The global financial crisis gave a new impetus to the retraction of social protection systems and the dismantling of public education (Lawn 2013; Jones and Traianou 2019). European governments typically responded to the financial crisis by introducing austerity regimes in public services and by increasingly transferring the delivery of services to a competitive market of non-state providers (Youdell and McGimpsey 2015; Jones and Traianou 2019). This resulted in a shift towards a state dominated public education system to a system governed by a patchwork of providers (Ball 2012).

A characteristically different mode of governing public services has developed in the wake of the financial crisis and the political victory of right-wing populism in Hungary. This political project, discursively framed as an exemplar of the ‘old-style Christian democracy’, is substantiated on the ‘strategic partnership of the church and the state’ - as key public officials have publicly claimed. In exchange for providing ideological resources, political support and legitimacy to the nationalist populist government, historical, ‘recognized’ churches have been administering a growing share of publicly financed services in welfare and education services (Ádám and Bozóki 2016). Hence, instead of opening up towards market providers or the civil society, legislative and budgetary changes offered favourable conditions for recognized churches and faith-based organizations (FBOs) to take over public services.

The literature on the varieties of European populisms documented that especially since the millennium, right-wing nativist and populist political forces tend to sacralise politics and forge identity politics centring on restoring and defending the Christian tradition and values of Europe (Brubaker, 2017). However, Habermas (2008, 2010) noted a broader, more comprehensive post-secular turn in late modern societies which entails the increasing visibility and influence of religious worldviews on the public sphere and the blurring boundaries between sacred and secular spheres of society as well as religion and politics (McLennan 2010). It could be argued that the identity politics of the ‘covertly religious populist movements’ of Europe (Zúquete 2013) are one consequence of the broader post-secular turn. With the retrenchment of the welfare state, faith-based organizations have become increasingly involved in hybrid church-state joint projects across Europe and not only in states governed by right-wing populist and conservative governments (Cloke and Williams, 2020). Thus, the Hungarian case should be approached in its complexity: it is equally illuminating in terms of how populist governments co-opt religion and utilise religious narratives to enact exclusive policies, and in the ways in which welfare provision is being outsourced by inviting FBOs to deliver services in the spirit of the Christian teaching about inclusion, solidarity and social justice.   

These transformations have resulted in the blurring boundaries between secular and religious spaces in Hungarian education. With the growing number of church-run schools, church-run education networks have become increasingly centralised, have started to develop their own education policies and institutionalized and standardised their approach to teaching and learning. Based on interviews with key policy-makers at the churches, my presentation will focus on two central themes that drive these changes within the church-sector. On the one hand, I will examine how key policy makers narrate the relationship between the church and the state in education, the rationale behind and the strategy driving the expansion of their respective education systems. On the other hand, I will focus on how they conceptualize what differentiates Christian schools from their secular counterparts. This question is especially pressing as the expansion of the church school networks resulted in many newly converted schools where most teachers, families and the students are not practicing religion actively.  

The presentation is part of my postdoctoral study exploring the transformation of the Hungarian education system in the wake of the increasing involvement of the Christian churches in education provision. I am currently conducting fieldwork and have so far conducted 23 semi-structures interviews with education-policy makers at various churches (Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, Baptist, etc.) and the state educational administration at the national and regional level. The presentation will be based on the analysis of these interviews.

In the national context where the number of believers and practicing church-goers has been steadily decreasing for a long time, the opportunity to take over public services provide a new source of legitimacy and responsibility for the churches. As the churches have increasingly taken up roles in running educational and social institutions, religious identity and faith-based conviction have become a secondary issue for those attending church-run schools or for the clients of welfare services, and instead, the number of clients has become the main source for legitimacy for the public role and status of the churches. These transformations significantly shifted the boundaries between secular and sacred, public and religious spaces of education and also pose a challenge for policy-making within the churches. This presentation primarily explores the latter issue and how this identity work takes place within the church-run school networks. In the growing literature about privatization in education, the new roles churches and FBOs play have been so far scarcely discussed. Moreover, while there is a vast literature on the privatization process in Western Europe, there is scarce research on how the retrenchment of the state and the outsourcing of public services have played out in Central-Eastern Europe. The Hungarian case can be illuminating about the ways in which right-wing populist and nativist forces reshape what public education means and it also provides a special case of the privatization of education in Europe.

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