Modalities of democratic transformation: forms of public discourse within Hungary’s largest newspaper, 1990-1997

This article is based on the premise that social systems are justified via the discursive use of modal statements (i.e. sentences in which actors delineate that which is possible, impossible, inevitable or contingent) and their associated rationales. Within authoritarian states such modal discourse usually reflects a relatively coherent ‘modality of permission’. However, when the citizens of such states unite to overthrow their totalitarian leaders, their activities are typically justified in terms of two mutually inconsistent discursive forms: a ‘modality of achievement’ (based on market justice among competitors) vs a ‘modality of necessity’ (based on social justice for the masses). These three discursive modalities have theoretical roots in Simmel’s forms of sociation, and can be differentiated using content analysis. In an analysis of editorials during Hungary’s first seven years of post-Soviet democratization, evidence is found of a steady increase during these years in mentions of Hungarians’ opportunities being based on economic circumstances as well as in mentions of their responsibilities being grounded in political circumstances. This latter finding suggests that as late as 1997, Hungarian political discourse was heading toward a modality of necessity, more like the predominant political modality in Western Europe than the achievement modality that characterizes political discourse in the US.