Kristóf Szombati

Hungary

Kristóf Szombati, from Hungary, is a scholar, educator, and practitioner based in Berlin. He currently serves as editor for the political economy and inequalities section at the Review of Democracy. Building on his earlier work with municipal partners in his native Hungary, his current research focuses on local efforts to obstruct the advance of authoritarianism. It frames municipalities as key democratic agents and examines their role in building and ways to show unity and mutual support. Szombati has a background in both politics and academia. In 2007, he cofounded the green Politics Can Be Different (LMP) party in Hungary. He left politics in 2011 to pursue a doctorate in anthropology and sociology at Central European University. His 2018 book, The Revolt of the Provinces: Anti-Gypsyism and Right-Wing Politics in Hungary, examines the intersections of class, race, and the erosion of citizens’ trust in liberal democracy. It is the first in-depth ethnographic monograph on the making of right-wing dominance in Central and Eastern Europe. Since completing his PhD, Szombati has held positions at Columbia University, the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and Humboldt University. He has published work on right-wing populism, the political economy of authoritarianism, and everyday participation in illiberal state-making. As a practitioner, he has worked extensively with Roma communities in Hungary and advised Greenpeace. Szombati is cohost of This Authoritarian Life, a podcast that explores how people experience, adapt to, and resist authoritarian politics in their everyday lives.