https://doi.org/10.14232/forvmaip.2025.2.201-217
Periods of crisis often bring about the simplification of complex social and political realities. In such moments of intensified uncertainty[1], political actors seek to transform diffuse discontent into focused antagonisms through emotionally charged narratives and symbolic oppositions. At the heart of this mechanism lies enemy-construction - the rhetorical and symbolic positioning of particular actors or groups as existential threats,[2] functioning as containers for generalized frustration and fear. Yet, enemy-construction in itself does not represent a pathology within political life. As Oppenheimer reminds us, "group identity is defined by contrast to other groups and is the result of systematic comparisons with and differentiation from other groups".[3] Similarly, according to Schlett, in order for a political community to establish its capacity for political agency, political thought must always address four dimensions: 1) the interpretation of the given political situation; 2) the definition of short- and long-term goals; 3) the formulation of a program to achieve them; and 4) the identification of those capable of carrying them out. The latter aspect inherently entails the question of self-definition, which, in turn, is closely intertwined with the function of enemy-making: "political activity is directed not only for something, but also against something." Hence, opponents must be recognized and
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named, their actions interpreted, their intentions and capabilities identified, their weaknesses discovered, and their arguments answered.[4] Political communities are sustained through such distinctions, as they require symbolic boundaries that separate the 'Us' from the 'Them'.[5] Mouffe further argues that antagonism is not an aberration but a constitutive feature of the political, a condition of pluralism rather than its negation.[6] Agonistic pluralism, in her view, recognizes that all identities are relational and that the affirmation of any identity entails the delineation of a boundary between 'Us' and 'Them' - yet this differentiation does not necessarily imply hostility, as it allows for confrontation among adversaries rather than enemies.[7] Such recognition of difference as legitimate opposition marks the threshold between democratic pluralism and its antagonistic distortion.
While political contestation has historically unfolded between pragmatic or ideological lines,[8] recent years have witnessed a notable shift toward identity-based polarization. This transformation alters not only the structure but also the affective and moral intensity of political conflict, as disagreement becomes inseparable from identity itself. As identity becomes moralized, compromise is increasingly framed as betrayal,[9] and pluralism is eroded through antagonistic representations of the political 'Other'. These dynamics are further intensified by the emergence of the digital public sphere, where personalized feeds and algorithmic visibility amplify emotionally resonant contents.[10] Within such fragmented digital environments, enemy narratives do not merely circulate but constitute the scaffolding of political discourse itself, consolidating in-group cohesion while hardening out-group rejection.[11] This paper examines how enemy construction operates as both a response to and a driver of political discontent in times of crisis. Focusing on the case of Hungary, it investigates how a rotating set of enemy figures - embedded within a discourse of permanent crisis[12] - has shaped political communication and contributed to an
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increasingly identity-polarized public sphere. The article then proceeds to outline the conceptual background of enemy construction and identity-based polarization, followed by an analysis of its digital amplification and examples from contemporary Hungary.
As we argued, on their own, neither political polarization nor political identity in themselves can be regarded as factors that would endanger the everyday functioning of modern democracies. On the contrary, they are essential for the regular reproduction of democratic life.[13] When then, does their convergence become problematic? In his work on political polarization Balogh suggests that the issue of identity becomes a source of conflict when programmatic polarization (based on political interests, the search for common ground and compromise) is replaced by identity-driven, emotional and moralizing polarization - that is, when the 'normal' form of political polarization gives way to its 'toxic', 'pathological' variant. In such cases, the aim of the participants is no longer to seek dialogue or compromise with the opposing side.[14] Instead, their discursive method increasingly resembles what Szabó calls the 'language of revelation', in which that the enmity between the affected parties is presented as an unquestionable fact, while the actors only communicate about the 'Other', not with the 'Other'.[15]
The rise of identity politics can be traced back to the transformation of traditional mass parties. While these parties originally sought to appeal to the social middle, aligning their political programmes with the representation of broad social interests, they gradually lost their distinct ideological profiles. This loss of clear worldview-based differentiation created space for new political formations that explicitly and deliberately claimed to represent the identity of specific social groups. Consequently, the ideological left-right divide that once structured political competition lost its dominant role, giving way to cleavages along ethnic, religious and cultural lines. In this process, socio-economic issues were either displaced or redefined through the lens of identity. In other words, a marked shift occurred from pragmatic, interest-based conflicts toward ideological and worldview-based antagonisms - a shift that necessarily transformed the behavioural patterns of political actors. Political action within conflict increasingly ceased to be instrumental and
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became expressive: a means of self-definition and identity assertion rather than practical interest-representation. As a result, the willingness to compromise diminished, and the intensity of conflicts deepened. Balogh warns however, that while programmatic polarization based on political interests is an essential precondition for the functioning of modern democracies and political communities, identity-based emotional polarization poses serious dangers - both to the integrity of the political community in the short term and to the quality of democracy in the long run.[16]
In this form, the articulation of identity no longer serves merely to distinguish one's political community from others but to separate and exclude them. This step represents the first stage of enemy-construction as a discursive practice, giving rise to identification discourses in which political actors and the communities they represent are defined through identity-differences and related antagonisms. These discourses are no longer concerned with winning particular debates but with (re)defining their very content. Such a polarized worldview thus divides society into antagonistic camps and activates the linguistic and symbolic mechanisms of political enemy-making. Through this discursive practice, negative associations become attached to the identity-based 'Other,' the 'Them' group, while positive traits are reserved for the self-constructed 'Us.' These negative associations then serve to justify the perception of the other group as threatening precisely because of its (negatively interpreted) difference.[17] The exaggeration of the other side's dangerousness however, serves not only as a discursive device but also as a tool of political mobilization, since - just as political thinking can be regarded as a structural element of political action[18] - enemy-construction itself always aims at action. This action is primarily the creation of a political community's capacity to act and the directed influence of others' political behaviour.[19] Through the unifying and dichotomous rhetoric of enemy-constructive narratives, identity-based divisions become internalized in society. Neutral or moderate positions gradually erode, and eventually disappear altogether from political discourse, along with the very possibility of dialogue and compromise between opposing sides. At this advanced stage of polarization political myths - identity- and legitimacy-generating narratives, endowed with symbolic meaning - assume a dominant role. Although such myths are essential for sustaining collective political agency, when combined with enemy-making strategies they become particularly effective in provoking strong emotions, stimulating targeted political action, and transforming previously integrative social symbols into exclusionary categories. Under normal circumstances, the political myths of different communities serve to counterbalance one another. However,
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when a single political community's mythic narratives achieve monopoly within a society - when polymythicism gives way to monomythicism[20] - the result is the consolidation and institutionalization of the 'toxic', emotion- and identity-based form of political polarization.
