Hungary in the focus of conspiracy theories

Hungary: Europe’s champion of conspiracy theories. These theories are gaining a lot of traction in enlightened, democratic societies. The phenomenon is finding many adherents in Europe, specifically Hungary, as political scientist Péter Krekó recently reported. He is an expert in this field and considered to be one of the most acknowledged political scientists in Europe. Moreover, he has been the director of the research institute Political Capital since 2011.

According to Deutsche Welle, Peter Kreko has been studying the phenomenon of conspiracy for years, but his researches’ intensity has been greater since the 2015 refugee crisis. Since then, conspiracy theories have become very influential in Hungarian politics, and politicians even established themselves as the main elements of government policy. That is clearly illustrated in the Hungarian opinion polling: 51% of residents are convinced that US investment billionaire George Soros has a plan to bring masses of refugees to Europe. His plan has been propagated in Hungary for years.

The political scientist added that this propaganda campaign in Hungary is still popular and a lot of people believe in “the Soros plan“. This theory has even found adherents among the country’s opposition parties. Another example is that Muslims have a secret plan to occupy Europe and slowly subject us to their culture.

According to the scientist, anti-semitism is also a problem in Hungary. We do not feel its impact in our everyday life, but it can appear anytime.

“There have been very few anti-Semitic attacks in the country. Still, I would like to point out one aspect of our polling: Anti-Muslim attitudes and the prevailing mood against Soros have given rise to an anti-Semitic wave in Hungary. We were indeed able to show a correlation between the two. That means that when a conspiracy theory spreads it also creates other, perhaps unintended hate narratives in its wake.” – said Péter Krekó.