ABSTRACT This article investigates how governance patterns have developed in Hungary after 2010, when its democratic backsliding began. In the authoritarian personalist regime, the leader of Fidesz, Viktor Orbán, has a dominant role. The study reveals how informal governance solutions predominate to the detriment of formal institutions. The major building blocks of the regime are a loyal new elite, economic clientele, controlled media, and affective polarization. Representative linkages, responsibility, and accountability foundations are missing, and decision making is not transparent; governance failure can be observed. The regime regards performance as a source of justification, while ideology and the charismatic qualities of the leader appear to be the main actual sources of legitimacy.
Ilonszki et al. (Fri,) studied this question.