Description

Discussion Highlights:

• Post-Enlightenment era: Shift from fact-driven, technocratic politics to emotional, myth-based narratives; “new romanticism” as politics serving emotional needs.
• Tribal politics: Politics as moralized conflict; unconditional leader loyalty; democratic norms waived as “necessary” in existential struggle; disinformation and conspiracy theories as tools of tribal mobilization.
• Free speech charade: How authoritarian leaders and tech moguls exploit “free speech” rhetoric to delegitimise content moderation; selective censorship in global social media platforms.
• Hungary’s 2026 elections: Fidesz’s entrenched media control; opposition lead in polls amid corruption scandals and economic woes; risk of electoral-system tweaks if the gap widens.
• Ukraine-fear campaign: Government-backed narratives linking EU/NATO enlargement to economic decline; pervasive anti-Ukrainian sentiment despite public sympathy and solidarity efforts.
• Migration narratives: Contradictions in anti-migration rhetoric versus labour needs in German-owned Hungarian automotive plants; persistence of sovereignty-based appeals.
• Budapest Pride mobilisation: Over 200,000 participants signalling civil-society resilience; government attempts to cast Pride as a threat to “family values.”
• Europe’s response: Internal EU disruptors like Hungary; need for flexible, united EU measures (e.g., qualified-majority votes); potential leverage via conditionality on EU funds.

About Péter Krekó
Péter Krekó (born 20 March 1980 in Budapest) is a Hungarian social psychologist and political scientist. He is Associate Professor (with habilitation) at the Department of Social Psychology and the Disinformation and Artificial Intelligence Research Lab at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest Mores Horizon. Since 2011, he has directed the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute and serves as consortium leader for the Hungarian Digital Media Observatory (HDMO-Lakmusz), part of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) network Democracy Institute. His research addresses disinformation, conspiracy theories, political populism, extremism, Russian influence, and political tribalism. He has held fellowships as Visiting Fellow, Engaging Central Europe at the German Marshall Fund of the United States; Europe’s Futures Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna; PopBack Fellow at the University of Cambridge; non-resident Associate Fellow at Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna; and Fulbright Visiting Professor at Indiana University (2016–2017) European Forum Alpbach. He is author of The Hungarian Far Right (Ibidem-Verlag, 2017, with Attila Juhász) and Mass Paranoia: The Social Psychology of Conspiracy Theories and False News (Athenaeum Kiadó, 2018) 

Read more on Péter

at the Political Capital Institute

at the ELTE Disinformation & AI Research Lab

at the German Marshall Fund

Find him on X.com

 @PeterKreko

Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) implemented in partnership with ERSTE Foundation. The program is dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge and the generation of ideas addressing pivotal challenges confronting Europe and the European Union: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

The Institute for Human Sciences is an institute of advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences. Founded as a place of encounter in 1982 by a young Polish philosopher, Krzysztof Michalski, and two German colleagues in neutral Austria, its initial mission was to create a meeting place for dissenting thinkers of Eastern Europe and prominent scholars from the West.

Since then it has promoted intellectual exchange across disciplines, between academia and society, and among regions that now embrace the Global South and North. The IWM is an independent and non-partisan institution, and proudly so. All of our fellows, visiting and permanent, pursue their own research in an environment designed to enrich their work and to render it more accessible within and beyond academia.

For further information about the Institute:

https://www.iwm.at/