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About Stephen Pogány

Stephen Pogány is emeritus professor of law at the University of Warwick. From 2013 to 2018 he was part of the visiting faculty at the Central European University, Budapest.

Hungarian democracy

The coronavirus and the ‘quarantining’ of Hungarian democracy

by Stephen Pogány on 1st April 2020

Many aspects of normal life have been suspended in Hungary due to the coronavirus, including parliamentary democracy.

Hungarian democracy

Europe and the tragedy of Israel/Palestine

by Stephen Pogány on 3rd January 2020

Amid the intractable struggle in Israel/Palestine for the moral high ground of legitimate victimhood, Europe has a historic responsibility.

Hungarian democracy

Budapest’s new mayor and the redemocratisation of Hungary

by Stephen Pogány on 31st October 2019

Local elections in Hungary have placed a question-mark over the durability of the ‘illiberal democracy’ of Viktor Orbán.

Stephen Pogány

CEU and Hungary’s War Against the Enlightenment

by Stephen Pogány on 15th November 2018

For almost half a century following World War Two, Hungary’s Communist regime exercised far-reaching controls over virtually every aspect of society, including education and culture. A state-sanctioned ideology, an approved historical narrative and politically ’reliable’ writers were actively promoted in Hungary’s schools and universities as well as through the arts. At the same time, conflicting […]

Stephen Pogány

Israel, Palestine And Europe’s Selective Historical Amnesia

by Stephen Pogány on 30th May 2018

When my father and his parents returned to Orosháza in Hungary, having been held as slave labourers in Vienna during the latter stages of World War Two together with thousands of Hungarian Jews, my father, then aged seventeen, embraced Zionism. Joining the secular, left-wing Hashomer Hatzair movement, which advocated Jewish emigration to Palestine, communal life […]

Stephen Pogány

Hungary’s Lost Democracy

by Stephen Pogány on 13th April 2018

There is a palpable sense of gloom and foreboding amongst liberals, moderate conservatives and those on the Left in Hungary following Fidesz’s unexpectedly decisive victory in the April 8 parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Orbán and the Fidesz-KDNP coalition swept to their third successive triumph at the ballot box, gaining two thirds of the seats in […]

Stephen Pogány

Hungary’s Enfeebled Democracy

by Stephen Pogány on 15th February 2018

Hungarian voters disenchanted with the cronyism, pseudo-populism and creeping authoritarianism of the ruling Fidesz-KDNP government have a bewildering array of opposition parties to choose from. Indeed, that may be part of the problem. Apart from the MSZP or Hungarian Socialist Party, which evolved from the former Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, they include the Democratic Coalition […]

Stephen Pogány

Enhancing Diversity In Europe

by Stephen Pogány on 15th December 2017

In a recent article in Social Europe, Andrew Watt and Steven Hill contend that the EU “should not fear” secession. The authors argue that Catalonia’s secession from Spain and other potential cases of secession could actually “enhance the European continent’s richness and diversity”, provided the EU can establish criteria “for a rational and forward-looking foundation […]

Stephen Pogány

Boris Johnson’s Split Allegiances

by Stephen Pogány on 11th October 2017

Boris Johnson’s recent article in the Telegraph, ‘My vision for a bold, thriving Britain enabled by Brexit’, raises a host of troubling issues. Not least, Johnson accuses young people he encounters in Britain, who have the twelve stars of the European Union flag “lip-sticked on their faces”, of “beginning to have genuinely split allegiances”. He […]

Stephen Pogány

Orban, Orwell and Soros

by Stephen Pogány on 17th July 2017

In George Orwell’s bleakly prophetic novel, 1984, Oceania’s totalitarian regime strives to mobilise popular support by holding up the figure of Emmanuel Goldstein as a mortal threat to the state and its citizens: He was the primal traitor…all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was […]

