ILLIBERAL PLAYBOOKS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF VIKTOR ORBAN AND DONALD TRUMP’S POPULIST STRATEGIES illiberal-playbooks-a-comparative-study-of-viktor-orban-and-donald-trump-s-populist-strategies Volume 6, Issue 1 ARTICLES 2025 6 The purpose of this study is to redefine populism, which exists in many countries that make up the international community and is understood as a political phenomenon, and to analyze the possible similarities between Prime Minister Viktor Mihaly Orban of Hungary (2010–pres ent) and current President Donald John Trump of the United States. In this context, the study identifies two areas of focus: the theoretical approaches to populism and the effects of populism on the representative democracy of a nation-state. Considering the theoretical approaches and interpretive analyses of populism, it can be concluded that both Viktor Orban and Donald J. Trump can be regarded as populist leaders from political-strategic and ideal-discursive perspectives. The theoretical approaches to populism described in this article allow for the construc tion of a theoretical framework aimed at understanding the populist phenomenon and the dynamics of contemporary populist leaders. 

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