Self-made Men or Oligarchs? Political Cleavages in the Reputation of the Hungarian Economic Elite

In the last couple of years, literature on Hungary seems to be conclusive that elite consensus collapsed and democracy backslides towards autocracy because of the elites’ norm-breaking behaviour (Lengyel 2014, Bozóki 2015, Kristóf 2015). It is also recognized, that governmental elite has been gaining an increasing influence and power over other elite groups. Since 2010, ruling political elite reallocated property rights, public and EU funds to new loyal economic elites who are in a much closer control of the political elite (Csillag and Szelényi 2015). These processes have serious consequences on the autonomy of the cultural and economic elites. In my paper I examine the population’s views on the economic and cultural elite on a nationally representative sample (N=2000). Respondents are invited to consider the achievement of well-known economic actors, whether their wealth is meritocratic, or rather, it is the consequence of their affiliations to the political elite. Regarding the public discourse on institutional corruption, I assume that the assessment of the Hungarian economic elite is generally bad, the majority of the respondents think they are closely affiliated to the political elite. Still, I expect that the new elite group emerged in the last couple of years as the incumbent political elite’s clientele, is even less meritocratic according to the population’s views. I assume that the reputation of this elite group is so consensually low that there is even no clear political cleavage in it. I my paper I will use regression models to interpret the factors influencing the assessment of the members of the economic elite.