Neoliberalism as Deconstruction of Liberalism: A Comparative Analysis of Viktor Orbán and the European Commission Use of Semantic Inversion

Populist leaders of defective democracies make extensive use of references to liberal democracy and neoliberalism as a common value system, almost exclusively in negative terms. Their discourse strategy appears rooted in one of the outcomes of neoliberalism's deconstructive politics: a profound transformation of Western societies' political and economic discourses. The aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence of the conceptual confusion surrounding these terms and how their strategic use by populist leaders ends up influencing the discursive and normative content of EU policymaking. Indirectly following the discursive strategies of populist leaders, the EU also seems to have been induced to use neoliberalism and liberalism as empty signifiers (Aslanidis, 2015). There is no doubt that neoliberalism has captured and distorted classical liberalism (Zielonka, 2015). Nevertheless, it is essential to take into consideration the crucial differences between the two. To this end, this paper aims to investigate how the narrative choices made by entirely distinct actors appear to converge toward a shared objective: creating confusion to blur and diminish the distinctions between two fundamentally different concepts. We have identified this paradigm shift in the dialectic between neoliberalism and liberalism as a prominent example in recent European politics, triggered by the populist parties' electoral success in many EU member states. The notorious speech by Orbán in Băile Tuşnad in 2014, where he unequivocally articulated his unique vision of an 'illiberal state,’ seems to have triggered a similar pattern in the statements made by the EU institutions in anticipation of the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation. Two such different actors - literally in dispute with each other - appear to have adopted a common narrative strategy. They are employing a semantic inversion technique aimed at distorting the genuine connotations of liberalism and neoliberalism (Leghissa, 2013). While Orbán seems to take advantage of a stinging critique of neoliberalism by ending up questioning the entire liberal order, the Commission - picturing itself as a champion of liberal democracy values - ends up producing nothing more than a protection mechanism to guarantee the EU's neoliberal economic policies, clearly leaving behind its liberal ambition behind. By conducting a discourse analysis of the envisioned documents and speeches, and making use of network analysis to visualize data, the paper intends to identify the frames and techniques used by both actors, to understand similarities and differences in reversing the same concepts for apparently completely different purposes. In this semantic inversion, the terminological oscillations do not seem to reflect a strict semantic order, creating an ambiguous alienation in the neoliberalism-liberalism dialectic. The concept of liberalism is transformed and problematized by the very layout of the discursive frame, putting the basis for a ambiguous conceptual split between liberalism and democracy (Müller, 2012).