Kuruc.Info-Generation. Resasons behind Jobbik’s High Popularity Among the Hungarian Youth

The electoral succes of Jobbik drew enormous public and scientific attention. Although many scholars detected Jobbik’s remarkable popularity among the youth, no in-depth study dealt with the reasons behind the phenomenon. This paper establishes five hypotheses which could explain the young characteristics of radical constituency: policy preferences, anti-establishment attitude, economic recession, internet-usage and subculture. Each assumption is investigated with respect to the following questions: why would became either youngster Jobbik-voter whereas the other one not; why could Jobbik gather much more supporters among the youth; especially among 18-21 years old voters; and why did the radical breakthrough occured after 2008? The analyses is based on our primary data collection: we conducted an online survey among appr. 1500 university and college students. The data-collection was completed by 200 face-to-face interviews in order to ensure an unbiased and representative sample. Comparing our data with other youth database and representative survey samples of the full population we were able to pinpoint the main differences between age groups and between opinion climate at 2008 and 2011.