How are political concepts ‘essentially’ contested?

The purpose of the research presented in this article is to advance a culturally informed theory of political terminology, with special attention to essentially contested political terms. The article proposes that a comprehensive theory of political terminology must account for participants’ reasons for engaging in essential contestation. In the case of essentially contested concepts, the reason for engagement is concern with moral trouble in the speech community. Through a culturally oriented discourse analysis of a call-in exchange on Hungarian state radio the article demonstrates that the use of the essentially contested term gyűlöletbeszéd (‘hate speech’) emerges as a response to multiple norm violations, and serves the purpose of oppositional membering and redress.