Among the further consequences of identity-based emotional polarization is the erosion of democratic norms themselves. Identity-based divisions behave like what Róna calls 'ideal' cleavages: deep cultural-ideological oppositions separating mutually exclusive communities whose organizational networks protect members from external influences,[21] including 'unnecessary' communication with the opposing group. Consequently, dialogue and permeability between camps disappear entirely. As Balogh notes, the logic of polarization rests on the absolutization of one's own values and their extension to every domain of life. The emotional logic of polarization thus expands beyond the political subsystem and begins to dominate other areas of society, extending loyalty to the political community as the single relevant criterion even in spheres such as culture, arts or academia. In this inverted moral order, suspicion falls upon anything that challenges or transcends partisan divisions. Notions such as neutrality, independence or expertise erode just like moderate political views, losing both normative and practical relevance. Democratic values such as tolerance, the willingness to compromise or to show self-restraint are redefined as signs of weakness, submission or even betrayal in favour of the enemy. Consequently, emotionally polarizing politics regards the separation of powers, the system of checks and balances and the independence of institutions merely as unnecessary obstacles[22] standing in the way of "the unfolding of the good side" - that is, of the desired concentration of power.[23] Hence emerges the central paradox of modern political enemy-construction: although it is a product of democratic competition (namely the plurality of political alternatives), it simultaneously erodes the quality of the very democracy that enables it.[24] While Mouffe's concept of agonistic pluralism presupposes a mutual recognition of legitimacy among political actors, thereby stabilizing the democratic community, this paradox also reveals that the practice of political enemy-construction often operates through what Szabó calls the process of narrative exclusion. The essential feature of this discursive technique lies precisely in the denial of the rival's legitimacy - typically justified by invoking their alleged harmfulness to the political community.[25] As Mouffe
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herself warns, when democratic confrontation recedes, the antagonistic dimension of the political re-emerges through collective identities (e.g. religious, nationalist or ethnic), turning them into new sites of division.[26] This inherent tension raises a crucial question: can democratic political communities sustain agonistic confrontation between competing groups without allowing it to deteriorate into antagonistic division? The subsequent dynamics of identity-based polarization suggest that such equilibrium proves increasingly fragile. At this stage of identity-based polarization, as this equilibrium collapses, the antagonism is no longer merely between opposing political actors but between entire identity-based communities, defined by a few selectively constructed and symbolically appropriated identity-elements. The appropriation of such identity-symbols functions similarly to the logic of monomythicism[27], namely that when one group claims the right to represent society as a whole and speaks in the name of the nation, it transforms originally integrative symbols into tools of exclusion and stigmatization.[28]
Another characteristic consequence of identity-based emotional polarization is that the opposing community's identity becomes an absolute enemy-image, as the antagonism becomes unconditional and therefore cannot be resolved through rational compromise. Since identity itself is non-negotiable, any concession would be equivalent to self-abandonment. Moreover, the values forming the basis of self-definition are not only absolute but also moralized. The opposing poles of the moral universe acquire opposite ethical charges: our values embody moral superiority, while those of the other side represent moral corruption. The unifying rhetoric of enemy-construction universalizes these categories, eliminating intermediate or neutral positions so that one either shares in moral virtue or aligns with moral decay. Within political discourse, such oppositions cease to be mere differences of opinion and become conflicting, universal truths that "can tolerate no other truths."[29] These moralized oppositions create competing structures of belief- and reality-constructions which (regardless of their empirical verifiability) define how members of a given community perceive the world, thereby directly shaping fragmented public spheres ('digital islands') and heightening the importance of emotional mobilization.[30] Such linguistically constructed truths assert themselves as collective claims, constructing
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"an enemy with whom one need not argue, for to them all moral integrity, even human quality, has been denied"[31]. Once the enemy is cast as morally corrupt, it is seen as unfit to participate in politics at all - reflecting the logic embodied in the process of narrative exclusion. Accordingly, there remains no basis for policy debate or pragmatic contestation, as any means appear legitimate against a morally disqualified foe.
