The Hungarian Jobbik as ‘Party-Movement’: A Theoretical and Empirical Assessment

The environmentalist/libertarian left and the populist radical right have been often likened for their ability to bridge the conceptual space between political parties and social movement organisations. They resemble the first in that they contest elections in an attempt to win public office, but also recall the latter for they try to mobilise public support and offer interpretive frames for specific issues. Despite these theoretical commonplaces, very little attention has been devoted to ‘party-movements’ as self-standing actors in the political process. Drawing on a prime example of populist radical right organisation in Europe, the Hungarian Jobbik, the paper seeks to expand our understanding of party-movements – both theoretically and empirically. Above all, Jobbik has surfaced from a critical juncture and contributed to introduce new forms of collective action. Successively, the populist radical right organisation underwent a phase of transformation and institutionalisation, effectively polarising the political context; and mobilised the Hungarian electorate for particular forms of action and reaction. Drifting from static accounts of political fortunes, the paper investigates the dynamics and mechanisms underlying the different stages of Jobbik’s lifespan, hence suggesting that social movement theory can offer a fruitful way forward in the analysis of similar organisations.