Post-communist mafia state: the case of Hungary

ADAM FABRY

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe

Taylor & Francis

Año: 2017 vol. 25 p. 150 - 152

0965-156X

This article reviews "The aim of Post-Communist Mafia State: The Case of Hungary", a highly popular book written in 2013 by the renowned sociologist and former liberal politician Bálint Magyar. It commends Magyar for the wide range of empirical materials utilised in the book, but argues that his theoretical framework is highly eccentric and fails to engage with critical accounts of democratic transitions in eastern Europe and the former USSR. Also, the author´s central claim, that "corruption" and "state capture" represents a distinct characteristic of the Orbán regime and "post-communist" regimes elsewhere (and not an increasingly systemic feature of neoliberal capitalism tout court), seems, at best, questionable, and, at worst, echoes "Orientalist" attitudes.