Protest in an Authoritarian Regime: The Hungarian Case

This paper examines how an authoritarian regime adapts to and reshapes diverse forms of political participation in post-pandemic Hungary. Drawing on qualitative case studies of three protest arenas—the pro-government Peace March, LGBTQ+ mobilizations (Pride), education-related protests (Tanítanék), —it analyzes how participation can simultaneously challenge and stabilize regimes experiencing democratic backsliding. While protest participation has persisted and diversified, its democratic effects remain highly uneven. We show how the Hungarian regime combines legal restrictions, discursive strategies, and selective co-optation to discourage oppositional mobilization while actively enabling and institutionalizing pro-government participation. The analysis highlights struggles over framing, institutionalization, identity, and scale (urban–rural, national–transnational), and analyses the overall fragmentation of social movements, resulting also from long-term historical sociological developments. By tracing activists’ trajectories, organizational strategies, and shifting repertoires of action, the paper demonstrates how participation under authoritarian conditions is not simply suppressed but actively reorganized.