Although certain elements of polarization are indeed rooted in the structural features of society (e.g. cleavage structures), it nevertheless appears primarily as the outcome of discursive practices and deliberate political action. In light of this, identity-based emotional polarization is better understood less as a structural condition than as a politically constructed phenomenon, shaped through speech acts and public discourse. Hence, while the escalation of conflicts has certain structural preconditions, the intensity, management and depth of division are largely determined by political actors - through rhetorical strategies of enemy-construction and the selective amplification or mitigation of conflicts. In this sense, polarization itself becomes an instrument of political agency, where it is a strategic choice over which conflicts to inflame and which to downplay, guided by the logic of political advantage and the pursuit of mobilization. Consequently, as Balogh stresses, the real "test of democracy" lies not in the mere presence of such actors but in the degree of success they achieve - that is, the extent of their room for maneuver and their actual potential for power they possess within a given political context. This dynamic, however, produces an additional paradox, namely that despite its heightened intensity, it ultimately breeds apathy as its conflicts, antagonisms and exclusionary discourses discourage citizens from participation. Disengagement here does not signify indifference but resignation, a withdrawal from public debate, from pragmatic conflict resolution and from civic involvement altogether, rendering public discourse obsolete and emptying democratic institutions of substance. The subsequent stage of this development occurs when polarization fuses with broader tendencies of personalization in politics, allowing it to be embodied in a single figure. In such cases, polarization finds expression in the interplay of extreme emotions (e.g. "fanatical devotion" and "blind hatred") especially when supported by the community's legitimizing and identity-generating myths. When such narratives elevate a political actor to the symbolic embodiment of the community, they transform that figure into both a focus of identification and an amplifier of emotional extremes, thus foreclosing the possibility of programmatic, interest-based politics altogether.[32]
In recent years, the study of emotions has gained increasing prominence within both the social sciences and political communication. It has become evident that emotions constitute not only a part of our private lives but also an integral dimension of political and social life. Researchers have linked this renewed attention to emotions to broader social
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and political transformations (such as the decline of globalist ideologies and the crisis of liberal-democratic institutions) which have reshaped the relationship between individuals and political actors.[33] Emotions, therefore, do not merely operate at the level of individual experience but also function as key mediators of citizens' psychological and affective relations to political institutions and actors. This growing recognition has been reflected in several disciplines, as - for example - media research explores how emotions influence modes of media consumption and audience commitment, while approaches within the humanities and cultural studies conceptualize emotions as carriers of values and meaning.[34] These studies highlight that the social dimensions of affective meaning-making are also embedded in political discourse, where emotions (whether expressed through irony, fear, hatred or empathy) serve to delineate group-identities and symbolic boundaries.[35]
Among political emotions, however, fear occupies a particularly prominent position, functioning as one of the most powerful affective forces within the processes of political communication. Its privileged status derives from its exceptional capacity to activate and mobilize political communities. As Robin emphasizes, this quality renders fear an especially effective instrument of power, as it enables control and mobilization not merely at the level of individual psychology but as a collective political tool.[36] In a similar vein, Edelman demonstrates how political language constructs a symbolic reality in which fear and reassurance alternate as instruments of control, crises and enemies therefore are not reflections of objective dangers but linguistic acts that sustain what he terms the spectacle ofpolitics.[37] Through such symbolic simplification, complex social realities are reduced to emotionally charged dichotomies, producing a reassuring sense of reality that channels attention and emotion while diverting it from political complexity.[38] In this respect, fear functions as a structuring principle of political discourse, a mechanism through which legitimacy is continuously reproduced.
The paradox of fear lies in the fact that its intensity is fundamentally independent of the actual degree of threat. This explains why fear often manifests most strongly precisely where danger itself is least apparent.[39] As Nussbaum observes, fear tends to outpace rea-
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son, distorting judgment and narrowing perception, and - rooted in a sense of powerlessness - it seeks control in ways that undermine the reciprocity and trust on which collective life depends.[40] It is precisely this dynamic of irrationality and control that allows fear to detach from immediate danger and be redirected toward constructed or symbolic threats, rendering it particularly susceptible to political instrumentalization. By exploiting the mobilizing potential of fear, politics can translate diffuse anxieties into collective affect and generate effective emotional responses even in the absence of substantial threat. In contemporary societies, such politically mediated fears have become so deeply embedded within our identities and socio-political environments that we now inhabit a sphere of existence defined by their mutual interactions. Within this landscape, the politics of fear centers on the social validation of whose fears are perceived as more authentic or legitimate than others'. Much like the discursive contestation over meaning or the framing of political discourse, societies engage in competing efforts to define the very objects of fear. In such a setting, what differentiates 'Us' from 'Others', then, is not whether we experience fear, but whom or what we fear - a condition in which mutual fear often serves as the primary basis of identity, each side defining itself through fear of the other.[41]
As previously noted, just like the process of self-definition, the evaluation and interpretation of the given political context is an inseparable structural element of political thought,[42] through which political actors continuously redefine their narrative roles and the situation they confront. Thus, the transformation of fear into a constitutive element of political agency naturally extends to the realm of crisis itself. What initially serves to mobilize collective emotions evolves into a means of sustaining tension. As Edelman notes, the notion of a crisis is never the recognition of an objective condition but rather a political act - a linguistic construction of instability that legitimizes deprivation and exceptional measures.[43] This logic corresponds with the tendency of political actors to deliberately maintain such states of fear and uncertainty[44] by framing given political situations as crises - a strategy that enables the creation of a low-intensity yet enduring state of emergency within which incumbents may expand their political agency.[45]
The interpretation of a political situation as a crisis is therefore, in most cases, contingent upon the meaning-making of the political leadership itself - a process to which public attention intensifies in moments of uncertainty, since society primarily expects its leaders to provide solutions to the unfolding situation. In this sense, leadership may be conceived as a complex narrative practice, within which the leader attributes meaning to political events and assigns narrative roles both to themselves and to their opponents.[46] In
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this construction, "the measure of reality is the audience's perception of reality," that is, the degree to which the leader's narrative corresponds to the citizens' experiences, their own sense of reality, the given political context, and the prevailing spirit of the times. Political reality, therefore, is determined by the dynamic interplay between leadership-narratives and civic experience.[47] It follows that the incumbent leader is not merely capable of responding to crises, but (depending on their abilities and scope of action) can also shape or even produce them, effectively turning indeterminacy into crisis and crisis into legitimacy. This process ultimately hinges upon the symbolic economy of security itself. As Edelman observed, security is perhaps the primal political symbol, given that by alternating between threat and reassurance, leaders secure loyalty and induce the willingness to follow, to sacrifice, and to accept their assigned roles.[48] The continuity of this affective oscillation (where anxiety is never fully dispelled and reassurance is never truly complete) constitutes the emotional foundation of political order, ensuring that fear remains not merely an instrument of control but a condition of belonging.
