The 2026 Hungarian parliamentary election marked a historic turning point in European politics, as the Péter Magyar-led Tisza Party secured a landslide victory and a two-thirds supermajority, ending Viktor Orbán’s 16-year tenure. Dan Kelemen will analyze the significant implications for the European Union, focusing on how this shift from illiberalism to a pro-European stance may unfreeze crucial EU funds and reshape the balance of power within the European Council. Hanna Folsz will delve into the domestic political landscape, examining the structural factors and rapid mobilization that allowed the Tisza Party to overcome a skewed electoral system and the long-standing dominance of Fidesz. Together, the speakers will evaluate whether this result represents a restoration of liberal democracy in Hungary or a complex transition within a deeply entrenched political and economic framework.

R. Daniel Kelemen is McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy. He is also Professor of Law (by courtesy) at Georgetown Law. Kelemen has published widely on the politics and law of the European Union, comparative politics and law, and comparative public policy. Prior to joining Georgetown University, Kelemen was Professor of Political Science and Law at Rutgers University. He also served as Chair of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for European Studies at Rutgers. Prior to Rutgers, Kelemen was Fellow in Politics at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. Kelemen is a Senior Associate (Non-Resident), in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Union Studies Association. Kelemen comments regularly on EU affairs for European and American media. He was educated at UC Berkeley (A.B. in Sociology) and Stanford (M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science).

Hanna Folsz is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on opposition parties in authoritarian dominant-party regimes, with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities they face in countering autocratization. More broadly, her work examines the causes and consequences of democratic backsliding, populism, media capture, and political favoritism — primarily in East-Central Europe and, secondarily, in Latin America. She uses a multi-method approach, including modern causal inference and text analysis techniques.

Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the American Political Science Association, among others. She is the co-founder and co-organizer of EEPGW, a monthly online graduate student workshop on East European politics, and a co-founder and regular contributor to The Hungarian Observer, the most widely read online newsletter on Hungarian politics and culture. At Stanford, she is an active member of  CDDRL's Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (PovGov).