Gábor Halmai Current Project Gábor Halmai Curriculum Vitae Current Project Post-Communist Hungary has been known throughout the 1990s as the island of stability in Central and Eastern Europe while the country was being ´re-inserted´ into the global capitalist system through neoliberal policies. As the initial tranquility gave way to loud political mobilization after the turn of the century, the critics of neoliberalism came to be labeled ´nationalist´, ´fascist´ radicals. On the other hand, post-authoritarian Brazil has featured high on the global left's imagination as a locus of fervent "revolutionary potential," especially since Lula's victory at the 2002 presidential elections. Voices doubtful of his agenda have been dismissed as 'orthodox', 'anti-development', 'violent' vagabonds. My research aims to investigate how the logics of neoliberal hegemony and the counter-hegemonic fight pronounce Hungarian anti-neoliberalism "nationalist" and Brazilian struggle "anti-capitalist" and thwart comparison or cooperation. The above labels are born with the same hegemonic Caesarian: neoliberal restructuring prompts "incompetent citizens" to organize collectively along previous power-laden networks and carve out a political niche by playing on popular memories and grievances. These networks are, however, seldom as "genuinely democratic" as described by many activists and academics: power and silencing are intrinsic to them as the collective struggle becomes shaped by both macro-structural constraints and micro-relational mechanisms. Theoretically I apply the concept of hegemony by fusing macro- and micro-level understandings of the original Gramscian term. Jessop's strategic-relational approach introduces the concepts of "accumulation strategy" and "hegemonic project" to understand the national struggle at the state level: political coalitions are built and reshuffled by parties, movements and other organized actors to attain power and secure  social  backing by  "one-nation" or  "two-nation"  hegemonic  strategies

(1990:211). Simultaneously, based on the more anthropological understandings of hegemony of Roseberry (1994), Gledhill (2000), Ferguson (2002), and Smith (2004), hegemony is a terrain of struggle and contention instead of a totalizing and omnipresent "gaze". Local movements as counter-hegemonic projects are compromised by global power structures, however, they also very much influence their situated expressions. Thus hegemony entails the macro-level material and discursive power struggle that delineates the room for maneuver for a local community (via imprisoning in the hierarchy of localities) and also the local naming and organizing battle that dresses that micro-community in a coherent political guise (via silencing alternative voices). As regards social movements, the "relational" approach of McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly has provided the most sophisticated tool to link the micro and macro levels of analysis: it treats "social interaction, social ties, communication, and conversation not merely as expressions of structure, rationality, consciousness, or culture, but as active sites of creation and change" (2001:22). During the past two years, I have researched the ways in which the neoliberal hegemony and the counter-hegemonic fight pronounce the Hungarian anti-neoliberalism "nationalist" and the Brazilian struggle "anti-capitalist" and thus thwart any academic comparison or political cooperation. The micro-level part of my study entails extended fieldwork in Újpest and Csepel (September 2005-August 2006), traditional working-class districts of Budapest with rich mobilization history; as well as mapping out the anti-neoliberal alliance in Porto Alegre (September 2006-August 2007). Budapest is the undisputed (political) capital of Hungary and its "proletariat of the concrete blocks" or panelprolik was very much antagonized by the center-right government between 1998-2002. Currently, as eager attempts are made to "win over" the city, the working class element of the national movement has uncovered crucial controversies in terms of ideology and interest representation. Alternatively, while both the MST and PT had substantial political success in Porto Alegre, this success has yielded a much more heterogeneous following and a corresponding ideological and organizational crisis.