A webinar for prospective PhD students.
Attendees will get to know the Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations, and will hear about a new publication co-written by one of our PhD candidates, Péter Visnovitz, and faculty from both IR and Political Science Departments, Erin K. Jenne and András Bozóki: the chapter "Antisemitic Tropes, Fifth-Columnism, and 'Soros-Bashing': The Curious Case of Central European University".
To close the webinar, attendees will hear from PhD candidate Hong Do about the research group in Political, Legal and Moral Theory (POLEMO), one of several research groups at CEU where PhD candidates and faculty meet to share their research.
Register to the event here. Sign up here for more information.
Antisemitic Tropes, Fifth-Columnism, and “Soros-Bashing”: The Curious Case of Central European University
ABSTRACT / This chapter investigates the ways in which the post-2010 Fidesz government under Viktor Orbán used antisemitic tropes to configure George Soros—once hailed as a champion of market reform, freedom, and democracy—as an ontological threat to the Hungarian nation that should therefore be expunged from the country, together with “his networks,” including the Open Society Institute and Central European University. To show the government’s communication strategy in action, we combined an analysis of antisemitic discourse on the far right with a media content analysis of Sorosozás in government-backed online news portals from 2015 to 2020. We show that, from 2010, Orbán and his media allies discursively interpellated specific individuals and states as “financiers” and “global powers” as cogs in a global “Soros network.” In doing so, they drew upon well-established fifth-column narratives originally constructed and refined by ideologists from the Kádár era who employed a latent antisemitic code in their writing. At one time vehemently rejecting such discourse, Orbán and his government allies have become its chief articulators with devastating effects for one of his targets—the Central European University in Budapest.
The Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations (DSPS) offers the PhD in Political Science, accredited in the United States and Austria. The program has five areas of specialization (tracks): Comparative and International Political Economy, Comparative Politics, Political Theory, International Relations, and Public Policy.