The present article aims to improve understanding of institution formation in (former) liberal-democratic polities characterized by autocratization tendencies. We examine how the critical juncture created by the COVID-19 pandemic was used, as well as the interplay between antecedent, structural conditions and the particular combinations of political agency and contingency. By comparing the two similar cases of Hungary and Poland – the two European Union countries that have progressed the farthest towards illiberal transformation – and using documentary and interview evidence, we conclude that: (1) whereas Hungary exhibited significant institutional changes, Poland did not; (2) these differences in institutional outcomes can be significantly attributed to differences in certain critical antecedent conditions; and (3) the ability of key political actors – Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Jarosław Kaczyński – to control their own political camp seems to have exerted an unmistakable effect as well.

Points for practitioners

The build-up and entrenchment of institutions of illiberal rule in (previously) liberal-democratic contexts are encumbered by diverse political and institutional constraints. External shocks, such as the COVID-19 crisis, may offer an opportunity to bypass those constraints and to change institutions permanently. Our study concludes that the extent to which such historical windows of opportunity can indeed be used to achieve lasting institutional changes depends not only on the objective, historically given political and institutional constraints that illiberal reforms face, but also on their subjective ability to act in a controlled, coordinated and coherent manner.

本文旨在增进对以特征为专制化倾向的（前）自由民主政体中制度形成的理解。我们研究了如何使用由COVID-19大流行造成的关键关头，以及先例，结构条件与政治机构和突发事件的特定组合之间的相互作用。通过比较匈牙利和波兰的两个类似案例（这两个欧洲国家在朝着自由法制迈进了最大的步伐）和使用文献和访谈证据，我们得出以下结论：（1）匈牙利表现出重大的制度变化，而波兰则没有；（2）制度结果的这些差异可归因于某些关键先决条件的差异；

从业人员要点

在（以前）自由民主制背景下，自由统治制度的建立和巩固受到各种政治和制度约束的阻碍。外部冲击，例如COVID-19危机，可能提供绕过这些限制并永久更改机构的机会。我们的研究得出的结论是，这种历史机会窗口的确可以用于实现持久的体制变革的程度，不仅取决于客观，从历史上考虑到的自由改革面临的政治和体制限制，还取决于其在行动中采取行动的主观能力。控制，协调和一致的方式。