ABSTRACT
There is no question that Russia serves as an authoritarian gravity center (AGC) for the former Soviet Union, reinforcing the autocratic tendencies of weak democracies or fully authoritarian regimes. However, Russia’s authoritarian gravitation attraction has also been felt outside of this region and outside of these settings – even within the European Union itself. The primary means by which this has occurred is through the diffusion of the “Putin Model,” a blueprint for transitioning a political system toward authoritarianism by undermining the formal and informal checks and balances within a political system. This is most evident in post-2010 Hungary under the right-wing, populist political party Fidesz, which has implemented an illiberal strategy similar to that previously adopted in Russia, with negative effects on Hungary’s democratic credentials. This chapter outlines how the Putin model found a home in Hungary through an institutionalist examination of four areas (the judiciary, the media, the electoral system, and civil society) in which Fidesz’s illiberal strategy was similar to that previously adopted in Russia. It shows that the AGC framework may have broader applicability than initially thought and that an AGC can have substantive effects on political systems once thought to be consolidated democracies.
