Nationalism, necropolitics and sport intersection in Hungary: building fences, but expanding nationhood

Right-wing populist political expansion has become internationally visible in Hungary since 2010 due to some of the controversial political decisions of the Fidesz-led collation government that have appeared to have disregarded human rights and civil liberties. Despite its relatively recent upsurge, populist right-wing sentiments have a long history in Hungary, which is helpful to understand its current political centrality. A key aspect of right-wing populist approaches in Hungary has been to establish an illiberal democracy and to protect the sovereignty of the nation. Building an illiberal state has been through, in part, some of the mechanics that are associated with the concept of necropolitics. Within this context, the government have generated dominant political narratives around the concept of Hungarianhood, the Hungarian nation and ethnic nationalism. In doing so, they have deployed a range of strategies, some in the form of political narratives, to (re)establish criteria of what they imagine Hungarian citizenship to be within and outside the current geographic boards of the state. This study examines the arbitrary and often contradictory application of some of those political narratives with a specific focus on sport.