Miklós Sebők | Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Social Sciences, (original) (raw)

Papers (English) by Miklós Sebők

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2023

This article presents HUNCOURT, a complex open legal database for the quantitative analysis of th... more This article presents HUNCOURT, a complex open legal database for the quantitative analysis of the practice of the Hungarian Constitutional Court (HCC). Covering all HCC decisions and orders published between 1990 and 2021, the new database is published under an Open Database License and allows for advanced queries that go beyond the search engine options of industry-standard proprietary legal databases. We bypass the often inaccurate and time-consuming manual search options by providing a full text database that is entirely machine-readable, along with a full selection of available metadata. In the article, we also demonstrate the potential of the new database for scholarly research by presenting a use case for such analysis related to the self-reflexivity and reasoning of the constitutional court. We show that a state-of-the-art database opens up possibilities for applying quantitative text analysis and text mining to research questions that have so far been mostly analysed in a qualitative framework.

Plos One, 2021

In this article we investigate how the public communication of the Hungarian Central Bank's Monet... more In this article we investigate how the public communication of the Hungarian Central Bank's Monetary Council (MC) affects Hungarian sovereign bond yields. This research ties into the advances made in the financial and political economy literature which rely on extensive tex-tual data and quantitative text analysis tools. While prior research demonstrated that forward guidance, in the form of council meeting minutes or press releases can be used as predic-tors of rate decisions, we are interested in whether they are able to directly influence asset returns as well. In order to capture the effect of central bank communication, we measure the latent hawkish or dovish sentiment of MC press releases from 2005 to 2019 by applying a sentiment dictionary, a staple in the text mining toolkit. Our results show that central bank forward guidance has an intra-year effect on bond yields. However, the hawkish or dovish sentiment of press releases has no impact on maturities of one year or longer where the policy rate proves to be the most important explanatory variable. Our research also contributes to the literature by applying a specialized dictionary to monetary policy as well as broadening the discussion by analyzing a case from the non-eurozone Central-Eastern region of the European Union.

Business and Politics, 2020

One of the major political narratives in the build-up to the critical parliamentary election of 2... more One of the major political narratives in the build-up to the critical parliamentary election of 2010 in Hungary was related to the "government of bankers." Pre-2010 governments earned this label by the opposition based on their supposed close relationship with banking interests and for purportedly formulating financial and tax policy according to the needs of major financial institutions. In this article, we examine the preference attainment of the Hungarian Banking Association, the pre-eminent interest group in banking, and that of OTP, the biggest bank in Hungary, in order to evaluate this popular claim. The article addresses this challenge by comparing the policy influence of Hungarian Banking Association and OTP in the government cycles ending and starting in 2010. We adopt a computer-assisted qualitative content analysis framework and juxtapose the policy positions of the interest group in their formal communications with actual legislation related to the same issues. Results show that the general preference attainment of the banking lobby on major policy issues decreased after 2010-nevertheless, seismic activity was already under way after 2006.

Political Analysis, 2020

In this article, we present a machine learning-based solution for matching the performance of the... more In this article, we present a machine learning-based solution for matching the performance of the gold standard of double-blind human coding when it comes to content analysis in comparative politics. We combine a quantitative text analysis approach with supervised learning and limited human resources in order to classify the front-page articles of a leading Hungarian daily newspaper based on their full text. Our goal was to assign items in our dataset to one of policy topics based on the codebook of the Comparative Agendas Project. The classification of the imbalanced classes of topics was handled by a hybrid binary snowball workflow. This relies on limited human resources as well as supervised learning; it simplifies the multiclass problem to one of binary choice; and it is based on a snowball approach as we augment the training set with machine-classified observations a er each successful round and also between corpora. Our results show that our approach provided better precision results (of over % for most topic codes) than what is customary for human coders and most computer-assisted coding projects. Nevertheless, this high precision came at the expense of a relatively low, below %, share of labeled articles.

European Journal of Political Research, 2019

This article investigates the impact of electoral reforms on entry barriers in political markets.... more This article investigates the impact of electoral reforms on entry barriers in political markets. The discussion starts by delineating the theoretical boundaries of various political markets, such as those for participation, parties and government. By taking a cue from industrial organisation theory, the article offers an analysis of entry barriers, both hard and soft, along with their operationalisation for empirical research. Based on this theoretical framework, a single hypothesis is investigated. It posits that the modification of the entry barriers in the market for parties leads to changes in the concentration of the popular vote for party lists. An observable implication of this relationship would be if an electoral reform that raises entry barriers led to subsequent increases in the Herfindahl index (a measure of market concentration), and vice versa. This proposition is empirically tested by a comparative analysis of a new database covering Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The analysis offers support for the following proposition: in most cases the changes in the entry barriers led to a corresponding change of concentration in the market for parties.

Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics, 2019

It is a widely used assumption in the literature on political decision-making that leaders 'choos... more It is a widely used assumption in the literature on political decision-making that leaders 'choose their battles' according to their interests. This strategic approach often results in seemingly 'fake crises'; crises which areas opposed to natural disasters-not exogenous in nature. These crises are exceptional in that they are avoidable and are the product of political entrepreneurs following deliberate agendas. In this paper, the logic of crisis manufacturing is illustrated by a case study of the 'fiscal wars' of 2011-2013. The case study shows how, given the right institutional environment, political entrepreneurs, even those outside the political mainstream, can use crisis manufacturing to their advantage. In order to exploit the institutional veto points related to fiscal policy in the U.S. constitutional system, various actors associated with the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement used a networked, coalition-based approach to reach these goals. Although their quest to instill a regime of fiscal conservatism was eventually unsuccessful, they did manage to raise their national profile and set the policy agenda for an extended period.

European Political Science Review, 2018

The article investigates the dynamics of budgeting and its explanatory factors in Hungary based o... more The article investigates the dynamics of budgeting and its explanatory factors in Hungary based on a new database. Previous work for the period between 1991 and 2013 demonstrated that year-on-year changes in budgetary allocations by policy topics show a leptokurtic distribution. This distribution of policy changes is generally associated with the notion of punctuated equilibrium. We extend this analysis to cover over 155 years of Hungarian budgetary history. Our investigation of a database of 2580 spending category observations (covering the period between 1868 and 2013) lends support for the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We also analysed the impact of political regimes on budgetary dynamics. Here we provided empirical evidence for the validity of the informational advantage hypothesis which states that democracies will show lower level of kurtosis than other political regimes. This finding is also in line with the results of available comparative studies.

