Why Some Social Struggles Succeed: a Comparative Case Study of Movement Strategies in Hungary Between 1987 and 2024

When do social struggles succeed? This question gains urgency amid the looming economic and ecological crises compounded by growing autocratization. This paper explores possible answers by examining the effectiveness of movement strategies. I integrate Gramscian theory into the research on movement strategies and outcomes, and analyze the combination of two factors: (1) how social movement organizations engage political parties in social struggles (orientation to state power), and (2) how they bolster the position of their constituencies within emerging alliances contesting the existing order (orientation to constituency power). I analyze four strategic approaches along this state power – constituency power axes: (1.1) movement organizations engage in the long-term work of building an ideological alliance with a party, and operate in close alignment, almost in symbiosis; or (1.2) movement organizations consider political parties as constantly moving campaign targets, depending on their stance on a particular issue; while (2.1) movement organizations articulate constituency interest on behalf of a mass base; or (2.2) movement organizations articulate constituency interest without controlling a mass base but using other, cultural, policy, or organizational, resources. This paper demonstrates the analytical capacity of this 2x2 framework to examine movement impact on major political and structural shifts, which has remained a niche in the movement outcomes subfield. The research is designed as a comparative case study of Hungarian housing struggles between 1987 and 2024, examining movement impact through three hegemonic phases of housing economies: state socialist, neoliberal, and illiberal. I compare the struggles of four constituencies: large families, Roma people, homeless people, and indebted homeowners. The primary data sources for the four case studies are printed and online media articles (N=1,420), organizational documents (N=438), and semi-structured interviews with movement leaders and experts (n=12). My results show that movement organizations have the most potential to contribute to a systemic shift when they leverage the dependence of political parties on movement constituencies and translate that dependence into influence over the structure of a new emerging historical bloc. Movement organizations can achieve this most effectively when they combine social and organizational embeddedness – a mass base – with a long-term strategic political alignment with a party. This strategic orientation enabled the conservative large families’ movement organization, countering the neoliberal regime, to shift it toward a distinctive conservative welfare framework centered on large families and prioritizing the nation’s demographic survival, thereby reinforcing Viktor Orbán and Fidesz’s struggle for political dominance. My analysis also provides a detailed account of the counter-hegemonic potential of the other examined strategies. I also find that strategic approaches determine how the political opportunity is perceived, and that the cooperation between organic and traditional intellectuals could compensate for severe inequalities between and within constituencies. This paper reinforces the idea that movement organizations, if they choose, can influence the emergence of new political and social alliances, and adopt an orientation to engage in conflict over the historical bloc that dominates the state and society. This perspective is particularly relevant in housing struggles, for the affordability crisis is unresolvable without effective state intervention.