We are pleased to share that Felipe G. Santos, a Research Fellow at the TakePart Project, has published a new peer-reviewed article in Democratization, co-authored with Bálint Mikola. The paper, titled “Opposition electoral strategies against democratic backsliding: the United for Hungary coalition and its 2022 primaries,” offers new insights into how democratic erosion reshapes opposition politics and voter attitudes.

The study focuses on Hungary’s United for Hungary coalition, formed as a response to the country’s ongoing democratic backsliding and the last general elections, which took place on 3 April 2022. Mikola and Santos argue that authoritarian consolidation pushes opposition parties to recalibrate their strategies. Specifically, opposition parties tend to de-emphasize ideological divisions and instead adopt a unified pro-democracy frame as the central focus of their campaigns. This strategic shift aims to present elections less as contests between left and right, and more as referenda on authoritarianism itself.

Additionally, the paper shows that in contexts of democratic erosion, opposition parties increasingly adopt social movement-like characteristics. These include grassroots mobilization tactics, alliances with civil society actors, and participatory processes such as open primaries. In the Hungarian case, primaries were not only a mechanism for candidate selection but also a tool for public engagement and coalition-building.

Importantly, these dynamics are not confined to party organizations alone. Mikola and Santos demonstrate that voters themselves mirror these shifts, with supporters of opposition parties showing signs of prioritizing democratic restoration over partisan or ideological concerns, and being more likely to engage in non-electoral activities.

By analyzing the Hungarian case, the study contributes to broader debates on democratic resilience and the adaptive strategies of political opposition under conditions of democratic backsliding.

The full article is available open access via Democratization: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2025.2522194