What defines demagogues and what sort of threat do they pose to democracy? Contemporary politics has recently witnessed a rise in demagogic leaders around the globe. Following this trend, many notable scholars have sought to better define the ancient term and to provide politics with advice on how to handle them. However, demagogy is hard to define, and research is divided over what truly makes for a demagogue. Scholars tend to either focus on the intention, the tools, or the effects of leaders to categorize demagogy. While they might disagree over which aspect of demagogy is most salient, they are more unanimous in their claims regarding the threat that demagogy poses to democracy. Before we outright condemn demagogy, I argue that we should better understand the phenomenon and its relationship to democracy. This dissertation turns to Machiavelli and Aristotle in order to better grasp and better define the phenomenon of demagogy. I first build a concept of demagogy through Aristotle's Politics and then use that concept to detect a similar phenomenon within the work of Machiavelli. In many ways Aristotle and Machiavelli affirm the claims of contemporary scholars, especially regarding the threat that demagogy poses to democracy. According to both thinkers, demagogy involves the use of factions, class enmities, and the corruption of law. Possibly more troubling, both show how the methods of demagogy remain an ever-present possibility to democratic rule. Nevertheless, Aristotle and Machiavelli disagree with contemporary scholarship on how to address the problem of demagogy. Rather than seek out ways to constrain the demagogue, the two philosophers dedicate themselves to providing an education to demagogues. Even more surprisingly, this dissertation argues that both have covertly tried to persuade others to adopt the methods of demagogy for the sake of better preserving democracy and perhaps even to improve upon it.

The European refugee crisis sparked many debates within the European Union member states, as European countries had different ideas about handling the situation. As a result to the long negotiations without decisions, the crisis escalated, resulting in anti-immigrant, populist parties to emerge with big support among European citizens.The Hungarian government was among the first countries in the European Union to capitalise upon the refugee crisis by politicising the question of immigration, therefore, several anti-immigration campaigns were initiated in Hungary during 2015 and 2016.By analysing and comparing two campaign materials (one from 2015 and one from 2016) via the three-dimensional critical discourse analysis model of Fairclough, the thesis sought to identify the milestones and the rhetoric shifts of the communication of the Hungarian government that changed the public discourse in Hungary, as well as to point out similarities with populist practices in the anti-immigrant campaigns. The empirical analysis was carried out in the theoretical framework of discourse and power, populism, post-factuality, and agenda setting and framing.The text argued for a rhetorical shift between 2015 and 2016, in which the target of the governmental communication changed from refugees towards the European Union and its immigration policy. The thesis found evidence for the usage of populist practices that vastly affected the way Hungarians approach the question of immigration.It is hoped that this thesis could highlight the imbalance in the power relations of the public discourse in Hungary, and the findings could contribute to further analyses of populist campaigns in the period of the European refugee crisis.