Journalists, and even academic experts love to jump to the convenient conclusion that authoritarian regimes and universities are naturally incompatible.
Think again. Because just as much as they like mimicking democratic practices, autocrats also enjoy the power of knowledge – so long that it underpins their view of the world. And if anyone, they have the tools to achieve that.
In this episode, Iván László Nagy looks at the complicated relationship of autocrats and higher education, by focusing on how Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary spent the past 14 years fighting against academic freedom and making sure that educational elites serve their purposes.
He is joined by József Pálinkás, the former Head of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who served as the Secretary of Education under the first Orbán government, and journalist Bence X. Szechenyi, a graduate of Columbia Journalism School, who spent a year at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a residential college fostering the new generation of conservative leaders.
00:00 Intro
02:45 Authoritarian regimes and higher education – a theoretical background
05:19 The history of Orbán’s fight against academic freedom – a conversation with József Pálinkás
24:35 Bence X. Szechenyi on how Mathias Corvinus Collegium turns an educational opportunity into outright propaganda
38:08 Outro
Iván L. Nagy 
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