Consequently, within these constructions, the holders of power preserve the privilege of defining and redefining fear for themselves, while maintaining a delicate balance between the appearance of security and the perpetuation of uncertainty. This sustained management of fear and the prolonged maintenance of a latent state of emergency yield substantial political benefits, most notably the continuous reinforcement of the ruling elite's power and legitimacy through the delegitimization and discrediting of opposing narratives, actors or groups. In this sense, crisis and scapegoating emerge as the natural extensions of fear's political logic, as both depend on the same mechanism of emotional translation that converts diffuse social anxiety into personalized antagonism. Balogh, however, warns of the inherent danger that people today are more willing to relinquish their freedom than the illusion of their safety. What follows is that the societal response to fear-inducing and enemy-constructing discourses increasingly takes the form of demands for preventive state measures, thereby tying the legitimacy of power to the promise of security.[49] This dynamic paves the way for politics itself to assume the role of the principal instigator and maintainer of fear, turning fear into the primary motivational force of political action, and ultimately, into the very foundation of political agency. This is further reinforced by the interplay between collective fears and enemy-construction, which has the capacity to endow even distant or imaginary threats with the sense of immediacy and urgency, thus producing a reality-construction in which long-term dangers appear as direct and present ones.[50] The multiplicity of enemy-figures[51] creates an intricate web of overlapping threat-narratives, where even remote and uncertain dangers may be "brought
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closer," and get incorporated into competing constructions of reality as tangible sources of threat,[52] rendering fear experientially real, even when the threat itself is not factually grounded - thereby reaffirming that fear often manifests most strongly where it is least warranted. In the digital era, however, the antagonistic and narrative logics of political communication acquire new dynamics within the architecture of the online public sphere.
In the information-saturated environment of contemporary societies, attention has become a scarce and valuable resource, its worth deriving precisely from its limitation.[53] The abundance of information consumes users' cognitive and emotional capacity, while political communication must now compete not only with other political content but with the overwhelming flow of entertainment and everyday stimuli. In this fragmented informational environment, political actors seek to capture even a small fraction of the public's limited attention, directing it toward themselves, their parties or their preferred issues.[54] Yet, as previous sections have demonstrated, political attention-seeking is not merely a matter of visibility but of affective engagement. As Altheide and Snow argue, emotional involvement is the most effective and lasting means of capturing and maintaining attention.[55] As a result, political actors increasingly design their messages to elicit strong affective responses and to bind audiences emotionally to their side. Emotion thus becomes the constitutive logic of attention-based politics, a tendency rooted in human perception itself, namely that what provokes emotion captures attention.
It follows that political communication gravitates toward the kinds of narratives most capable of producing intense emotional reactions - above all, those invoking fear.[56] Fear functions as both an attention magnet and a mobilizing force, making it one of the most efficient techniques of political communication. If the goal of attention-based politics is not only to attract but to sustain attention, then fear, as the most enduring emotional stimulus, becomes central to this pursuit.[57] This is where attention-based politics transforms
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into fear-based politics, as the pursuit of attention becomes the pursuit of sustained anxiety, and the mechanisms of political enemy-construction emerge as its most effective tools. This emotional and narrative logic of fear-based discourse is particularly visible when combined with the logic of self-mediatization, one of the most prevalent phenomena of online political communication,[58] as political actors (acting like influencers) present their own interpretations of reality as given facts, especially when treating specific individuals or groups as inherently threatening. By transforming diffuse anxieties into concrete threats, political actors actively work to ensure that these constructed realities are internalized across broad segments of society.[59] The power of such narratives, as discussed earlies, lies precisely in their specificity that the intensity of fear they generate is not determined by the actual magnitude or plausibility of the threat,[60] reminding us again that the success of enemy-constructing political narratives cannot be measures by their factual accuracy but by their social and political effects.
Given that attention-based politics derives its dominance from the rise of social media platforms - the very infrastructures that now structure public communication - it follows that these platforms serve as the primary arenas for the dissemination of attention-maximizing and fear-inducing enemy-narratives.[61] Due to the architecture of the digital public sphere, these narratives circulate with unprecedented speed and efficiency, reinforcing identity-based polarization and giving rise to what Böcskei describes as 'digitally homophilic islands' - isolated communicative spaces characterized by high degrees of opinion homogeneity and closed feedback loops. These spaces primarily function to reaffirm existing perceptions, especially those related to the perceived danger posed by out-groups. As Böcskei cautions, the existence of competing interpretations of facts and realities persists (and indeed, intensifies) in digital environments, as platforms' technical affordances amplify divergent narratives and fact-perceptions.[62] Consistent with this view, Couldry and Hepp argue that digital platforms constitute the very sites of social fragmentation, where political actors tailor their narratives to remain within the affective and cognitive boundaries of their audience's existing filter bubbles.[63] This fragmentation deepens polarization and redefines how political attention is captured and distributed. The coexistence of competing reality-constructions further complicates the emotional and communicative logic of attention-maximizing politics, while simultaneously eroding the possibility of social consensus. Böcskei and Német observe that the relativization of objective reality affects not only political debate but the cohesion of political communities them-
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selves, pointing out that as political narratives drift further apart, they generate self-contained, mutually incompatible worldviews.[64] This dynamic strengthens internal group-identity while simultaneously destabilizing broader social structures.