Palgrave, 2018

The chapter investigates a hitherto unexamined case of central bank mission creep: that of the Na... more The chapter investigates a hitherto unexamined case of central bank mission creep: that of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) under the leadership of György Matolcsy after 2013. Based on the core ideas of the literature on institutional entrepreneurship and institutional change, a qualitative case study relying on elite interviews and document analysis is presented. This shows how and why the mission creep could stretch the Hungarian central bank’s policy portfolio beyond recognition in, inter alia, assuming development banking functions, buying commercial banks, purchasing real estate, creating research foundations and even university departments. These self-proclaimed ‘unorthodox’ measures reflected the long-held positions and institutional entrepreneurship of Matolcsy, a former minister for the economy. The case study offers new insights into the impact of institutional entrepreneurship on the medium-term evolution of economic policy institutions.

Journal of Legislative Studies

The article investigates the factors shaping the number and content of interpellations, a form of... more The article investigates the factors shaping the number and content of interpellations, a form of parliamentary questions by members of parliament (MPs) in post-regime change Hungary. Four theoretical propositions regarding the functions of interpellations are examined in this context: political control; policy-oriented information seeking; parliamentary group leadership; and constituency service. A new database of 4096 observations for the period between 1990 and 2014 is compiled in order to analyse these hypotheses. Computer-assisted content analysis techniques and count data regressions are used to describe the text of interpellations in terms of their geographical and policy content. Results show that opposition MPs interpellate more, whereas representatives of single-member districts and regional lists interpellate less than their peers. Representatives from single-member districts and regional lists make more reference to local issues in general, but not to their own district or county. Finally, policy specialisation increases the likelihood of submitting pertinent parliamentary questions.

Intersections

The article presents a theoretical synthesis that could serve as the conceptual framework for emp... more The article presents a theoretical synthesis that could serve as the conceptual framework for empirical studies of the fulfilment of electoral pledges in modern democracies. Studies related to the program-to-policy linkage derived their hypotheses, for the most part, from an implicit, common sense model of mandate theory. The article presents a realistic version of positive mandate theory, one that is stripped of its normative assumptions and is suitable for empirical testing. It is informed by five theoretical building blocks: the concept of the binding mandate, the party theory of representation, the doctrine of responsible party government, modern normative mandate theory and the conceptual pair of delegation and mandate. The resulting framework incorporates the information content of the campaigns, the definiteness of the authorization and the strength of pledge enactment as its core components.

The paper applies two core theoretical frameworks of budgetary change—incrementalism and punctuat... more The paper applies two core theoretical frameworks of budgetary change—incrementalism and punctuated equilibrium theory—to a new database of Hungarian final accounts data for the period 1991 through 2013. Based on our analysis trends in Hungarian budgeting are in line with available comparative evidence suggesting that yearly changes of budget outlays in policy domains are best characterized by a punctuated equilibrium model. The most significant variable in predicting whether an observation would fall into the equilibrium or punctuated group was the share of the given policy domain of total outlays. However, alternative explanatory variables, such as the electoral cycle, the fiscal cycle and the business cycle had no effect on the results.

Despite the substantive findings of existing research, the electoral mandate is still an elusive ... more Despite the substantive findings of existing research, the electoral mandate is still an elusive category in representation theory and empirical political science. The article offers a conceptual framework that promises to properly evaluate mandate fulfillment in general, and pledge fulfillment in particular from the standpoint of the normative theory of representation. In this framework the non-fulfillment of pledges is not necessarily bad for representation since mandate slippage, or the gradual process of abandoning the mandate in the post-election phase, may come in both bad and good forms. The proposed framework also develops an empirical research agenda for measuring the causes of bad mandates and mandate slippage by relying and expanding on the toolkit of empirical pledge research. Outcome oriented pledges serve as a prime example of bad mandates, whereas agency shirking is a major cause of bad mandate slippage.

The paper provides a cursory analysis of the methodological problems of coding policy influence i... more The paper provides a cursory analysis of the methodological problems of coding policy influence in ATLAS.ti. In a series of notes on a research project on Hungarian banking, the measuring problems of preference attainment are considered in the context of lobbying in developed democracies. Two such issues are discussed in more detail: The identification of policy issues in large-sized corpora (as well as their relative importance), and the estimation of relevant policy positions regarding these important issues. For the first point, the flexible coding schemes as well as grouping and commenting features of ATLAS.ti contribute to a proper identification of policy issues and their re­ spective boundaries. For the second point, it is asserted that the estimation of lobby group and government policy positions is best assisted by the quotation managing, query and co-occurrence functions of the software. The dis­ cussion of this case study in applied qualitative data analysis also reveals the strong dependence of research results not only on appropriate research rules and procedures but also the transparency thereof.

This paper argues for a reappraisal of extant scholarship on delegation in the domain of financia... more This paper argues for a reappraisal of extant scholarship on delegation in the domain of financial regulation. Through an examination of Japan's experience with financial regulation between 1992 and 2003, it is demonstrated that crisis-induced institutional development entails a shift toward a more flexible, trustee-type bureaucratic structure. While the logic presented in this paper is far from a universally applicable theory of institutional change, it calls into question the relevance of more conventional approaches to the origins of delegation of authority, notably the approach that uses unified and divided government as a key variable. A renewed emphasis on the role of extra-political sources of transfers of authority inside the executive, and also between the legislature and the executive, therefore, is in order.

Journal of Comparative Politics, Jun 2015

The paper presents the results of a study of policy instrument form choice in four Western Europe... more The paper presents the results of a study of policy instrument form choice in four Western European countries. Based on an analysis of major pieces of legislation during the period, it is argued that various forms of institutional change in the form of delegation were the policy of choice for decision-makers in mitigating the effects of the financial crisis. Newly created agencies and funds enjoyed a significant degree of bureaucratic autonomy. In a parallel process, a gradual transformation of extant financial regulation contributed to an upheaval in the ideational structure that underpinned these policy areas for almost three decades. In this, a shift from price and fiscal stability to financial stability signalled a new set of goals for decision-makers, and a realignment of policy instruments duly followed. The results indicate that exogenous shocks—such as financial crises—initiate policy change with distinct policy instrument choices and delegations.

White House Studies, 2010

This paper presents a reappraisal of the international origins of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913... more This paper presents a reappraisal of the international origins of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The most comprehensive study on the subject up to date is a book by J. Lawrence Broz. While Broz is correct to emphasize the impact of international trends in shaping the final text of the act, his account remains incomplete. The primary reason for this is that the narrative cannot account for the following puzzle: Why would Wall Street bankers fight vehemently during the fall of 1913 (an unimportant, “black box” period in Broz’s account) against a proposal that was supposed to be in their best interest? A possible explanation should focus on President Wilson’s policy entrepreneurship and strategic policy vision – both foreign and domestic . This paper demonstrates that the introduction of an autonomous presidency to the verbal model goes a long way toward explicating the puzzles that occurred during the “black box” period left out of Broz’s narrative.

