Virág Molnár
Photo: Annette Hornischer

Associate Professor of Sociology, The New School for Social Research, New York

Axel Springer Fellow - Class of Spring 2017

Associate Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research Virág Molnár received her PhD in sociology from Princeton University and her BA in economics from the Budapest University of Economics. Molnár’s research explores the intersections of culture, politics, social change, and knowledge production in Europe, with a special focus on urban culture, the built environment, new communications technologies, and radical nationalism.

 

Molnár’s book Building the State Architecture, Politics, and State Formation in Postwar Central Europe (Routledge, 2013) received the 2014 Mary Douglas Prize from the American Sociological Association. Her work has also appeared in the American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and Urban Studies. She has been a visiting fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and at the Humboldt Universität in Berlin. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship, German Academic Exchange Service, and the American Council of Learned Societies, among others.

Project Description

Civil Society and the Return of Radical Nationalism in Postsocialist Hungary

In her Academy project, Molnár will explore the right-wing radicalization of Hungarian politics since the early 2000s, with the emergence of the Jobbik movement as the country’s third largest political force. In the resurgence of radical nationalism in Europe, Hungary is a critical case: the most liberal country of the former Eastern Bloc in the 1990s, today Hungary is the most right-wing populist regime in the European Union. What, Molnár asks, is the role of radical nationalist civil society organizations in the reconstitution of national identity in postsocialist Hungary? She argues that civic groups have been instrumental in reinvigorating the lexicon of radical nationalism that was widespread in the late nineteenth century and in the 1930s. Through ethnographic case studies of specific organizations—including media, heritage tourism, national rock bands, and foreign-currency mortgage debtor groups—Molnár shows how this seemingly anachronistic symbolic repertoire has found new resonance in Hungarian public life. Her work reveals that Hungarian civil society, once the center of attention for its potential to democratize Eastern Europe, can also be the site of mobilizing radical nationalism at the grassroots.

Academy Activities

01 Feb 17

Fellow Spotlight: Virág Molnár

Sociologist Virág Molnár explores the right-wing radicalization of Hungarian politics since the early 2000s, with the emergence of the Jobbik movement as the country’s third largest political force. In the resurgence of radical nationalism in Europe, Hungary is a critical case: the most liberal ...

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