The Impact of Exceptional Governance Measures on Democracy and Legal System (ELTE Law Journal, 2025/1.)

A study of mine entitled The Impact of Exceptional Governance Measures on Democracy and Legal System was published in the ELTE Law Journal 2025/1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54148/ELTELJ.2025.1.83

The exercise of exceptional power has long been at the centre of debate, as the process involves essentially breaking away from normality and giving political leader(s), especially the executive, almost unlimited power. Particularly in periods of constitutionalism and under liberal democracies based on checks and balances, when the principle of the separation of powers is temporarily ‘switched off’ for the time needed to avert an exceptional event, this leads to significant problems. This paper, after clarifying the theoretical starting points, will discuss in a historical context the authoritarian tendencies inherent in executive power that emerged within the history of ideas and politics in the 20th century in relation to the problem of constitutional dictatorship and which have today taken shape in the transformation of philosophies of government – namely, into a kind of permanent crisis-management philosophy of government. Furthermore, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the literature is reviewed to address the democratic problems associated with exceptional governance. The main question underlying this analysis is whether exceptional governance affects democracy and legal systems and what tools and methods can be used to check the authoritarian nature of the executive in a state of exception.

Authoritarian Populism, Environmentalism and Exceptional Governance in Hungary

My new paper has been published in Czech Journal of Political Science 2021/3.

Authoritarian Populism, Environmentalism and Exceptional Governance in Hungary

This paper analyzes how the incumbent authoritarian populist Orbán government started to navi­gate itself from an anti-climate to a conservative green position. First, the theoretical background of environmentalism and democracy/autocracy will be investigated. It is to say that the relationship between democracy and the environment is quite contradictory, although democracy has a demonstrable effect on the quality of the environment and sustainability, it is not worth absolutizing. That is why we should put an emphasis on the environmental approach of authoritarian regimes, here as a case study of the Hungarian regime. From 2010, the Orbán regime elaborated an ambiguous attitude toward the environment and green politics; on the on hand, it was characterized by climate denialism and demolition of environmental institutions, on the other hand, the super-majority behind the regime accepted the Fundamental Law with several green elements. In the second half of 2019 and early 2020, the regime started to create a new conservative green agenda. This authoritarian populist greening is not based on eco-authoritarian traditions. This paper challenges the notion that authoritarian populist actors are hostile to environmental policies. The Orbán regime proved adaptive in the case of the climate emergency and is about to elaborate its own climate agenda. At the same time, the regime is unable to face the real nature of the climate and ecological emergencies. The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been used by the regime to rule by decree based on exceptional powers. In fact, the regime relied on exceptional governance before the COVID-19 crisis, ever since the migration crisis of 2015. The authoritarian populist regime recognized the political opportunities of exceptional governance in terms of overlapping crises and that is why it is characterized by authoritarian climate populism.

Key words

Authoritarian Populism; Climate and Ecological Emergency; COVID-19; Orbán Regime; State of Exception; Exceptional Measures; Green Conservativism