These dynamics do not merely reshape the internal cohesion of political communities but redefine the very conditions under which political communication unfolds. in the digital public sphere, interaction, speed, and algorithmic visibility fundamentally transform how attention, emotion and antagonism operate.[65] The interactivity of the digital sphere draws in new audiences, including individuals who might otherwise have remained detached from political content in traditional arenas of public discourse.[66] At the same time, the anonymity afforded by online communication intensifies radicalized discussions, deepening divisions and amplifying social polarization.[67] These tendencies reveal that political communication is increasingly subordinated to the logic of the digital public sphere - a logic defined by the perpetual struggle for attention and characterized by the prominence of emotional manipulation and fear-based strategies.[68]
Taken together, the structural characteristics of the digital public sphere and the polarization-enhancing effects of algorithmic mediation have reshaped the logic of political enemy construction, further intensifying social tensions.[69] Fear and enemy construction have become integral components of attention-based politics, which leverages the specific affordances of social media to exploit new possibilities of emotional manipulation. Political actors must therefore adapt to the communicative logic of digital environments, which determines (1) the length of political messages, as algorithms favor shorter, more attention-grabbing content; (2) their tone, since emotionally charged and conflict-oriented
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narratives spread most rapidly; and (3) their content, as simplified and often visually enhanced messages prove most effective.[70] This adaptation underscores that political communication - and, consequently, the narratives of political enemy construction - are increasingly governed by the logic of the digital public sphere, whose organizing principle is the relentless competition for attention.
This mechanism of permanent crisis acquires a deeper institutional dimension when interpreted through the analytical framework developed by Körösényi, Illés and Gyulai. In their account, the Orbán regime is sustained not by exceptional moments of disruption but by the routinization of emergency as a mode of rule. What appears as a sequence of disparate crises - economic, constitutional, migratory or geopolitical - constitutes, in fact, the temporal structure of the plebiscitary leader democracy. Crisis becomes both the medium and the message of political communication, as it furnishes the legitimacy of decisionism while providing the narrative coordinates that hold the community together.[71] In this interpretation, the invocation of crisis is not a response to external contingency but a deliberate strategy of governance. The leader's authority depends on the continuous dramatization of threat, a process that transforms uncertainty into political clarity. As the authors note, the regime's stability is grounded in instability itself - the oscillation between danger and deliverance functions as a symbolic plebiscite, repeatedly reaffirming the unity between leader and people.[72] The crisis is therefore not a pathology of politics but its organizing principle. Each episode - from the financial negotiations of 2010 to the constitutional re-founding, the migration emergency, and the sanction conflicts of the 2020s - re-activates the same communicative grammar: the leader's capacity to act decisively in a hostile world, to embody the national will against encroaching external forces.
Within this pattern, crisis performs a dual function. It legitimizes power vertically, through the promise of protection, and mobilizes society horizontally, through the affective intensities of fear and pride. The language of permanent crisis converts the everyday into the extraordinary, as it maintains the moral polarization between the "defenders" and the "agents of chaos." In the authors' terms, the leader's dominance is plebiscitary not merely because it seeks popular acclamation but because it depends on an unending communicative confirmation of unity through opposition.[73] The regime, in this sense, cannot afford normality, as the suspension of crisis would dissolve the very dramaturgy that sustains the perception of necessity. From 2010 onwards, the succession of crises has thus provided the temporal rhythm of governance. The early economic conflicts, framed as
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struggles for national sovereignty, gave way to the constitutional transformation and the confrontation with "Brussels." The migration crisis supplied a more visceral moral drama, turning cultural and religious identity into instruments of political cohesion.[74] The pandemic and the war in Ukraine subsequently extended this dynamic, enabling the leadership to absorb global uncertainty into a domestic narrative of control and exceptionality.[75] Körösényi et. al. emphasize that these successive crises do not replace one another, rather they accumulate into a repertoire of legitimacy, each new emergency recalling and amplifying the affective residues of the previous one.[76] Through repetition, crisis becomes normalized, its communicative energy institutionalized.
Seen through this lens, the Hungarian political system operates as a regime of managed contingency. Crisis is no longer the interruption of order but its simulation, as it constitutes the symbolic infrastructure through which governance communicates its necessity. The permanent anticipation of danger justifies the concentration of power while maintaining an image of responsiveness and vitality. In this regard, the "enemy" is indispensable, since the image of the enemy is not a contingent opponent but the narrative device that converts structural contradictions into moral clarity. The continuous production of antagonism ensures that the leader remains the exclusive mediator between chaos and community, embodying the promise of protection that he himself evokes. This interpretation resonates with the broader argument developed here, namely that the construction of political enemies and the maintenance of permanent crises are not parallel phenomena but mutually reinforcing dimensions of a single communicative logic. The crises enumerated by Körösényi et. al. delineate the same chronology that underlies the digital dramaturgy of contemporary Hungarian politics. The perpetual renewal of threat - existential, economic or cultural - constitutes the emotional architecture of plebiscitary legitimacy.[77] It is within this architecture that the politics of fear, attention and identity converge, as the crisis supplies the narrative form, the enemy provides its emotional content, and digital amplification guarantees their endless circulation.
The dynamics explored in this study reveal a political environment in which the language of crisis has ceased to be episodic and has become constitutive. Fear, as an organizing effect, and antagonism, as its narrative form, define the conditions under which politics is now experienced and communicated.[78] What appears as the instability of the public
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sphere is, in fact, the mechanism through which legitimacy and collective identity are produced and maintained. The Hungarian case shows that the repetition of crisis - its normalization as both discourse and emotion - creates a communicative order in which the continuity of the regime depends on the permanence of threat.[79] In this sense, the study has not examined crisis as a moment but as a structure, a framework that transforms contingency into necessity. The interplay of emotional intensity and digital circulation establishes a new logic of visibility in which political belonging requires constant affective mobilization.[80] As Böcskei observed, polarization and moralization function not as by-products of populism but as its sustaining forces.[81] The digital public sphere, governed by algorithms that reward outrage and simplicity, amplifies this process by merging the production of emotion with the reproduction of identity.
