Virág Molnár: The Populist City: Imperial Nostalgia and Neoliberal Authoritarianism

Name: Virág Molnár: The Populist City: Imperial Nostalgia and Neoliberal Authoritarianism
Start: 2025-02-26T12:30:00+01:00
Location: Nador u. 15., Budapest, Hungary, 1051

Schedule

Wed, 26 Feb, 2025 at 12:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Nador u. 15., Budapest, Hungary, 1051 | Budapest, BU

Scholarship on contemporary populism has grown significantly in recent years, but its spatial and material aspects have received scant attention. My research fills this gap by examining Budapest as a case study to show how urban space and the built environment have been instrumentalized in the service of populist rule through materializing strategically edited and sanitized narratives about Hungary’s imperial and interwar pasts. The empirical analysis focuses on two of the most politically charged symbolic spaces in Budapest that have undergone major reconstruction since the populist turn in 2010: the Kossuth Square area with the Hungarian Parliament in its center and the Castle District with special focus on the former Royal Palace. The Budapest case demonstrates more broadly that these transformations of the built environment do not simply passively represent populist power, but their design, construction, and changing uses provide key insights into the illiberal political logics of populist regimes.
Image credits: Virag Molnar
RSVP Agnes Bendik at [email protected]