Autocracy Promotion from Within Democracies: Sub-National Forums of Anti-Democratic Engagement

The ‘Age of Patriots’ has arrived: thus revels the 2025 edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary in the re-election of Donald Trump and the continued influence of Viktor Orbán within the EU. This conference – an offshoot of the longstanding American original – is emblematic of the new forms of engagement between supposedly conservative Western politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. The strength of such a movement seems to be growing, with its conservative mantle integrating both (anti-Semitic) conspiracy theories of global elites and traditional libertarian philosophies sceptical of state capacity. Given the interplay between individual actors, the political institutions they occupy, and the success of their political program at (more or less free) elections, political science is challenged to capture such interrelated phenomena as a dominant feature of current democratic contestation that legitimises the subversion of constitutionally-bound democracy. The surprising rise of Hungary as a bastion of new-right wing ideology underlines the international character of this phenomenon and its engagement of many political entrepreneurs. This paper will thus contribute by analysing the international dimension and strategic behaviour of such networks. To do this, central actors will first be defined and understood in their differing roles. Who are the critical actors in such forums of idea transfer? Who innovates in the ideological space? Does it make a difference whether they act from within an elected part of the government, whether they are organized outsiders (i.e. within established political parties) denigrating the ‘elites’ who run the world, or supportive external movements that nonetheless push for more extreme measures? Secondly, the paper will look at the specific forms of exchange: governmental co-operation, non-governmental networking (such as conferences), or more diffuse digital proselytizing (tech oligarchs, trad wives etc.). These initially seem to operate under different logics of operation and goals, yet converge to support the greater political ‘project’ of a new anti-democratic age. In this way, the strategic use of discourse and the diffusion of such ideas has implications for the use of ideology and discourse within democracies to serve anti-democratic goals. This framework will help to delineate the political instrumentalisation of narratives by certain actors and understand the mechanisms of anti-democratic co-operation in the age of Trump and Orbán and its implications for the success of autocracy promotion through the democratic back-door. (suggested for Panel 8: Transnational Autocracy Promotion Networks: Mapping the Infrastructure of Authoritarian Diffusion)