As shown throughout the article, the regime's communicative success lies in its capacity to transform uncertainty into moral clarity. Each newly constructed enemy, each successive emergency reproduces the same affective grammar of danger and defense. Through this repetition, crisis becomes the medium of belonging, while fear becomes the means through which cohesion is maintained. Visibility and emotional resonance replace deliberation and persuasion as the principal currencies of legitimacy.[82] The leader's authority rests not on institutional depth but on communicative centrality - the ability to personify order within permanent disorder. The argument developed here therefore points beyond a single national context. It indicates a broader transformation in the ontology of the political, from programmatic competition to identity-based polarization, from persuasion to affective affirmation. When fear and antagonism provide the grammar of collective identity, and crisis supplies its temporal rhythm, politics becomes an ongoing confirmation of belonging through emotion. The permanence of crisis is thus not the symptom of instability but the structure of a new stability - a form of politics sustained by the continuous production of fear and the digital reproduction of attention.
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Periods of crisis and instability often provide fertile ground for enemy construction, as political actors translate diffuse social discontent into personalized and emotionally charged narratives. While traditionally political polarization could be structured along programmatic or ideological lines, in recent years enemy-making has increasingly shifted polarization toward identity-based divisions. This process simplifies complex structural problems by offering symbolic adversaries as readily available explanations, hence transforming dissatisfaction into antagonism. The digital public sphere further amplifies these dynamics. The architecture of social networks encourages selective exposure, reinforcing 'echo chambers' and 'filter bubbles' where enemy narratives circulate with limited contestation. In such contexts, enemy images are not merely rhetorical devices but central organizing principles of political communication, capable of mobilizing broad segments of society while deepening social fragmentation. The analysis explores how the interplay between crisis discourses, enemy construction, and the digital public sphere reshapes both the form and intensity of political discontent. The paper draws on recent examples with particular attention to Hungary, where crisis-oriented government communication has consistently linked social grievances to constructed adversaries - ranging from external groups and supranational institutions to domestic opponents - and has successfully embedded these narratives into digital ecosystems. By analyzing enemy-construction as both a response to and a driver of social discontent, this paper contributes to understanding how dissatisfaction in times of crisis can be harnessed to entrench polarization rather than to open avenues for constructive political change. ■
NOTES
* The research was supported by the Digital Society Competence Centre of the Humanities and Social Sciences Cluster of the Centre of Excellence for Interdisciplinary Research, Development and Innovation of the University of Szeged. The author is a member of the Legal, Political Aspects of the Digital Public Sphere research group.
[1] Körösényi Andás - Illés Gábor - Metz Rudolf: Contingency and Political Action: The Role of Leadership in Endogenously Created Crises. Politics and Governance 2016/4(2). 91-103. pp.
[2] Schmitt, Carl: The Concept of the Political. Expanded Edition. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 2007.
[3] Oppenheimer, Louis: The Development of Enemy Images: A Theoretical Contribution. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 2006/12(3). 271. p.
[4] Schlett István: A politikai gondolkodás története Magyarországon - Appendix. Századvég Kiadó. Budapest, 2018. 41-49. pp.
[5] Edelman, Murray: Constructing the Political Spectacle. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1988. 7780. pp. Schmitt, 2007. 26. p.
[6] Mouffe, Chantal: The Democratic Paradox. Verso. London, 2000.
[7] Mouffe, Chantal: On the Political. Routledge. London - New York, 2005.
[8] Körösényi András: Politikai polarizáció Magyarországon. Politikatudományi Szemle 1993/3. 95. p.
[9] Balogh László Levente: A politikai polarizáltság hasznáról és káráról. Pannonhalmi Szemle 2022/XXX(3). 61-71. pp.
[10] Szabó Gabriella: Emotional Communication and Participation in Politics. Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics 2020/6(2). 5-21. pp. Merkovity Norbert: Introduction to attention-based politics. Przegląd Politologiczny 2017/4. 47-59. pp. Szabó Palócz Orsolya: Narratives of Political Enemy-Construction Within the Digital Public Sphere. In: ÉVKÖNYV. Újvidéki Egyetem Magyar Tannyelvű Tanítóképző Kar. 2023. 138-149. pp.
[11] Balogh, 2022a. 68-69. pp. Böcskei, Balázs: "Post-truth politics " as the normal state of politics. Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry 2017/15(3-4). 257-260. pp.
[12] Molnár Ivett: Válságértelmezés és ellenségképzés a politikai vezetői narratívában. Politikatudomány Online 2020/1. 39-67. pp. Körösényi András - Illés Gábor - Gyulai Attila: The Orbán Regime: Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making. Oxon, Abingdon; Routledge, New York, 2020. 19-45. pp.
[13] The very term party originates from the Latin expression pars pro toto - "a part standing for the whole." Etymologically and conceptually, this derivation encapsulates the representative function of political parties: the pars, a particular segment of society, acts on behalf of and symbolizes the totum, the broader political community. Historically, this notion reflects the paradoxical nature of party organization within representative democracy. While parties are formed to articulate and advance the interests of specific social groups, once in power they operate within an institutional framework that obliges them to govern for and in the name of society as a whole. In this sense, the part that once signified particularity assumes the role of the universal, translating partial interests into claims of general legitimacy.
[14] Balogh, 2022a. 64-67. pp
[15] Szabó Márton: Diszkurzív politikatudomány. Bevezetés a politika interpretív szemléletébe és kutatásába. Osiris Kiadó. Budapest, 2016. 318-319. pp.
[16] Balogh, 2022a. 62-65. pp.
[17] Edelman, 1988. 66-89. pp. Schmitt, Carl 1998: A háború és az ellenség fogalmak értelmezése. In: Szabó Márton (ed.): Az ellenség neve. Jószöveg Műhely Kiadó. Budapest, 1998. 24-35. pp. Szabó, 2016. 313-315. pp.
[18] Schlett, 2018. 39. p.
[19] The enduring appeal of political enemy-construction among political actors lies precisely in its action-oriented character, which helps to explain the growing prominence of these techniques in contemporary politics. While their use may raise moral concerns, their effectiveness in terms of political utility (e.g. mobilization, voter maximization, activation of supporters) is difficult to dispute. It is therefore no coincidence that Márton Szabó anticipates that the practices and techniques of political enemy-construction are likely to remain a defining feature of political processes indefinitely, since their application yields tangible benefits for those who employ them. See Szabó, 2016.
