In social sciences literature, numerous attempts have been made to capture the political
essence and features of Hungary’s ‘illiberal’ regime but few were aimed at analyzing
specific public policy fields in the illiberal democracy. This paper analyses the
cultural policy of the Orbán regime, focusing on the role of ideology. A qualitative
case study based on document analysis looks at the legitimizing function of post-communist
traditionalism in a managed illiberal democracy (Csillag and Szelényi, 2015). Governmental
policy making in the field of culture is analyzed on two interrelated levels: (1)
attempts to rewrite the cultural canon, and (2) institutional and financial changes.
The results show that post-communist traditionalism serves as a discursive framework
for the partial replacement of the cultural elite as well as the redistribution of
cultural positions and resources, thus contributing to the creation of a new, loyal
elite for the managed illiberal political system.
