Description
The war in Ukraine and the straightforward Western support to Kyiv have contested the fundamentally pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian policy of the Hungarian government. This paper argues that although the Hungarian government remained markedly pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian, it adopted varied responses to the war at different levels of government to cover the majority of the electorate and satisfy the needs of different domestic audiences.
This study examines the multi-level communication that characterizes the Hungarian political field in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. For this purpose, it relies on critical discourse analysis of the political stakeholders and discourse-makers of Hungarian foreign policy: the Hungarian opposition, the President of Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the Foreign Minister, and the pro-government media.
The paper argues that the media dominance of the Hungarian government enables the maintenance of discursive variation, making the discourse polyphonic. The differences among these various discursive roles are not necessarily palpable, as governmental or government-related actors do not generate debates. They may shift their stance on the war, but they agree with the fundamental policy line defined by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, underlining the importance of peace.