[20] Balogh László Levente: A politikai mítoszok diszkurzív jellegéről. In: Horváth Szilvia - Gyulai Attila (eds.): Dialógus, vita, diskurzus. Tanulmányok Szabó Márton diszkurzív politikatudományáról. MTA TK PTI - L'Harmattan Kiadó. Budapest, 2019. 105-116. pp.
[21] Róna Dániel: A törésvonal fogalma a politikatudományban: Magyarország. Politikatudományi Szemle 2006/17(4). 131. p.
[22] For a detailed analysis of the causes behind the decline in public trust in democratic institutions, see Foa, Roberto Stefan - Mounk, Yascha: The Danger of Deconsolidation: The Democratic Disconnect. Journal of Democracy 2016/27(3). 5-17. pp.
[23] Balogh, 2022a. 65-67. pp.
[24] This observation resonates with Larry Diamond's formulation of the three paradoxes of democracy: (1) democracy simultaneously requires both conflict and consensus - yet excessive conflict leads to instability; (2) it seeks to prevent the concentration of power, yet stable governance depends on the existence of an effective governing majority; and (3) while broad consensus enhances democratic performance, there are situations in which rapid, non-consensual decision-making proves to be more efficient. See Diamond, Larry: Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, 1999.
[25] Szabó, 2016. 308-311. pp.
[26] Mouffe, 2000. 114. p.
[27] Balogh, 2019. 108-115. pp.
[28] A telling example of this phenomenon can be observed in the polarization of the Polish political sphere, where the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) has consistently employed discursive strategies that position its own community as the sole legitimate representative of the nation. Central to the PiS-narrative is its claim to embody 'true' Polishness, asserting an exclusive right to represent the nation's traditional values and its religious and conservative identity. Within this narrative, symbols once serving national integration (such as 'the Polish family' or 'national sovereignty') acquire exclusionary connotations, implicitly suggesting that political forces representing alternative, liberal or pro-European value systems fall outside the boundaries of national legitimacy. Such rhetorical appropriation typifies an advanced stage of identity-based polarization, in which one group comes to regard itself as the only authentic articulator of the national interest. As a result, integrative national symbols become instruments of exclusion and delegitimization, further deepening the divides of identity-based political polarization.
[29] Balogh, 2022a. 67. p.
[30] Böcskei, 2017. 259-260. pp. Böcskei Balázs: "Tények utániság" mint a politika normális állapota. In: Horváth Szilvia - Gyulai Attila (eds.): Dialógus, vita, diskurzus. Tanulmányok Szabó Márton diszkurzív politikatudományáról. MTA TK PTI - L'Harmattan Kiadó. Budapest, 2019. 37-47. pp.
[31] Balogh, 2022a. 67. p.
[32] Balogh, 2022a. 70. p.
[33] Böcskei, Balázs - Német Szilvi: Toxikus technokultúrák és digitális politika: Érzelmek, mémek, adatpolitika és figyelem az interneten. Napvilág Kiadó - MTA TK PTI. Budapest, 2019. 85.p.
[34] Nussbaum, Martha C.: Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 2001. Ahmed, Sara: The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh, 2004. Nussbaum, Martha C.: The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis. Simon & Schuster. New York, 2018.
[35] Nikunen, Kaarina: Media Solidarities: Emotions, Power and Justice in the Digital Age. Sage. London, 2019.
[36] Robin, Corey: Fear. The History of a Political Idea. Oxford University Press. Oxford, 2004. 15-17. pp.
[37] Edelman, 1988. 104-106. pp.
[38] This kind of symbolic simplification is also characteristic of modern political myths, which divide the world along binary codes of good and evil, pure and impure, command and prohibition. While classical myths often contained mediating or reconciliatory mechanisms, modern political myths tend to dramatize these dichotomies and transform them into perpetual conflicts structured by the logic of emotion. See Balogh, 2019. 111. p. Cf. Szabó Márton: Mitologika. A politikai tudás mitikus alapjai. In: Szabó Márton: Diszkurzív térben. Tanulmányok a politika nyelvéről és a politikai tudásról. Scientia Humana. Budapest, 1998. 251-252. pp.
[39] Balogh László Levente: A félelem építményei. In: Balogh László Levente - Fazekas Sándor - Valastyán Tamás (eds.): A félelem reprezentációi. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó. Debrecen, 2021. 109-153. pp.
[40] Nussbaum, 2018. 6-10. pp.
[41] Balogh, 2021. 111-116. pp.
[42] Schlett, 2018 . 44-46. pp.
[43] Edelman, 1988. 31. p. Edelman, Murray: Political Language: Words That Succeed and Policies That Fail. Academic Press. New York. 1977.
[44] Altheide, David L.: Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis. Aldine de Gruyter. New York, 2002. Wodak, Ruth: The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. Sage. London, 2015.
[45] Körösényi et. al., 2016. 5-6. pp.
[46] Gardner, Howard: Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. Basic Books. New York, 2011. Metz Rudolf: A kis-nagy ember: G. W. Bush és a 9/11-es terrortámadás. In: Körösényi András (ed.): Viharban kormányozni. Politikai vezetők válsághelyzetekben. MTA TK PTI. Budapest, 2017. 218-239. pp. Molnár, 2020. 6-11. pp.
[47] Metz, 2017. 241. p.
[48] Edelman, 1988: 4-5. pp.
[49] Balogh, 2021. 127 p. Balogh László Levente: Megjegyzések a válság elméletéhez. In: Barcsi Tamás -Diósi Szabolcs (eds.): A válság elméleti vonatkozásai: Tanulmánykötet. Pécsi Tudományegyetem Állam- és Jogtudományi Kar. Pécs, 2022b. 10-18. pp.
