Education as a matter of security in Hungary : a case study of official statements by prime minister Viktor Orbán in 2017

Sammanfattning: This paper examines the securitization of education in Hungary during 2017 according to the statements of prime minister Viktor Orbán in official speeches published on the Hungarian government’s website. This quantiative examination combines the methods of discourse analysis, taking off from the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, partially extended with the comments of Marianne Winther Jørgensen and Louise Phillips, with the Copenhangen School’s dictum on securitization being performed through a speech act. It is argued that securitization can be used in examining the sudden changes in the Amendments to the Law on National Higher Education (education policy), a combination which is not a traditional proceeding in security research. The findings of the paper show on one hand Hungary’s shifting role within the European Union (EU) as a more, respectively less, independent member depending on the topic being discussed, and on the other that the principal referent objects in a security discourse is the Hungarian nation, with Central European University (CEU) as the particular target to the changes, essentially being accused to be part of an illegal network sponsored by George Soros with the aim to facilitate illegal migration (sic!), which from a securitization move perspective therefore legitimizes immediate action by the Hungarian government.