Page 58 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 4, Issue 1, 2018

The politics of sovereignty

The sections above showed that there is little merit to the Government’s claims that Hungary’s
sovereignty is under a substantial attack. Yet the Government has invested significant resources
to conduct two National Consultation campaigns on the subject, as well as investing its own
credibility into this fight. The question then is why the Government would do that. The answer
is that the Government is engaged in the politics of sovereignty, the theatrical display of being
under attack, in order to achieve its own domestic political goals.

Populist politics are on the rise as they present a convenient avenue to garner support from the
general public. Unfortunately for the discussion at hand the general public tends to have a
simplistic view of sovereignty, especially when filtered through the lens of popular
nationalism. This is largely unavoidable as the international order becomes increasingly
complex and an increasing number of cooperative regimes beyond the understanding of the
average citizen are created. Hathaway notes the problems arising from transferring power from
local authorities to a culturally and physically distant powers. (Hathaway, 2008) One can
combine this with the fact that the average person holds a rather unsophisticated view of state
sovereignty and it is not hard to see why the politics peddled by Government are popular. And
they are popular. In case of the first National Consultation of 2017, the respondents expressed
overwhelming support for the government’s position:

Questions #1: 99.1% supports that the government’s policy on utility price reduction needs to
be protected and that the government should insist that utility prices need to be determined
domestically.
Question #2: 99.3% supports that illegal immigrants should be detained by the authorities until
their refugee status is approved.
Question #3: 99.2% supports that supporting illegal immigration, e.g. through human
trafficking, should be criminalized.
Question #4: 99.1% supports that NGOs receiving foreign funding should register with the
government and reveal their foreign benefactors.
Question #5: 99.1% supports that economic policy should be decided upon domestically.
Question #6: 99.1% supports that the government should insist that tax rates should be
determined domestically.

A total of 1 688 044 questionnaires were sent back to the government. (Magyarország
Kormánya / Government of Hungary, 2017/a) In 2014, FIDESZ needed slightly above 2.2
million votes to maintain a stranglehold on the Hungarian Parliament. It is clear that there is a
large group of people receptive to the Government’s rhetoric.

The politics of sovereignty allows the Government to present a simple political narrative to
appeal to the sensibilities of a nationalist/conservative base. Instead of Paul Revere warning
that the British are coming, it is the Government on horseback spreading the news that Brussel
is coming, and that they are coming for the freedom, security and welfare of the Hungarian
people. There is qualitatively little difference between this and the U.S.’s continued refusal to
join mundane international agreements in fear of UN black helicopters. It is important to note
that the Hungarian Government is not alone in its reliance on the politics of sovereignty. The
Conservative Party in the United Kingdom employed it to gain and maintain power through
appealing to pro-BREXIT constituents. Similarly, Donald Trump often employs the technique
of threatening to withdraw from international agreements, whether it is the Paris Climate
Accord, the Iran nuclear deal or the North American Free Trade Agreement, to appeal to a

58