Reviews (English) by Miklós Sebők

Papers (Hungarian) by Miklós Sebők

A cikk hozzászólás Pokol Béla egyik írásához, melyben Kees Van Der Pijl „kihívó állam”- elemzésén... more A cikk hozzászólás Pokol Béla egyik írásához, melyben Kees Van Der Pijl „kihívó állam”- elemzésének bemutatására vállalkozott. Véleményem szerint szükség van Pijl Global rivalries című művében vázolt koncepciójának egy másfajta rekonstrukciójára, amely Pokol tanulmányáétól különböző és, meggyőződésem szerint, pontosabb képet
adhat a neogramsciánus elmélet legfontosabb kérdéseiről. Írásom a Pokol Béla által bemutatott összefoglalótól egészében és részleteiben is több ponton eltérő elméleti összefüggésekbe ágyazza be a Pijl-kötet legfontosabb állításait.

Holtpont - Társadalomkritikai tanulmányok Magyarország elmúlt 25 évéről, 2016

Jelen tanulmány célja, hogy bemutassa a modernizációs konszenzus fogalmát, valamint e fogalom jel... more Jelen tanulmány célja, hogy bemutassa a modernizációs konszenzus fogalmát, valamint e fogalom jelentőségét a rendszerváltást követő két évtized politikája, közpolitikája és politikai gazdaságtana szempontjából. A rendszerváltást köve-tő, 1990-től 2010-ig tartó időszakban a magyar közpolitika meghatározó ideo-lógiája a modernizáció volt. E gondolat körül már a rendszerváltást megelőzően kialakult egy politikai és értelmiségi támogatói kör, mely különösen az 1994-es kormányváltást követően kiegészült további belföldi és külföldi érintett csoportokkal. Ezen elit csoportok együttesen képviselték a modernizációs konszenzus politikai programját, mely egyszerre volt érték-és érdekközösség. A tanulmány bemutatja, hogy miért pontosabb ez a leírás, mint a neoliberalizmus fogalmára építő hagyományos megközelítés, illetve felvázolja a modernizációs konszenzus felemelkedésének, stabilizálódásának, majd 2010-es bukásának okait.

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2023

This article presents HUNCOURT, a complex open legal database for the quantitative analysis of th... more This article presents HUNCOURT, a complex open legal database for the quantitative analysis of the practice of the Hungarian Constitutional Court (HCC). Covering all HCC decisions and orders published between 1990 and 2021, the new database is published under an Open Database License and allows for advanced queries that go beyond the search engine options of industry-standard proprietary legal databases. We bypass the often inaccurate and time-consuming manual search options by providing a full text database that is entirely machine-readable, along with a full selection of available metadata. In the article, we also demonstrate the potential of the new database for scholarly research by presenting a use case for such analysis related to the self-reflexivity and reasoning of the constitutional court. We show that a state-of-the-art database opens up possibilities for applying quantitative text analysis and text mining to research questions that have so far been mostly analysed in a qualitative framework.

Plos One, 2021

In this article we investigate how the public communication of the Hungarian Central Bank's Monet... more In this article we investigate how the public communication of the Hungarian Central Bank's Monetary Council (MC) affects Hungarian sovereign bond yields. This research ties into the advances made in the financial and political economy literature which rely on extensive tex-tual data and quantitative text analysis tools. While prior research demonstrated that forward guidance, in the form of council meeting minutes or press releases can be used as predic-tors of rate decisions, we are interested in whether they are able to directly influence asset returns as well. In order to capture the effect of central bank communication, we measure the latent hawkish or dovish sentiment of MC press releases from 2005 to 2019 by applying a sentiment dictionary, a staple in the text mining toolkit. Our results show that central bank forward guidance has an intra-year effect on bond yields. However, the hawkish or dovish sentiment of press releases has no impact on maturities of one year or longer where the policy rate proves to be the most important explanatory variable. Our research also contributes to the literature by applying a specialized dictionary to monetary policy as well as broadening the discussion by analyzing a case from the non-eurozone Central-Eastern region of the European Union.

Business and Politics, 2020

One of the major political narratives in the build-up to the critical parliamentary election of 2... more One of the major political narratives in the build-up to the critical parliamentary election of 2010 in Hungary was related to the "government of bankers." Pre-2010 governments earned this label by the opposition based on their supposed close relationship with banking interests and for purportedly formulating financial and tax policy according to the needs of major financial institutions. In this article, we examine the preference attainment of the Hungarian Banking Association, the pre-eminent interest group in banking, and that of OTP, the biggest bank in Hungary, in order to evaluate this popular claim. The article addresses this challenge by comparing the policy influence of Hungarian Banking Association and OTP in the government cycles ending and starting in 2010. We adopt a computer-assisted qualitative content analysis framework and juxtapose the policy positions of the interest group in their formal communications with actual legislation related to the same issues. Results show that the general preference attainment of the banking lobby on major policy issues decreased after 2010-nevertheless, seismic activity was already under way after 2006.

Political Analysis, 2020

In this article, we present a machine learning-based solution for matching the performance of the... more In this article, we present a machine learning-based solution for matching the performance of the gold standard of double-blind human coding when it comes to content analysis in comparative politics. We combine a quantitative text analysis approach with supervised learning and limited human resources in order to classify the front-page articles of a leading Hungarian daily newspaper based on their full text. Our goal was to assign items in our dataset to one of policy topics based on the codebook of the Comparative Agendas Project. The classification of the imbalanced classes of topics was handled by a hybrid binary snowball workflow. This relies on limited human resources as well as supervised learning; it simplifies the multiclass problem to one of binary choice; and it is based on a snowball approach as we augment the training set with machine-classified observations a er each successful round and also between corpora. Our results show that our approach provided better precision results (of over % for most topic codes) than what is customary for human coders and most computer-assisted coding projects. Nevertheless, this high precision came at the expense of a relatively low, below %, share of labeled articles.

European Journal of Political Research, 2019

This article investigates the impact of electoral reforms on entry barriers in political markets.... more This article investigates the impact of electoral reforms on entry barriers in political markets. The discussion starts by delineating the theoretical boundaries of various political markets, such as those for participation, parties and government. By taking a cue from industrial organisation theory, the article offers an analysis of entry barriers, both hard and soft, along with their operationalisation for empirical research. Based on this theoretical framework, a single hypothesis is investigated. It posits that the modification of the entry barriers in the market for parties leads to changes in the concentration of the popular vote for party lists. An observable implication of this relationship would be if an electoral reform that raises entry barriers led to subsequent increases in the Herfindahl index (a measure of market concentration), and vice versa. This proposition is empirically tested by a comparative analysis of a new database covering Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The analysis offers support for the following proposition: in most cases the changes in the entry barriers led to a corresponding change of concentration in the market for parties.

Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics, 2019

It is a widely used assumption in the literature on political decision-making that leaders 'choos... more It is a widely used assumption in the literature on political decision-making that leaders 'choose their battles' according to their interests. This strategic approach often results in seemingly 'fake crises'; crises which areas opposed to natural disasters-not exogenous in nature. These crises are exceptional in that they are avoidable and are the product of political entrepreneurs following deliberate agendas. In this paper, the logic of crisis manufacturing is illustrated by a case study of the 'fiscal wars' of 2011-2013. The case study shows how, given the right institutional environment, political entrepreneurs, even those outside the political mainstream, can use crisis manufacturing to their advantage. In order to exploit the institutional veto points related to fiscal policy in the U.S. constitutional system, various actors associated with the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement used a networked, coalition-based approach to reach these goals. Although their quest to instill a regime of fiscal conservatism was eventually unsuccessful, they did manage to raise their national profile and set the policy agenda for an extended period.

European Political Science Review, 2018

The article investigates the dynamics of budgeting and its explanatory factors in Hungary based o... more The article investigates the dynamics of budgeting and its explanatory factors in Hungary based on a new database. Previous work for the period between 1991 and 2013 demonstrated that year-on-year changes in budgetary allocations by policy topics show a leptokurtic distribution. This distribution of policy changes is generally associated with the notion of punctuated equilibrium. We extend this analysis to cover over 155 years of Hungarian budgetary history. Our investigation of a database of 2580 spending category observations (covering the period between 1868 and 2013) lends support for the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We also analysed the impact of political regimes on budgetary dynamics. Here we provided empirical evidence for the validity of the informational advantage hypothesis which states that democracies will show lower level of kurtosis than other political regimes. This finding is also in line with the results of available comparative studies.

Palgrave, 2018

The chapter investigates a hitherto unexamined case of central bank mission creep: that of the Na... more The chapter investigates a hitherto unexamined case of central bank mission creep: that of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) under the leadership of György Matolcsy after 2013. Based on the core ideas of the literature on institutional entrepreneurship and institutional change, a qualitative case study relying on elite interviews and document analysis is presented. This shows how and why the mission creep could stretch the Hungarian central bank’s policy portfolio beyond recognition in, inter alia, assuming development banking functions, buying commercial banks, purchasing real estate, creating research foundations and even university departments. These self-proclaimed ‘unorthodox’ measures reflected the long-held positions and institutional entrepreneurship of Matolcsy, a former minister for the economy. The case study offers new insights into the impact of institutional entrepreneurship on the medium-term evolution of economic policy institutions.

Journal of Legislative Studies

The article investigates the factors shaping the number and content of interpellations, a form of... more The article investigates the factors shaping the number and content of interpellations, a form of parliamentary questions by members of parliament (MPs) in post-regime change Hungary. Four theoretical propositions regarding the functions of interpellations are examined in this context: political control; policy-oriented information seeking; parliamentary group leadership; and constituency service. A new database of 4096 observations for the period between 1990 and 2014 is compiled in order to analyse these hypotheses. Computer-assisted content analysis techniques and count data regressions are used to describe the text of interpellations in terms of their geographical and policy content. Results show that opposition MPs interpellate more, whereas representatives of single-member districts and regional lists interpellate less than their peers. Representatives from single-member districts and regional lists make more reference to local issues in general, but not to their own district or county. Finally, policy specialisation increases the likelihood of submitting pertinent parliamentary questions.

Intersections

The article presents a theoretical synthesis that could serve as the conceptual framework for emp... more The article presents a theoretical synthesis that could serve as the conceptual framework for empirical studies of the fulfilment of electoral pledges in modern democracies. Studies related to the program-to-policy linkage derived their hypotheses, for the most part, from an implicit, common sense model of mandate theory. The article presents a realistic version of positive mandate theory, one that is stripped of its normative assumptions and is suitable for empirical testing. It is informed by five theoretical building blocks: the concept of the binding mandate, the party theory of representation, the doctrine of responsible party government, modern normative mandate theory and the conceptual pair of delegation and mandate. The resulting framework incorporates the information content of the campaigns, the definiteness of the authorization and the strength of pledge enactment as its core components.

The paper applies two core theoretical frameworks of budgetary change—incrementalism and punctuat... more The paper applies two core theoretical frameworks of budgetary change—incrementalism and punctuated equilibrium theory—to a new database of Hungarian final accounts data for the period 1991 through 2013. Based on our analysis trends in Hungarian budgeting are in line with available comparative evidence suggesting that yearly changes of budget outlays in policy domains are best characterized by a punctuated equilibrium model. The most significant variable in predicting whether an observation would fall into the equilibrium or punctuated group was the share of the given policy domain of total outlays. However, alternative explanatory variables, such as the electoral cycle, the fiscal cycle and the business cycle had no effect on the results.

Despite the substantive findings of existing research, the electoral mandate is still an elusive ... more Despite the substantive findings of existing research, the electoral mandate is still an elusive category in representation theory and empirical political science. The article offers a conceptual framework that promises to properly evaluate mandate fulfillment in general, and pledge fulfillment in particular from the standpoint of the normative theory of representation. In this framework the non-fulfillment of pledges is not necessarily bad for representation since mandate slippage, or the gradual process of abandoning the mandate in the post-election phase, may come in both bad and good forms. The proposed framework also develops an empirical research agenda for measuring the causes of bad mandates and mandate slippage by relying and expanding on the toolkit of empirical pledge research. Outcome oriented pledges serve as a prime example of bad mandates, whereas agency shirking is a major cause of bad mandate slippage.

The paper provides a cursory analysis of the methodological problems of coding policy influence i... more The paper provides a cursory analysis of the methodological problems of coding policy influence in ATLAS.ti. In a series of notes on a research project on Hungarian banking, the measuring problems of preference attainment are considered in the context of lobbying in developed democracies. Two such issues are discussed in more detail: The identification of policy issues in large-sized corpora (as well as their relative importance), and the estimation of relevant policy positions regarding these important issues. For the first point, the flexible coding schemes as well as grouping and commenting features of ATLAS.ti contribute to a proper identification of policy issues and their re­ spective boundaries. For the second point, it is asserted that the estimation of lobby group and government policy positions is best assisted by the quotation managing, query and co-occurrence functions of the software. The dis­ cussion of this case study in applied qualitative data analysis also reveals the strong dependence of research results not only on appropriate research rules and procedures but also the transparency thereof.

This paper argues for a reappraisal of extant scholarship on delegation in the domain of financia... more This paper argues for a reappraisal of extant scholarship on delegation in the domain of financial regulation. Through an examination of Japan's experience with financial regulation between 1992 and 2003, it is demonstrated that crisis-induced institutional development entails a shift toward a more flexible, trustee-type bureaucratic structure. While the logic presented in this paper is far from a universally applicable theory of institutional change, it calls into question the relevance of more conventional approaches to the origins of delegation of authority, notably the approach that uses unified and divided government as a key variable. A renewed emphasis on the role of extra-political sources of transfers of authority inside the executive, and also between the legislature and the executive, therefore, is in order.

