungary, 2015 and 2022

Summary/Abstract: The Hungarian government took an anti-immigrant and anti-refugee stance in 2015 and claims to have stuck to it ever since. However, in 2022, when many Ukrainians (including ethnic Hungarians) passed through Hungary after Russia started its invasion of Ukraine, the same government welcomed them. In this paper we illustrate how the Hungarian government’s approach shifted, without explicitly changing their main narrative but adding a new one to it: the aspect of deservingness. We also wanted to see the differences between the pro-government and the non-pro-government mediums. To illustrate this shift and the differences between the 2 platforms, we used qualitative methods: we analysed pro- and non-pro-government media during the 2015 and 2022 refugee crises and conducted expert interviews.

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