The Great Connection - The Budapest-Belgrade Railway Project and Its Significance for Hungary's Foreign Policy Identity

This article investigates the significance of the Bu - dapest -Belgrade railway project in the context of Hungary's foreign policy identity under the Orb & aacute;n regime. It claims that existing explanations have so far failed to appreciate the project's symbolic importance for enacting and repro - ducing the Orb & aacute;n government's self -conception in foreign affairs. This self -conception is notable for locating Hunga - ry at the crossroads, geographically as well as normatively, between East and West and for appraising the country as a great conduit between and across these spaces. By view - ing the railway upgrade as an element of identity politics, the article moves beyond the literature's crude notion that this is a political project simply because it seems not to make sense economically. We conduct a discourse analysis to trace the meaning of the project in a set of chosen texts from key actors in Hungarian politics. Besides appreciating the infrastructure project as a marker of identity, the article also shows that the Orb & aacute;n government's emphasis on connecting distant worlds reveals a normatively Chinese approach to international politics in Central and Eastern Europe.