Journal of Comparative Politics, Jun 2015

The paper presents the results of a study of policy instrument form choice in four Western Europe... more The paper presents the results of a study of policy instrument form choice in four Western European countries. Based on an analysis of major pieces of legislation during the period, it is argued that various forms of institutional change in the form of delegation were the policy of choice for decision-makers in mitigating the effects of the financial crisis. Newly created agencies and funds enjoyed a significant degree of bureaucratic autonomy. In a parallel process, a gradual transformation of extant financial regulation contributed to an upheaval in the ideational structure that underpinned these policy areas for almost three decades. In this, a shift from price and fiscal stability to financial stability signalled a new set of goals for decision-makers, and a realignment of policy instruments duly followed. The results indicate that exogenous shocks—such as financial crises—initiate policy change with distinct policy instrument choices and delegations.

White House Studies, 2010

This paper presents a reappraisal of the international origins of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913... more This paper presents a reappraisal of the international origins of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The most comprehensive study on the subject up to date is a book by J. Lawrence Broz. While Broz is correct to emphasize the impact of international trends in shaping the final text of the act, his account remains incomplete. The primary reason for this is that the narrative cannot account for the following puzzle: Why would Wall Street bankers fight vehemently during the fall of 1913 (an unimportant, “black box” period in Broz’s account) against a proposal that was supposed to be in their best interest? A possible explanation should focus on President Wilson’s policy entrepreneurship and strategic policy vision – both foreign and domestic . This paper demonstrates that the introduction of an autonomous presidency to the verbal model goes a long way toward explicating the puzzles that occurred during the “black box” period left out of Broz’s narrative.

A cikk hozzászólás Pokol Béla egyik írásához, melyben Kees Van Der Pijl „kihívó állam”- elemzésén... more A cikk hozzászólás Pokol Béla egyik írásához, melyben Kees Van Der Pijl „kihívó állam”- elemzésének bemutatására vállalkozott. Véleményem szerint szükség van Pijl Global rivalries című művében vázolt koncepciójának egy másfajta rekonstrukciójára, amely Pokol tanulmányáétól különböző és, meggyőződésem szerint, pontosabb képet
adhat a neogramsciánus elmélet legfontosabb kérdéseiről. Írásom a Pokol Béla által bemutatott összefoglalótól egészében és részleteiben is több ponton eltérő elméleti összefüggésekbe ágyazza be a Pijl-kötet legfontosabb állításait.

Holtpont - Társadalomkritikai tanulmányok Magyarország elmúlt 25 évéről, 2016

Jelen tanulmány célja, hogy bemutassa a modernizációs konszenzus fogalmát, valamint e fogalom jel... more Jelen tanulmány célja, hogy bemutassa a modernizációs konszenzus fogalmát, valamint e fogalom jelentőségét a rendszerváltást követő két évtized politikája, közpolitikája és politikai gazdaságtana szempontjából. A rendszerváltást köve-tő, 1990-től 2010-ig tartó időszakban a magyar közpolitika meghatározó ideo-lógiája a modernizáció volt. E gondolat körül már a rendszerváltást megelőzően kialakult egy politikai és értelmiségi támogatói kör, mely különösen az 1994-es kormányváltást követően kiegészült további belföldi és külföldi érintett csoportokkal. Ezen elit csoportok együttesen képviselték a modernizációs konszenzus politikai programját, mely egyszerre volt érték-és érdekközösség. A tanulmány bemutatja, hogy miért pontosabb ez a leírás, mint a neoliberalizmus fogalmára építő hagyományos megközelítés, illetve felvázolja a modernizációs konszenzus felemelkedésének, stabilizálódásának, majd 2010-es bukásának okait.

A jelen tanulmány célja, hogy áttekintést nyújtson a törvényhozás-kutatás (legislative studies) k... more A jelen tanulmány célja, hogy áttekintést nyújtson a törvényhozás-kutatás (legislative studies) kurrens kutatási irányairól, témáiról és módszertanáról. E feladat a kutatási terület két vezető folyóirata, a Legislative Studies Quarterly (LSQ) és a Journal of Legislative Studies (JLS) 2011 és 2015 közötti tanulmányainak kvalitatív tartalomelemzésével végeztük el. A számítógéppel támogatott elemzést az ATLAS.ti programmal készítettük el, ami lehetővé tette a 100, illetve 149 vizsgált összefoglaló ezres nagyságrendű tartalom-kóddal történő átlátható leírását. Az adatok elemzése során a tanulmányok tartalmát fogalmi közelségük alapján 11 nagyobb tematikus csoportba soroltuk. Az LSQ esetében a felmerült témák mintegy harmada szorosan a törvényhozás intézményeihez, folyamatához és a képviselői viselkedéshez kapcsolódik. Ugyanez az arány a JLS esetében már majdnem a témák fele. A további nagyobb tematikus irányok között megtalálhatóak a pártok és ideológiák; a tör-vényhozások külső szereplőkkel való kapcsolatai (elnök, érdekcsoportok, bíróságok stb.); valamint a választásokkal és jelöltekkel kapcsolatos vizsgálatok. Az összefoglalók többsége explicit vagy implicit módon a kvantitatív-regressziós módszertan használatára utal. Jellemző adatforrásai a törvényhozási tevékenységekkel (pl. szavazások,) illetve a választási eredményekkel kapcsolatosak. Földrajzi értelemben az LSQ-ban túlsúlyban vannak az Egyesült Államokkal foglalkozó kutatások, melyek közül a Kongresszus vizsgálata mellett kiemelkednek a tagállamok összehasonlí-tásai is. A JLS ugyanakkor egyértelműen Európa-fókuszú. A vizsgált időszakok tekintetében a tanulmányok az esettanulmányoktól a hosszú idősorok elemzéséig vegyes képet mutatnak.

