By Seongcheol Kim
Eight years into the rule of Viktor OrbĂĄnâs Fidesz, Hungary offers a particularly fascinating case for a discourse and hegemony analysis that examines how hegemonies institute, redefine, and displace the frontiers defining the social space.[1] What is notable in the discourse of Fidesz is that in the last 20-odd years, a core set of key signifiers or nodal points such as âhomelandâ or ânationâ has been articulated around shifting oppositions and, in the past eight years, has been tied to a systematic attempt to institute a new type of regime â first under the name of the âSystem of National Cooperationâ following the Fidesz landslide of 2010 and then under the internationally catchier heading of an âilliberal state.â The hegemony project of Fidesz, in a sense, takes onto a whole new level of institutional radicality the aim of every hegemonic project: namely, the redefining of the coordinates of the social. As OrbĂĄn openly declared in a 2009 speech:
