During and after the First World War, discourses calling for constitutional reform pervaded Europe. The break-up of the continental empires, the emergence of the new nation-states, and the western calls for democratization collectively gave rise to transnational debates about parliamentarization and parliamentary government. However, in the diverse and contingent post-war political environment, at the same time these ideals were given profoundly nation-specific meanings. They were implemented in the process of nation-building in equally diverse national contexts. This article analyses the use and abuse of the parliamentary concepts and their vernacular redescriptions in Hungarian parliamentary debates in the years 1920, 1923 and 1927. In those instances, the concepts of parliamentarism were constantly redescribed in order to construct and maintain the legitimacy of the counter-revolutionary regime.