In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Stefano Bottoni – author of the new Hungarian-language book A hatalom megszállottja. Orbán Viktor Magyarországa (Obsessed with Power. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary) – discusses how the current political system has been built up in Hungary and which theories might help us analyse this process; reflects on the Orbán regime’s sources of legitimacy and internal contradictions; and explores the changing relationship of the country to the European Union and to Putin’s Russia.

Stefano Bottoni is a modern and contemporary historian who acts as associate professor at SAGAS Department, the University of Florence.

A hatalom megszállottja. Orbán Viktor Magyarországa has been published by Magyar Hang.

In collaboration with Lucie Hunter