Liminal Populism—The Transformation of the Hungarian Migration Discourse

The Hungarian migration discourse has become important not only on a domestic level, but it was also able to thematize Europe-wide debates. Despite its influence, there is still a lack of understanding about how the Hungarian government has maintained its migration discourse during the past few years. Using discourse analysis, the present study fills this gap by focusing on the transformation of the governmental discourse. Whereas the governmental discourse could initially establish antagonism towards migrants and refugees, its turn towards internal actors disrupted this dichotomous structure. Ever since, the discourse has operated through an offensive and alienating frame as well as through a mitigation frame at the same time. The mixture of these two patterns as seemingly ambivalent yet interlocking tendencies characterizes the Hungarian governmental discourse that can be qualified as a liminal populist discourse. Liminal populism has the ability to maintain alienation and to blur social relations at the same time. Liminal populism is a flexible discursive strategy to decrease social pressure, while it is also a discursive necessity, an unsuccessful attempt to establish antagonism.