Stephen Pogány

Of Folk Devils And Moral Panic: Hungary’s Referendum On Mandatory EU Migrant Quotas

by Stephen Pogány on 20th September 2016

For several weeks, streets in Budapest, as elsewhere in Hungary, have been awash with government-funded placards representing an overt incitement to racial and religious hatred. Far from portraying those fleeing to Europe from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries as genuine asylum seekers, escaping brutal and apparently intractable civil conflicts, the posters characterise them as […]

Stephen Pogány

Where Left Meets Right: Anti-Semitism In Europe

by Stephen Pogány on 1st August 2016

“The Jews are rallying!” wrote Naz Shah in an infamous Facebook post just months before she was elected Labour MP for Bradford West. “Your school education system only tells you about Anne Frank and the six million Zionists [my emphasis] that were killed by Hitler”, declared a Facebook post shared by Khadim Hussain, then a […]

István Pogány

Budleigh Salterton: Brexit And The Quest For A Mythic England

by Stephen Pogány on 28th June 2016

In the 1980s, when I was teaching at the University of Exeter, my late wife and I often spent fine summer weekends on the pebbly beach at Budleigh Salterton. In addition to its splendidly evocative name there was something wonderfully retro and English about Budleigh Salterton. Tea rooms and bowling greens, gentleman’s outfitters selling striped […]

István Pogány

A Tale Of Two Europes: East And West

by Stephen Pogány on 22nd January 2016

Although West European policy makers have been slow to recognise the fact, the Iron Curtain was never the only or necessarily the most important feature dividing the continent. As governments in Hungary and now Poland neutralise many of the key institutions of liberal democracy – robust and impartial courts with far-reaching powers of constitutional oversight, […]

István Pogány

Defending Multiculturalism After The Paris Attacks

by Stephen Pogány on 18th November 2015

Visiting the UK, after eighteen months in Eastern Europe, I have been struck by the easy-going multiculturalism that is Britain. Whether in London, Bristol or Liverpool, the three cities on my itinerary, recent immigrants from the European Union – from France and Spain as well as Poland and Romania – mingle comfortably with Black, Asian […]

István Pogány

Viktor Orbán, Refugees And The Threat To Europe

by Stephen Pogány on 2nd November 2015

As European leaders grapple with the unprecedented influx of asylum seekers, Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly expressed his belief that the mostly Middle Eastern and predominantly Muslim refugees represent a grave threat to Europe. Orbán has argued that the ‘migrants’ (he refuses to acknowledge that most of them may be genuine refugees) represent […]

Social Europe Publishing book

With a pandemic raging, for those countries most affected by Brexit the end of the transition could not come at a worse time. Yet, might the UK's withdrawal be a blessing in disguise? With its biggest veto player gone, might the European Pillar of Social Rights take centre stage? This book brings together leading experts in European politics and policy to examine social citizenship rights across the European continent in the wake of Brexit. Will member states see an enhanced social Europe or a race to the bottom?

'This book correctly emphasises the need to place the future of social rights in Europe front and centre in the post-Brexit debate, to move on from the economistic bias that has obscured our vision of a progressive social Europe.' Michael D Higgins, president of Ireland


MORE INFO

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Renewing labour relations in the German meat industry: an end to 'organised irresponsibility'?

Over the course of 2020, repeated outbreaks of Covid-19 in a number of large German meat-processing plants led to renewed public concern about the longstanding labour abuses in this industry. New legislation providing for enhanced inspection on health and safety, together with a ban on contract work and limitations on the use of temporary agency employees, holds out the prospect of a profound change in employment practices and labour relations in the meat industry. Changes in the law are not sufficient, on their own, to ensure decent working conditions, however. There is also a need to re-establish the previously high level of collective-bargaining coverage in the industry, underpinned by an industry-wide collective agreement extended by law to cover the entire sector.


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ETUI/ETUC (online) conference Towards a new socio-ecological contract 3-5 February 2021

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Industrial relations: developments 2015-2019

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FEPS Progressive Yearbook

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