From champion of decentralization to illiberal recentralization in Hungarian local government

Dobos, Gábor and Kákai, László and Pálné Kovács, Ilona (2025) From champion of decentralization to illiberal recentralization in Hungarian local government. URBAN RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, -. pp. 1-20. ISSN 1753-5069

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Abstract

The paper analyses the recentralisation of Hungary’s local governance under the Orbán regime since 2010, highlighting three key mechanisms: hostile takeover of local competences, financial draining, and clientelisation of central-local relations. Recentralisation in Hungary can be characterised as a two-wave process – an ideologically driven phase between 2010 and 2014 and a politically strategic phase after 2019 that targeted opposition-led municipalities. Drawing on legislative changes, policy documents, and secondary literature, the study argues that Hungary illustrates how illiberal regimes deploy ostensibly technocratic reforms to undermine pluralism and reinforce authoritarian centralisation.

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