Freedom House Chapter 5 ° ‘nye I The Rise of ‘Illiberal Democracy In July 2014, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban gave what has come to be known as his “illiberal “There is a race underway to find the democracy" speech before an ethnic Hungarian audi- method of community organization, ence in Baile Tusnad, Romania.' Several points in his the state, which is most capable ot remiank are Woruhineking: making a nation and a community ¢ Orban urged his listeners to no longer regard the internationally competitive... [T]he 1989 triumph over communism as the reference most popular topic in thinking today point for developments in Hungary. Instead of is trying to understand how systems measuring progress from the transition from that are not Western, not liberal, not dictatorship and foreign domination to elections, liberal democracies, and perhaps not civil liberties, and sovereignby, Orban said Hungary even democracies, can nevertheless should adopt a new point of departure, the onset ; : i of the global financial crisis in 2008, which also make their nations successful. marked the European Union's greatest setback. —Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary ¢ He cited U.S. president Barack bhanaa and vari- “If we want to organize our national ous unnamed sources on the West's weakness, : ~~ including an “internationally recognized analyst” state to replace the liberal state, it is who wrote that liberal values today “embody very important that we make it clear corruption, sex, and violence.” that we are not opposing nongov- ernmental organizations here, and « He suggested that in the future it motild be it is not nongovernmental organi- systems that were “not Western, not liberal, : : : ; zations who are moving against us, not liberal democracies, and perhaps not even : . _ democracies’ that would create successful and but paid political activists who are competitive societies. He asserted that “the attempting to enforce foreign inter- stars of the international analys