Marketing Radicalism

The Cultural Production of Far-Right Populism in Contemporary Hungary

Virág Molnár

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Print ISBN:
  9780691290386
  9780691290379
• Subtopic: 21st Century History
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691294209
• Index: Social Sciences

The commodification and marketing of nationalism in a populist-governed country

Most accounts of populist politics revolve around political parties, electoral politics, eroding democratic institutions, media, and political propaganda. In Marketing Radicalism, Virág Molnár examines instead populism as a cultural process—one that reshapes cultural identities and meanings of cultural citizenship. Looking at such domains as fashion, publishing, and tourism, Molnár shows how identity politics, culture wars, culture industries, consumer markets, and popular culture contribute to the rise of far-right populism. The marketing of nationalism creates powerful narratives that reimagine the nation as a populist fantasyland, and these narratives are used by far-right governments in their efforts to topple liberal norms.

Hungary under Viktor Orbán has provided an ideological blueprint for far-right populist politicians—and a cautionary tale for liberal democracies. Using Hungary’s commodification of nationalism as a case study, Molnár explores the ways that cultural producers relied on consumer markets to promote traditionalism through folk-revivalist fashion; weaponized the public shredding of a children’s book to disenfranchise LGBTQ+ communities; used tourism to neighboring Transylvania to envision a “Greater Hungary” that spilled over national borders; and packaged a mythic Orientalism in the form of horseback archery. Molnár’s account offers important lessons on the mainstreaming of right-wing popular culture, the importance of markets in circulating and amplifying far-right identity narratives, and the political mobilization of cultural traditions for geopolitical reorientation.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Table
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Books as Weapons of Culture Wars
• 3. Reviving Folk Traditions to Refashion the Nation
• 4. “Making Hungary Great Again”: Heritage Tourism and Symbolic Irredentism
• 5. Reinventing Nomadic Heritage: Anti-Westernism and Mythic Orientalism
• 6. Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Methodological Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index