A politikai felhatalmazás-elméletre az elmúlt évtizedekben nem épült empirikus politikatudományi... more A politikai felhatalmazás-elméletre az elmúlt évtizedekben nem épült empirikus politikatudományi kutatási program. Ez nemcsak az elméleti keret jelentős teoretikus eredményei fényében különös, de akkor is, ha figyelembe vesszük, hogy mintegy párhuzamosan mégis kialakult egy kutatási irányzat, melynek a felhatalmazás-elmélet egyik kulcsfogalma, a mandátum az alapja. A tanulmány így e két, jelentős részben elkülönült irodalom, az ex ante felhatalmazás köré épített képviselet-elmélet teoretikus írásai, illetve az ún. ígéretkutatás (pledge research) és az ügyek fontosságát vizsgáló, ún. hangsúlyközpontú választásiprogram-kutatás (saliency research) empirikus irodalma között épít hidat. E feladatot a választási felhatalmazás végrehajtásának anomáliáit vizsgálva végezzük el. Az ilyen anomáliákat mandátumszivárgásként határozzuk meg, s három csoportba osztjuk őket normatív tulajdonságaik alapján. A „jó mandátumszivárgás” a heterogén választói preferenciákat közpolitikává alakító politikai folyamat elkerülhetetlen velejárója. A „rossz mandátumszivárgás” ugyanakkor nem függ össze a politikai pluralitással, és jellemzően kormányzati-intézményi súrlódásokra vezethető vissza. A harmadik kategóriába olyan „semleges” mandátum nem-teljesítések sorolhatóak, melyek a választói preferenciák követését más normatív szempontból pozitív értékekkel hozzák átváltásba (ilyen a kormányozhatóság vagy az output legitimáció). A tanulmányban a mandátumszivárgás e három elméleti kategóriáját a pozitivista ígéretkutatásban bevett változókkal illusztráljuk. A politikai felhatalmazás elméletére alapozva így kitágítható és részben újrafókuszálható a mandátumteljesítés vizsgálatával foglalkozó empirikus kutatási program.

A tanulmány tárgya a képviseleti demokráciák megbízó-ügynök elméleten alapuló leírásának bemutat... more A tanulmány tárgya a képviseleti demokráciák megbízó-ügynök elméleten alapuló leírásának bemutatása. Nagyrészt követve az irodalmat áttekintő cikkek konvencióit az írás bemutatja az elméleti modell olyan alapfogalmait, mint a követ, a képviselő és a gondnok, illetve a közöttük és a megbízó között létrejött szerződés olyan következményeit, mint az információs aszimmetria, az erkölcsi kock á zat vagy a kontra szelekció. Ezen alapfogalmakra építve vázoljuk a képviseleti demokrácia általános modelljét, amelynek kulcsfogalma a delegálási lánc. Részletesebben is megvizsgáljuk a modell három kiemelt szakaszát. A választók és pártok kapcsolatát a választási kapcsolattal; a pártok és a közjogi intézmények kapcsolatát a hatalommegosztással és a koalíciós kormányokkal; a hatalmi ágak és a bürokrácia viszonyát pedig a bürokratikus delegálás fogalmával írjuk le. Az Epilógusban a megbízó-ügynök megközelítés olyan problémáit tárgyaljuk, mint a többszintű és komplex szerződések, a közvéleményérzékenység (reszponzivitás) és az informális-deliberatív képviselet.

A jogalkotás minőségéről szóló viták a demokratikus országok közéletének egyik állandó témáját ad... more A jogalkotás minőségéről szóló viták a demokratikus országok közéletének egyik állandó témáját adják. Ezekben a vitákban keverednek a politikai, közpolitikai, alkotmányossági és az eljárási szempontok. Jelen kötetben a jogalkotás minőségét egy, a közéleti vitákban megszokottnál szisztematikusabb keretben vizsgáljuk. Ez egyszerre épít a jog- és politikatudomány szemléletmódjára, s ugyanúgy felhasznál kvalitatív, mint kvantitatív módszereket, így kiemelten a téma vizsgálata kapcsán újdonságnak számító szövegbányászatot és hálózatkutatást.

A könyv három fejezetcsoportja közül az első a jogalkotás minőségének elméleti és módszertani kérdéseivel foglalkozik. Itt mutatjuk be azt az értelmezési keretet, mely a jogalkotásról az egyes törvények és rendeletek jellemzőit aggregálva határoz meg egy általános képet. Ez a megközelítés négy fő dimenzióra épül. Ezek a tartalmi-közpolitikai oldal (a jogszabály megfelel-e a közpolitikai programok logikájának), a formai-jogi-alkotmányos megközelítés (érthetőség, átláthatóság, koherencia), az eljárási (pl. kellően hosszan és megfelelő véleményeket kikérve tárgyalta-e az Országgyűlés a jogszabályt), illetve a stabilitási szempont. A kötet további két nagyobb blokkja először a jogalkotási folyamat, majd a végrehajtás és értékelés kapcsán elemzi majd 30 év magyar jogszabályainak minőségét.

A kötet szerzőgárdájának egy része a budapesti Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpont, ezen belül is a Politikatudományi Intézet munkatársai közül került ki. E bázis mellett a kötet széles intézményközi együttműködést valósít meg, és a szerzők között megtalálhatóak a vezető fővárosi és vidéki egyetemek, valamint szakpolitikai elemzőintézetek munkatársai is.

A "Kvantitatív szövegelemzés és szövegbányászat a politikatudományban" c. kötet legfontosabb célj... more A "Kvantitatív szövegelemzés és szövegbányászat a politikatudományban" c. kötet legfontosabb célja az, hogy bevezetést nyújtson a nemzetközi politikatudomány egy kurrens irányzatába, a szövegek kvantitatív elemzésébe (quantitative text analysis – QTA). A szövegek és más minőségi adatok (filmek, képek) elemzése annyiban különbözik a mennyiségi (kvantitatív) adatokétól, hogy nyers formájukban még nem alkalmasak arra, hogy statisztikai, illetve ökonometriai elemzés alá vessük őket. A szövegek elemzésre való előkészítése Így további módszertani problémákat vet fel, melyek külön tárgyalása szükséges.

A kötet kiindulópontját a politikai szövegek társadalomtudományi elemzésének problémája adja. E feladatot – eltérő jellegű kutatási eredményekkel, de – kvalitatív és kvantitatív módszertani eszközökkel egyaránt meg lehet oldani. Így a könyv négy nagyobb blokkja közül az első e módszerek relatív hasznosságát és fogalmi alapjait tárgyalja. Mivel a QTA magyarországi politikatudományi felhasználása e sorok írásakor még messze nem tekinthető általánosnak, az első fejezetben érintjük ennek olyan kutatástervezési problémáit is, mint a felfedezés logikája, illetve a kutatás folyamata. Ennek során külön kitérünk a számítógépes támogatással, illetve gépi elemzéssel elvégezhető munkafolyamatokra, mint a 21. századi társadalomtudomány gyorsan fejlődő és lassan megkerülhetetlenné váló területére.

A kötet következő két blokkja már a szűken vett kvantitatív szövegelemzés és a vele nagy átfedést mutató szövegbányászat feladataiba nyújt betekintést. Ezek közül az első blokk tisztázza az adatok visszakeresésének és kinyerésének alapjait, majd bevezetést nyújt a talán legelemibb szövegbányászati feladatba, a névelem-felismerésbe. Ezt követően olyan haladóbb feladatokkal ismerkedünk meg, mint a deduktív logikát követő osztályozás, az ennek egy speciális alkalmazásának tekinthető véleményelemzés, illetve az induktív elven működő csoportosítás.

