Conference Paper

The questions of what makes democracy work, its stability, sustainability and proliferation, have been at the forefront of inquiries in social and political science, especially after the Second World War. Traditionally, the hurdles of establishing stable and lasting democratic regimes in Latin America, post-communist Europe and Asia, Africa, and even the Middle East have drawn the attention of countless social and political scientists, philosophers, analysts and intellectuals. Lately, however, questions about democratic fragility have also been raised in the regions where democracy has been taken for granted and has long been considered irreversible—in the Euro-Atlantic world. Hungary as the most exemplary case has been the champion of autocratization, but with the rise of populist, anti-immigration politics, coupled with illiberal and nativist ideas in several Western European countries and the United States, the questions of democratic stability and sustainability are now gaining salience even in the old “bastions” of democracy. This study looks at two cases of autocratization in formerly democratized political systems, Hungary under Viktor Orban and Macedonia (since 2019 North Macedonia) under Nikola Gruevski. The comparison of the two cases offers us insights that democracy can disintegrate in spite of differences in prior democratic consolidation. The most salient, underlying factor that set the stage for autocratization in both countries is primordializing nationalism, defined as a form of nativism grounded in the idea of the ancient, organic and inalienable rootedness of the nation in its perceived national homeland, regardless of whether the perceived national homeland matches the state boundaries or not. Both countries had strikingly converging autocratizing paths during the prime ministership of their populist-nationalist governments. While Hungary continued on its autocratizing path, North Macedonia has shifted gears and began re-democratizing after the fall of Nikola Gruevski’s regime.