Fidesz and the Reinvention of the Hungarian Center-Right

I have lived outside Hungary since my childhood but have been a frequent visitor to Budapest following the transition to democracy. Since little is known about Fidesz’s development in the West this book fills a gap in explaining to the Western reader what the party stands for.

I seek to answer the question how Fidesz succeeded in establishing itself as the leader of the center-right and how its sweeping victory in the national elections came about. I use Fidesz as a case study to illustrate for party systems in general how a party can act as a successful political entrepreneur and restructure the party system by building upon and creating cleavages that serve as a basis for a political identity. The key to Fidesz’s success in establishing itself as a broadly based people’s party was that it was able to adjust to the rapidly changing political landscape.