Jakub Szabó – Political Economy of Illiberal Capitalism in Hungary and Poland

Abstract

Has the recent illiberal surge altered the neoliberal orthodoxy prevailing in post-1989 Hungary and Poland towards a more developmental modus operandi, or has it just camouflaged embedded neoliberalism with a developmental narrative? This article, trying to contribute to answering the aforementioned question, is structured as follows. First, we provide a general overview of the comparative capitalism approach. We extend the original conceptualizations by the framework of varieties of illiberal capitalism and present two ideal types of illiberal capitalism. Then, we assess five institutional areas of the political economy of contemporary Hungary and Poland. We conclude that although Hungary remains faithful to the neoliberal economic orthodoxy so far with illiberal political forces merely camouflaging its true essence due to political and utilitarian reasons, the post-2015 government in Poland managed to move its economic model closer to a more developmental modus operandi.