“Absolute Power? Hungary Twenty Years after the Fall of Communism”, 2011 (original) (raw)

Challenges of the Illiberal Democracy in Hungary. Some Aspects to the 2018 Elections

Polish Political Science Review

Political transformation reached Hungary in parallel with other Central and Eastern European countries at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The core of the events, the year of 1989, the so called “annus mirabilis” when, within one year almost the entire Central and Eastern European region stepped onto the path of changes. The actors adopted Western patterns within a short period, institutions of new political systems were established, and a new political power verified and consolidated its legitimacy by free elections. As a final proof of transformation, most of former socialist bloc member states joined both the NATO and the European Union. Hungary had the chance to enter in the 21st century under radically changed and much more favourable conditions than it ever had before. This smooth transformation interrupted by political and economic crisis that finally led to the victory of the opposition that managed to repeat the next elections and implemented the Programme of National Coope...

Focus: Election Roundup Hungary's Social-Democratic Turn

2012

Looking at preelection polls, no one would have expected in the April 2002 Hungarian elections the victory of the left, led by the Hungarian Socialist Party (HSP), and the defeat of the center-right group led by Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party (Fidesz-HCP, also known simply as Fidesz). Hungary is again sailing in the wake of Poland, just as it had in 1994 and 1998. The political pendulum seems to swing to a similar beat in both countries.

31. The triple crisis in Hungary: The “Backsliding” of Hungarian Democracy after Twenty Years

This paper tries to point out that the three subsequent crises (the triple crisis) in the New Member States (NMS) have produced their heavy social price that has been responsible for the drastic "backsliding of the new democracies". These countries underwent a transformation recession in the early nineties and with the EU entry they fell into the post-accession crisis, followed immediately by the global crisis. Originally, their populations reacted to the collapse of the authoritarian rule with a "revolution of high expectations", so under the label of democracy they expected a Western welfare state "overnight", thus after Twenty Years the disappointment has been tragic. This paper approaches the crisis of the democracy in NMS from the side of the triple crisis in general and from that of Hungary in particular. Although it would be very tempting to generalize on the NMS backsliding, the focus of this paper is on "the country I know best", i.e. on Hungary with its idiosyncrasies.

Stable or Fragile Democracy? Political Cleavages and Party System in Hungary

Government and Opposition, 1993

The Transition Process in Hungary Produced Well-established parties and a developed party system. Parties came into existence along political and ideological lines. Parties had an organization, party programme, membership and party discipline similar to those of political parties in the Western European countries. The organization and structure of these parties resembled those of middle-class parties more than socialist or communis/fascist parties. Hungarian parties also had ‘direct structure’ with individual membership. All of them were closer to mass parties than to cadre parties, i.e. their primary aim was electoral success. But none of them became a mass party in terms of membership figures, which were rather low (the total membership of the six parliamentary parties was below 200,000 in 1990, so it was about 2.5 – 3 per cent of the electorate. There were ‘catch-all’ parties (HDF, AFD), parties with specific interest representation (SHP) and parties organized along some ideologi...