Gábor Scheiring is an assistant professor at Georgetown University Qatar and a former green-left member of the Hungarian Parliament. He is the author of The Retreat of Liberal Democracy.
Pundits have widely explained the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland in terms of cultural backlash or the eastern German psyche. Yet its rise is no passing disturbance but a symptom of a much deeper crisis in Europe’s social model.
Péter Magyar will be sworn in as Hungary’s new prime minister this week. His government has a strong technocratic thrust — a departure from Viktor Orbán’s cronyism but hardly a revitalization of democratic participation.