Barnen är nationens framtid - Hur länge lever nationen?

This study examines how economic incentives such as Hungary’s Family Protection Action Plan (FPAP) are used as social policy instruments to legitimize the nation in the context of demographic decline. The aim of the thesis is to analyse how social policy becomes embedded within nationalist rhetoric, concerning national sovereignty and self-determination.

Using Benedict Anderson’s theory of Imagined Communities and qualitative content analysis, the study investigates political speeches by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and official government press releases. The central research question asks how reproduction is framed and legitimized as a national project in the rhetoric connected to FPAP, by Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán between 2019-2023. The findings demonstrate that migration is rhetorically constructed as a threat, the nation is naturalized, and social policy is transformed into an existential issue concerning national survival. Reproduction is thus linked to questions
of sovereignty and the nation’s future continuity.