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Captured green aims: The case of Hungary – new research article by Andrea Éltető & Judit Ricz

Captured green aims: The case of Hungary

Andrea Éltető –Judit Ricz
 
New Perspectives – Research article – First published online September 12, 2024
 
 
 

Abstract

The article aims to shed light on the environmental risks of the Hungarian autocratic economic policy coupled with increased state interventionism and the revival of industrial policies. Green economic strategies proliferate in democratic countries, but we know less about contemporary hybrid regimes. In the case of Hungary, we show that the pillars of green industrial policy do not exist in practice. There is however a façade and rhetoric of green aims which serve only as one tool among others to rent-seeking and keep the ruling power. By several illustrative cases, we describe the mechanisms of hollowing out, capturing environmental institutions, instrumentalising green aims and repressing civil initiatives as systemic characteristics for illiberal hybrid regimes.