Post-Communist Mafia State: The Case of Hungary

In an article in 2001 the author analyzed the way the Hungarian political party Fidesz (the Federation of Young Democrats) was eliminating the institutional system of the rule of law as it was on government for the first time. At that time, many readers doubted the legitimacy of the new approach, in which the author characterized the system as the 'organized over-world', the 'state employing mafia methods' and the 'adopted political family'. Critics considered these categories metaphors rather than elements of a coherent conceptual framework. Ten years later Fidesz won a two-third majority in Parliament at the 2010 elections, removing many of the institutional obstacles of exerting power. Just like the party, the state itself was placed under the control of a single individual, who since then has applied the techniques used within his party to enforce submission and obedience onto society as a whole.