From the Wave of Human Rights to Illiberal Disablement: Changing Political Opportunities for the Disability Movement in Post-Socialist Hungary

This chapter analyses disability policy change and social movement history in Hungary from 1998 to 2022, with an aim to identify factors that shaped political opportunities. Data were collected through interviews with 15 experienced disability advocates, triangulated by policy documents, academic and grey literature, and media archives. Policy and social movement events are arranged into a movement timeline. This chapter found that the disability organisations’ access to policymaking improved significantly after the first disability rights act in 1998. However, despite a human rights framework and open government structures, movement campaigns in the 2000s did not lead to significant policy progress, primarily due to neoliberal politics. In the early 2010s, human rights-inspired policy progress was again offset by weakening democratic institutions, closing government structures, a shrinking advocacy space, the emptying-out of consultative platforms, and the fragmentation and frequent self-censorship of the disability movement. Movement actors said human rights-driven legal reforms and EU-funded flagship projects led to doubtful outcomes. By 2022, disability policymaking essentially stopped. This chapter closes by proposing three factors that shape disability rights in countries that go through de-democratisation.