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This article explores how a disadvantaged ethnic minority is portrayed in government discourses related to social, family and workfare policies in an illiberal and authoritarian neoliberal system, using the case of Hungary and Hungarian Roma. In our paper, relying on the theory of post-raciality and, within this, the concepts of (in)visibilization, we aim to reveal to what extent Roma are perceived as the undeserving racialized poor.

We deployed the policy frame analysis method to categorize policy discourse content into different frames: diagnostic (identification of the problem), prognostic (solutions to problems) and motivational (incentives for action to mobilize people). Three data sources were used: pro-government media articles, state-of-the-nation address speeches and the party manifesto of the governing party. The timeframe of the analysis was between 2010 and 2023. The dataset consisted of 75 documents.

Only in a few cases did we find racializing language, typically at the beginning of the analyzed period, which gradually disappeared from the discourse, followed by a more paternalistic tone. We conclude that the notions of merit and self-responsibilization have been successfully used to hide (invisibilize) the structural causes of ethnic inequalities and shift the responsibility to individual efforts. The most vulnerable Roma, who are excluded from the labor market, are perceived as not accepting the neoliberal and paternalistic “social contract.” At the same time, they are made invisible by being omitted from the official narrative.

A wide range of literature tackles questions like how neoliberal authoritarianism is related to workfare policies and ethnic minorities. Much less is said about how vulnerable ethnic minority groups are perceived in authoritarian neoliberal regimes. This paper contributes to a better understanding of how such regimes perceive minorities: the use of the categories of racialized or non-racialized, and deserving or undeserving minorities.

The aim of this study is to explore the constructions of startup masculinity as a cultural ideal in the specific context of Hungary, a semi-peripheral country in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity, the paper examines how the construction of startup masculinity, considered hegemonic in a given space and time, subordinates “others”.

The study employs a critical discourse analysis of 143 media articles published in the Hungarian print and online Forbes magazine. It builds upon the concepts and theoretical models of hegemonic masculinity, entrepreneurial masculine identities, discursive identity construction and semi-peripherality.

The study highlights two key findings. Firstly, it reveals that the normative figure of the successful startup founder is not gender-neutral but discursively constructed as masculine, thereby excluding women. Secondly, it emphasises the hierarchical relationship between hegemonic startup masculinity and other masculinities rooted in the semi-peripheral, specifically Hungarian context, which are subordinated in the discourse. Thus, it discursively reproduces not only the hierarchical gendered relations in society, but the symbolical hierarchical relations between the core and the semi-periphery as well.

By examining hegemonic startup masculinity as a subordinating concept within a particular entrepreneurial and geographical context and by illuminating the significance of semi-peripheral locationality in hegemony construction, this paper contributes to both the understanding of masculinity in entrepreneurship literature and the decolonisation of masculinity studies.