The politics of foreign-currency housing debt in Hungary's authoritarian capitalist reconfiguration after 2010

Abstract The article discusses how forex (foreign exchange) mortgage debtors’ mobilizations interacted with right-wing populist politics and the construction of a new financial regime in Hungary after 2008. With reference to Nicos Poulantzas's 1974 conceptualization of stages of authoritarian statism, we analyze these interactions in terms of the political dynamics of capitalist crisis management, where movement alliances, state power centralization and capital monopolization play different roles in different stages. We trace these dynamics from the populist alliance of the 2010 election campaign to Fidesz's use of the forex debt crisis to legitimate state intervention in favor of state-backed domestic capital, debtors’ increasing dissatisfaction, and their marginalization once the new financial regime was stabilized.