A kötet negyedik fejezetcsoportja a leggyakrabban használt szövegbányászati megoldások gyakorlati alkalmazását tárgyalja. Ennek kapcsán foglalkozunk két alternatív osztályozási megoldással, az automatizált szótáralapú szövegelemzéssel, illetve a félig automatizált felügyelt tanulási megközelítéssel. A csoportosítási feladat klasszikus megoldásaként pedig a felügyelet nélküli tanulási algoritmusokat mutatjuk be.

A könyvet záró fejezet tágabb kitekintést nyújt a kvantitatív szövegelemzés tudományterületére, illetve határvidékeire, segítve a téma iránt érdeklődő olvasót a további tájékozódásban.

Új Mandátum - MTA TK, 2014

Politikatudományi Szemle, 2013

Policy Agendas in Autocracy, and Hybrid Regimes, 2021

Over the past thirty years the comparative study of policy agendas under the aegis of the Compara... more Over the past thirty years the comparative study of policy agendas under the aegis of the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) has become one of the fastest growing sub-field in policy research. Yet, similarly to policy studies in general, most of the agenda-setting literature focuses on well-established democracies. This edited volume offers a ground-breaking analysis of a hitherto less examined topic in comparative politics: the dynamics of policy agendas in Socialist autocracy and in hybrid regimes. We propose that policymaking in authoritarian and illiberal regimes is different from the practices of democracies which we analyse based on a unique historical policy agendas database built by the Hungarian CAP team at the Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest. We find that punctuated equilibrium theory offers a good description of policy dynamics regardless of policy regimes, yet punctuations are more pronounced in autocratic and illiberal settings. These regime types also share a tendency towards centralization, a less efficient use of public information and a suppression of democratic participation in the policy process. This book may be of interest to scholars and students of policy studies, agenda-setting and the politics of authoritarianism.

Könyvünk bevezeti az érdeklődőket a szövegbányászat és a mesterséges intelligencia társadalomtudo... more Könyvünk bevezeti az érdeklődőket a szövegbányászat és a mesterséges intelligencia társadalomtudományi alkalmazásának speciális problémáiba. Támaszkodva a Sebők Miklós által szerkesztett Kvantitatív szövegelemzés és szövegbányászat a politikatudományban (L’Harmattan, 2016) című kötet elméleti bevezetésére, ezúttal a társadalomtudományi elemzések során használható kvantitatív szövegelemzés legfontosabb gyakorlati feladatait vesszük sorra.
A magyar tankönyvpiacon elsőként ismertetünk lépésről-lépésre a nemzetközi társadalomtudományban használatos olyan kvantitatív szövegelemzési eljárásokat, mint a névelemfelismerés, a véleményelemzés, a topikmodellezés, illetve a szövegek felügyelt tanulásra épülő osztályozása. A módszereink bemutatására szolgáló elemzéseket az egyik leggyakrabban használt programnyelv, az R segítségével végeztük el. A kötet anyaga akár minimális programozási ismerettel is elsajátítható, így teljesen kezdők számára is ajánlott. A hazai olvasók érdeklődését szem előtt tartva példáink döntő többsége új, magyar nyelvű korpuszokra épül, melyek alapján megismerhetők a magyar nyelvű kvantitatív szövegelemzés módozatai.

This publication is a comprehensive overview of developments, events and trends in Hungary in 201... more This publication is a comprehensive overview of developments, events and trends in Hungary in 2017, and an outlook on what topics we expect to dominate Hungarian politics in 2018, the year of parliamentary elections. It focuses on five broad areas. In the first section we review the year from the perspective of the Hungarian government, with a special emphasis on the issues and policies behind the stable lead of Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. In the second section we look at the opposition parties, their state and prospects. The third section focuses on foreign affairs, in particular the Orbán government's relations with key European partners, and Hungary’s place in the Russo-American matrix. In the fourth section, we take a detailed look at how Fidesz's policies have shaped the economy. Finally, some key developments of the Hungarian society – changes in the media landscape, new laws targeting the CEU and NGOs – are discussed. All of the sections conclude with a brief analysis of the issues which may come to the fore in 2018.

Holtponton van Magyarország. Holtponton van a magyar politika. Holtponton van a nemzetpolitika, m... more Holtponton van Magyarország. Holtponton van a magyar politika. Holtponton van a nemzetpolitika, mert nincs előrelépés sem a határon túli magyarság jövőjét érintő kérdések megoldásában, sem a magyarországi romák nemzeti-társadalmi, kulturális integrációjában. A helyzethez nagyban hozzájárult az, hogy a társadalmat
feszítő igazságtalanságok elfogadhatatlan szintre emelkedtek, egyre gyengébbek a társadalmi szolidaritás szövetei. Mindezt tetézi, hogy a leszakadó társadalmi csoportok nem férnek hozzá a felemelkedésükhöz szükséges gazdasági erőforrásokhoz, de az emancipációjukhoz szükséges kulturális tartalmakhoz sem. Erre a megállapításra jutnak a tanulmányok szerzői, akik nem akarják elfogadni a mai helyzetet. Ők igazságosabb, szolidárisabb társadalmi-gazdasági rendszert és demokratikusabb politikai berendezkedést akarnak. Ettől az igénytől vezetve elemzik a tanulmányok az elmúlt negyedszázad társadalmi-politikai történéseit és struktúráit, irodalmi-esztétikai törekvéseit. Kötetünk jelzi: jelentkeztek olyan fiatalabb nemzedékhez tartozó tudósok, akik nem fogadják el sem a rendszerváltás utáni helyzetben kialakított közpolitikai megoldásokat mint alternatívanélkülieket, sem az eddigi utólagos olvasatokat mint egyedül lehetségeseket. Ez az új nemzedék – tetszik, nem tetszik – egyben látja az elmúlt negyedszázadot. Ez nem jelenti azt, hogy a szerzők általában egyenlőségjelet tennének az elmúlt időszakot uraló baloldali-liberális és jobboldali-neokonzervatív diskurzusok közé, de keresik és elemzik egymást feltételező létük társadalmi-gazdasági hátterét. A szerzők szakítanak az eddig jellemző gyakorlattal, amelyben a vita résztvevői önreflexió nélkül, csak a másik oldalt hibáztatják a bajokért, az áldatlan közállapotokért. Ennek az újításnak persze meglehet az ára: sértődés és elutasítás az érintettek részéről, de ezt az árat meg kell fizetnie annak, aki újat, mást akar. A kötet jelentős hányadát olyan tanulmányok alkotják, amelyek a többek által holtnak nyilvánított politikai gazdaságtan, illetve a szociológia eszköztárával elemzik a közelmúlt és a jelen politikai viszonyait. Ezekben a témakörökben olyan, korábban örökre letudottnak vett fogalmak és kategóriák segítik az elemzést, mint az osztály, az osztálystruktúra, kapitalizmus és részvételi demokrácia. Más elemzések megmutatják a folytonosságot a jövedelemelosztásban, a szociális és kisebbségpolitikában. A kötet szerzői azt üzenik: társadalmi szolidaritás nélkül nincs igazságosság, emancipáció nélkül nincs igazi szabadság. Közös, saját
értékvilágot tükröző identitás nélkül nincs saját lábán álló politikai mozgalom. A tanulmányokból az a következtetés adódik, hogy a nemzeti együttműködés rendszerét fel kell hogy váltsa az európai együttműködésben részt vállaló Magyar Köztársaság társadalmi-gazdasági szolidaritásnak formát adó demokráciája. Ennek az új köztársaságnak tagadnia kell az illiberális berendezkedést, de nem lehet puszta folytatása a 2010 előtti liberális alkotmányos demokráciának. A korábbi modernizációs konszenzus helyébe az igazságosabb társadalom vízióját
célszerű állítani, a zárt nemzetfelfogást a nyitott, befogadó nemzetfelfogással érdemes felváltani. A Politikatörténeti Alapítvány ösztöndíjasainak részvételével és támogatásával megszerveződött a Politikatörténeti Intézet Társadalomelméleti Műhelye. Ez a kötet – amely a 2015. november 26-án megrendezésre került A mai magyar valóság az elmúlt negyed század tükrében című konferencián elhangzott előadások írásos változatait tartalmazza – az első terméke az itt folyó tudományos, elméleti munkának. Az intézet, a műhely annak a tudatában tevékenykedik, hogy új gondolatok nélkül nincs új stratégia, a baloldaliság megújítása nélkül nincs baloldali megújulás.

