Public Diplomacy in Backsliding Regimes? Hungary and Poland

Hungary and Poland are the two main backsliding Member States of the European Union. While it is often alleged that Poland's PiS is following Orbán's playbook, Hungary is actively engaging an European elite public, whereas Poland is not. This paper explores and explains the difference in public diplomacy based on regime coherence and the presence of potential European allies. Hungary's high level of regime cohesion enables the implementation of a centralized, cohesive foreign communication strategy, which would be more difficult to implement in Poland's more fractured coalition. Moreover, in difference to Poland, Hungary has had an European ally it could appeal to, which is a key goal of its communication strategy. Meanwhile the evidence points to that pressure from the European Union alone cannot explain an active public diplomacy, but existing public diplomacy is reactive to pressure. The paper leverages evidence from a unique dataset obtained by scraping a Hungarian government website, Twitter data, and analysis of media contributions by Hungarian officials.