Taking stock of autocratization in Hungarian universities: Reconceptualizing academic freedom as anti-populist counter strategy

In this project, I focus on the functions and potential roles of academic freedom in a moment when liberal democracy appears to be universally endangered by democratically legitimized authoritarian populism. The project is mostly conceptual, but it is informed by the case of post-2010 Hungary; one of the clearest examples of authoritarian populism, or in the words of Fareed Zakaria and Viktor Orbán: illiberal democracy. Hungary does not only offer a point of reference as an autocratizing political regime but also shows how university governance is transformed in such a regime to serve the interests of those in power, i.e. political and business elites. Such a transformation implies considerable risks not only for individual academics but also for academia as a whole in terms of deteriorating individual and institutional performances and—at least partial—detachment from international scientific networks, particularly those financed by the EU. This, in turn, is bad news for the regime as these universities are supposed to provide middle classes—a key pro-regime constituency—with mechanisms of inter-generational human capital transfer. Using my own example, I argue that underperformance by and deteriorating moral standards in politically controlled universities can weaken regime legitimacy. In consequence, we are back to the old autocratic trade-off between political control and systemic efficiency; the one that had played a key role in delegitimizing East European communism before the region was democratized 35 years ago. The underlying research interests of the project, hence, are taking stock of costs and benefits derived from autocratizing universities by political and business elites as well as the broad cross-sections of society; and engaging in the reconceptualization of academic freedom as an anti-populist counter strategy.