[50] Balogh, 2021. 126. p.
[51] Szabó, 2016; Molnár, 2020
[52] Böcskei, 2017; Böcskei, 2019
[53] Herbert, Simon: Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World. Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest. Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, 1971. 37-72. pp. Merkovity Norbert: A figyelemalapú politika a közösségi média korában. Médiatudományi Intézet. Budapest, 2018. 54-58. pp.
[54] Merkovity Norbert: A figyelemalapú politika és Donald Trump. Médiakutató: Médiaelméleti Folyóirat 2016a/3-4. 7-16. pp. Merkovity 2018, 58-63. pp.
[55] Altheide, David L. - Snow, Robert P.: Media Logic. Sage. Beverly Hills, 1979.
[56] Altheide, David L. - Merkovity Norbert: Hogyan segíti a félelem- és figyelemalapú politika Donald Trumpot és más jobboldali autokratákat? Médiakutató: Médiaelméleti Folyóirat 2021/1. 11-20. pp. Altheide, David L. - Merkovity Norbert: Politics of Fear and Attention-Based Politics Promote Donald Trump and Other Right-Wing Autocrats. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios sobre Cuerpos, Emociones y Sociedad (40)2022. 83-96. pp.
[57] Altheide, David L. : Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis. Routledge. New York, 2002. Altheide, David L.: The Media Syndrome. Routledge. New York, 2016. Altheide-Merkovity, 2022. 8396. pp.
[58] Merkovity Norbert: Az önmediatizáció jelensége az online politikai kommunikációban. Politikatudományi Szemle 2016b/25(2). 111-132. pp.
[59] Altheide 2002; Furedi, Frank: Politics of Fear: Beyond Left and Right. Continuum, London, 2005. Furedi, Frank: Culture of Fear Revisited. Continuum. London, 2006.
[60] Nussbaum, 2018. 10-12. pp.; Balogh, 2021. 116. p.
[61] Merkovity 2018, 101-110. pp.; Balogh, 2022a. 67-69. pp.
[62] Böcskei 2019, 41-43. pp.
[63] Couldry, Nick - Hepp, Andreas: The Mediated Construction of Reality. Polity Press. Cambridge, 2017.
[64] A good illustration of the competition between political interpretations of reality is the 'Soros Plan' constructed by pro-government communication in Hungary, which was continuously reloaded with ever-changing elements only loosely connected to reality. Its purpose was not only to sustain the governmental narrative, but also to capture the attention even of oppositional and critical publics through this discourse. In a similar way, in Trump's case, the media resonance of absurd or provocative claims made it possible for his political communication to spread widely and to exert a polarizing effect, further reinforcing division in both cases. Böcskei-Német, 2019. 83-84. pp.
[65] Bene Márton: Virális politika. Politikai kommunikáció a Facebookon. L'Harmattan Kiadó. Budapest, 2020. 112-137. pp. Merkovity 2018, 99-106. pp.; Szabó Palócz, 2023. 143-146. pp.
[66] Hepp, Andreas: Cultures of Mediatization. Polity Press. Cambridge, 2012. Merkovity Norbert: Introduction to attention-based politics. Przegląd Politologiczny 2017/4. 47-59. pp.
[67] Sunstein, Cass R.: Republic.com. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey, 2001.Balogh, 2022a. 68. p.
[68] Donald Trump's campaigns exemplify the role of enemy-constructing narratives within attention-based politics. His short, provocative statements - especially those targeting immigrants and political opponents -created a communicative environment in which even traditional media could not avoid his messages. Trump effectively exploited the speed and interactivity of the digital sphere, maximizing the affordances of online platforms to maintain visibility and dominance. Merkovity, 2016a; Altheide-Merkovity, 2022. Enli, Gunn: Twitter as arena for the authentic outsider: exploring the social media campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. European Journal of Communication, 2017/32(1). 50-61. pp. Ott, Brian L.: The age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the politics of debasement. Critical Studies in Media Communication 2017/34(1); 59-68. pp.
[69] Böcskei, Balázs: "Post-truthpolitics" as the normal state of politics. Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry 2017/15(3-4). 257-260. pp. Balogh, 2022b. 69-70. pp.
[70] Merkovity 2018, 85-90. pp; Szabó Palócz, 2023. 144. p.
[71] Körösényi András - Illés Gábor - Gyulai Attila: Az Orbán-rezsim. A plebiszciter vezérdemokrácia elmélete és gyakorlata. Osiris Kiadó - TK PTI. Budapest, 2020a. 47-48; 53-54. pp.
[72] Körösényi et. al. 2020a: 56-59. pp.
[73] Körösényi et. al. 2020a: 61-65. pp.
[74] Metz, 2017. 341. p.
[75] Szabó Palócz Orsolya: Political Enemy-Construction through the 2020 COVID-19 crisis-narrative and the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian conflict narrative. FORVM Publicationes Doctorandorum Juridicorum XII. 2022. 111-126. pp.
[76] Körösényi et. al. 2020a: 72-91. pp.
[77] Körösényi András - Illés Gábor - Gyulai Attila: The Orbán Regime: Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making. Oxon, Abingdon; Routledge, New York, 2020b.
[78] Balogh, 2022b. 70. p.
[79] Körösényi et. al. 2020b.
[80] Bene, 2020. 205-217. pp.
[81] Böcskei, Balázs: Governing Populism - The Discursive Populism of Fidesz. In. Frank Decker - Bernd Henningsen - Marcel Lewandowsky - Philipp Adorf (eds.): Aufstand der Außenseiter: Die Herausforderung der europäischen Politik durch den neuen Populismus. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Baden-Baden, 2022. 385-399. pp.
[82] Merkovity, 2018; Altheide-Merkovity, 2021.
Lábjegyzetek:
[1] A szerző tanársegéd, SZTE Állam- és Jogtudományi Kar, Politológiai Tanszék; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7995-3864.
Visszaugrás
