Democratic decline and the rise of illiberal citizenship in Hungary

The paper explores the paradoxical implications of democratisation on citizenship policy trajectories through the analysis of Hungarian citizenship legislation since 1989. The main objective of the paper is to analyse the complex nexus of citizenship policy reforms and democratisation. Most importantly, the paper will show that ethnocentrist expansive citizenship introduced in 2010 exacerbates Hungary’s democratic breakdown. First, the votes from the newly naturalised voters abroad help Fidesz in Parliamentary and European Parliamentary elections as well as in national referendums. Second, the naturalisation of more than 1.1 million ethnic Hungarians also helps FideszFidesz's anti-immigrant agenda by making more salient its nativist claims advocating national homogeneity and the ‘biological reproduction’ of the nation defined in ethnocultural terms.