In 1989, a young Viktor Orban received a scholarship from George Soros’s Open Society Foundation to study at the University of Oxford in England. Nearly three decades later, as Hungary’s prime minister, he would pass a legislation forcing Soros’s Central European University out of Budapest. That arc, from liberal firebrand to Europe’s most consequential authoritarian, is the story the 2026 Hungarian election puts to a verdict.For so long, Orban–who, incidentally studied English liberal political philosophy at Pembroke College focused on English liberal political philosophy–has been the face of illiberal democracy, a state that holds elections but systematically dismantles every institution designed to check whoever wins. Incidentally, he was the one to coin the phrase at a party summer retreat in July 2014.And, he has built lilliberal democracy with the help of a rewritten constitution, a packed constitutional court, an oligarchy of childhood friends, and a media landscape in which roughly four-fifths of national outlets had passed under the orbit of his party, Fidesz.Here are five books to understand Orban’s playbook, and the ‘illiberal democracy’ model of governance:Orban: Hungary’s Strongman — Paul Lendvai (2018) The book cover of Orban: Hungary’s Strongman by Paul Lendvai. (Generated using AI)This is Orban’s biography of record, penned by the Hungarian-born Austrian journalist, Paul Landvai, who had been watching Orban since he was a 26-year-old with long hair calling for free elections and the departure of Soviet troops at Heroes’ Square, Budapest’s grand ceremonial plaza, in 1989. He chronicles Orban’s pivot from Thatcherite liberal to nationalist strongman. It was in Vienna in 1999, Landvai writes, that Orban rewrote the fall of communism as a stitch-up between the old guard and liberal dissidents. This was followed by a “lightning-speed assault” on democratic institutions upon his return to power in 2010. From the opposition benches, Orban once told his supporters that “we only have to win once, but then properly.” Lendvai shows us how Orban went about achieving a proper win as he put it.Twilight of Democracy — Anne Applebaum (2020) Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum (Generated using AI)If you are wondering why anybody would support Orban and by extension authoritarianism, this is the book for you. Anne Applebaum, American journalist and historian, writes about the people she once called friends, intellectuals, journalists and conservative politicians across Poland and Hungary, who became Orbanists. It is part political analysis, part social portrait of the clever, aggrieved person who finds in strongman politics a solution to their own sense of exclusion. Her argument is that authoritarian movements do not require true believers so much as loyal opportunists, and that simple ideological frameworks are most seductive when they punish disloyalty.The Light That Failed — Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes (2019) The Light That Failed by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. (Generated using AI)This book analyses Orban and his brand of illiberalism through an intellectual framework. Krastev, a Bulgarian political scientist, and Holmes, an American legal scholar, argue that the illiberalism of Central and Eastern Europe is not a rejection of Western liberalism, but its distorted mirror image. These are the countries that were asked to imitate the West after the Cold War, which obviously did not go well with the citizens despite Soviet occupation. The provocation of the book is that this resentment, and the politics of wounded imitation, is what Orbán understood and weaponised before anyone else had a vocabulary for it. He is not the subject of the book so much as its proof of concept.Story continues below this adPost-Communist Mafia State — Balint Magyar (2016) The book cover of Post-Communist Mafia State by Balint Magyar. (Generated using AI)Magyar has been Hungary’s education minister twice under left-liberal governments, and he is also one of Orban’s most tenacious critics. He coined the term–’post-Communist Mafia State’–that stuck. His argument is that Fidesz is not a political party in any conventional sense, au contraire it is a criminal enterprise structured like the mafia, with loyalty, tribute and omertà as its operating logic. He should not be confused with Péter Magyar, the opposition leader running against Orban in today’s election. The shared surname is coincidence, though both have made dismantling what they call the “Orban system” their life’s work. Hungary’s position at the bottom of the European Union’s Transparency International corruption rankings is, as per this account, is not a failure of the system but its designed outcome.Also Read | Best books on Iran: 5 reads beyond Persepolis and Reading Lolita in TehranTainted Democracy — Zsuzsanna Szelényi (2022) Tainted Democracy by Zsuzsanna Szelenyi (Generated using AI)Szelanyi was a member of Fidesz from its founding days, when it was a scrappy liberal anti-communist youth movement, and served as one of its MPs from 1990 to 1994, before leaving as the party began its rightward turn. She spent 15 years working on democracy programmes at the Council of Europe, then returned to Hungarian political life in 2012 as a founder of a liberal opposition party. The arc of her career makes her the ideal guide to Orban’s. She watched the transformation from inside the machine, then from outside it, and then from a seat in parliament as his opponent. She describes the “21st century autocratic playbook” with great detail.