Social innovations in authoritarian polities: two contrasting cases in Hungary

Rising inequalities and deprivation have been important drivers for social innovation (SI). SIs’ success requires enabling institutional framework that facilitate collaborative agency for its design and implementation. However, authoritarian governance undermines such framework conditions. Authoritarian regimes feed on social polarisation, centralisation of power, strengthening of hegemonic governance modes, weakening transparency, accountability, and the rules of law. Hungary has become a prime example of democratic backsliding with socio-spatial disparities intensified by perverse public policies and clientelist patterns of relations. By presenting two SI cases from Hungary, this chapter illustrates different ways, in which ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ SI practitioners can interact with, and operate in, an authoritarian system. It discusses how agents’ different positions influence their SI strategies and practices and offers theoretical implications, as well as recommendations for SI practitioners and policy-makers.