2016. március
Földes György és Antal Attila

Parliamentary Affairs

The article examines the concept of legislative backsliding and offers a measurement strategy for... more The article examines the concept of legislative backsliding and offers a measurement strategy for its empirical analysis. Legislative backsliding is defined as a move away from liberal democracy in four critical dimensions of legislative quality, its public policy; legal-constitutional-formal; procedural; and stability aspects. We operationalise each of these dimensions with their separate indices relying on components such as stakeholder consultations, time passed between bill introduction and passing the law as well as results of constitutional reviews. We use qualitative mini case studies from Hungary, widely considered from 2010 on to be a poster child for democratic backsliding, to illustrate the viability of the proposed measurement strategy. We find that laws which show deficiencies in terms of legislative quality exhibit them in not just but several dimensions. Based on the case studies we offer insights into scaling up the law-level analysis to the level of legislative cycl...

International Journal of Parliamentary Studies

In this paper, we summarise the key findings of the forum “Data4Parliaments” Parliamentary Data f... more In this paper, we summarise the key findings of the forum “Data4Parliaments” Parliamentary Data for a Better Democracy, organised by the OPTED network at the European Parliament on 15 June 2022. The aim of the conference was to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas related to sharing and analysing parliamentary text data between official archives and different user groups from the social sciences and the civil society.

Business and Politics

One of the major political narratives in the build-up to the critical parliamentary election of 2... more One of the major political narratives in the build-up to the critical parliamentary election of 2010 in Hungary was related to the “government of bankers.” Pre-2010 governments earned this label by the opposition based on their supposed close relationship with banking interests and for purportedly formulating financial and tax policy according to the needs of major financial institutions. In this article, we examine the preference attainment of the Hungarian Banking Association, the pre-eminent interest group in banking, and that of OTP, the biggest bank in Hungary, in order to evaluate this popular claim. The article addresses this challenge by comparing the policy influence of Hungarian Banking Association and OTP in the government cycles ending and starting in 2010. We adopt a computer-assisted qualitative content analysis framework and juxtapose the policy positions of the interest group in their formal communications with actual legislation related to the same issues. Results s...

European Political Science

While the stability of legislation is one of the fundamental issues in political theory, comparat... more While the stability of legislation is one of the fundamental issues in political theory, comparative and quantitative analyses on the subject are in short supply in the political science literature. In this article, we propose a novel measurement scheme for legislative stability, and we also introduce a Legislative Stability Index (LSI) developed to this end. In terms of empirical evidence, our index relies on the number of legislative amendments adopted within the span of an electoral cycle, as well as the breadth of issues the amendments touch on. It is based on the frequency with which laws are amended after their adoption. Our approach uses a new law-amendment edge-type network for a new Hungarian legislative database. Amendment-type connections are discovered by an automated dictionary-based text mining method. We tested the applicability of our index in various regression models. Results show that the legislative term, the length of the law and the way it was adopted were the ...

Gondolat Kiadó eBooks, 2020

HVG-ORAC Lap- és Könyvkiadó Kft., 2016

Journal of Public Policy, 2022

The analysis of public policy agendas in comparative politics has been somewhat limited in terms ... more The analysis of public policy agendas in comparative politics has been somewhat limited in terms of geography, time frame and political system, with studies on full-blown autocracies and hybrid regimes few and far between. This article addresses this gap by comparing policy dynamics in three Hungarian regimes over 73 years. Besides our theoretical contribution related to policy-making in Socialist autocracy and illiberal democracy, we also test hypotheses related to non-democratic regimes. We find that – similarly to developed democracies – policy agendas in autocracies are mostly stable with occasional but large-scale “punctuations”. Our data also confirms that these punctuations are more pronounced in non-democratic polities. However, based on our results, illiberal political systems, such as the hybrid regime of Viktor Orbán, are difficult to pin down on such a clear-cut continuum between democracy and autocracy as the level of punctuation differs by policy agendas from parliamen...

This repository contains replication materials for the study, "The Multiclass Classification... more This repository contains replication materials for the study, "The Multiclass Classification of Newspaper Articles with Machine Learning: The Hybrid Binary Snowball Approach" in Political Analysis. See the readme.txt-s for details.

PLOS ONE, 2021

In this article we investigate how the public communication of the Hungarian Central Bank’s Monet... more In this article we investigate how the public communication of the Hungarian Central Bank’s Monetary Council (MC) affects Hungarian sovereign bond yields. This research ties into the advances made in the financial and political economy literature which rely on extensive textual data and quantitative text analysis tools. While prior research demonstrated that forward guidance, in the form of council meeting minutes or press releases can be used as predictors of rate decisions, we are interested in whether they are able to directly influence asset returns as well. In order to capture the effect of central bank communication, we measure the latent hawkish or dovish sentiment of MC press releases from 2005 to 2019 by applying a sentiment dictionary, a staple in the text mining toolkit. Our results show that central bank forward guidance has an intra-year effect on bond yields. However, the hawkish or dovish sentiment of press releases has no impact on maturities of one year or longer wh...