Unintended outcomes effects of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund on Hungary's public sector and administrative reforms (original) (raw)
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2014
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Pro Publico Bono - Magyar Közigazgatás, 2021
The European integration has had a major impact on the institutional systems of the Member States. The case study traces some of the characteristics of the institutional changes brought about by EU-membership through the example of Hungary. The study concludes that rather than being subject to Europeanisation, there has been an institutional adaptation in the government’s handling of European affairs in Hungary over the last 20 years. It also affirms, that close policy cooperation does not automatically lead to a single institutional model at EU level.
Eastern Europe in transition, the case of Hungary
Acta Juridica Hungarica, 2012
The result of circumspect and considerate preliminary work, by 1990, the system of public administration characteristic of bourgeois, democratic and constitutional states was established in Hungary. The transformation of public administration is still far from complete, since fundamental reforms encompassing both structural and functional measures, and also the unifi ed regulation of public sector human resources, urgently need to be effectuated. The continuous and rapid transformation exhausted public administration after a period and the reform programs with low effi ciency discredited the ideas promoting the necessity of reforms themselves. Public administration weary of the reforms itself became gradually not supportive of, but passively resistant to the cause of the reforms, which merely reinforced the philosophy of NPM based on a neoliberal conception of the state implying that public administration cannot be reformed from within. In certain cases Hungary was under an excessive illusion concerning both NPM and EAS, it was more responsive to them than the other countries concerned. Today, however, as a party both to the European Union and EAS, Hungary with its specifi c experiences can contribute to the development of European public administration. Currently running complex program of the development of public administration alludes to a more considerate and subtle approach, which related to the consideration of international experiences sets forth that "any solution originating abroad or in the market may be applied exclusively with proper criticism and the examination of its effects.
Unorthodoxy at Work: An Assessment of Hungary's POST-2010 Governance Reforms
Unorthodoxy is a term frequently used by the current Hungarian government to describe its approach to policy making and, more generally, to transforming governance. The " strong state " vision underlying their ambition has, since their getting into power in 2010, manifested in a lengthy series of sweeping institutional and policy reforms, and of domestic and international conflicts. Attention has so far been focused on the indeed radically changing institutional landscape, the constitutional reforms and their possibly adverse effects on such fundamental features of the polity as the functioning of checks and balances, individual rights, democracy and rule of law, and social inclusion. The broad ambition of this paper is to move beyond this institutional level of analysis and to examine whether, and if yes to what extent and in what sense, this transformative vision of unorthodoxy reached the day-today making and management of policies. The research takes a comparative pers...
Market Reform and State Paternalism in Hungary: a Path-dependent Approach1
Hungary is one of the worst-hit countries of the current financial crisis in Central and Eastern Europe. The deteriorating economic performance of the country is, however, not a recent phenomenon. A relatively high ratio of redistribution, a high and persistent public deficit and accelerated indebtedness characterised the country not just in the last couple of years but also well before the transformation, which also continued in the postsocialist years. The gradualist success of the countrywhich dates back to at least 1968in the field of liberalisation, marketisation and privatisation was accompanied by a constant overspending in the general government. The paper attempts to explore the reasons behind policymakers' impotence to reform public finances. By providing a path-dependent explanation, it argues that both communist and postcommunist governments used the general budget as a buffer to compensate losers of economic reforms, especially microeconomic restructuring. The everwidening circle of net benefiters of welfare provisions paid from the general budget, however, has made it simply unrealistic to implement sizeable fiscal adjustment, putting the country onto a deteriorating path of economic development.
Farewell to Decentralisation: The Hungarian Story and its General Implications.pdf
The paper is based on a research project launched in 2012. The objective was to analyse, from a political science perspective, the main factors and circumstances of the process of territorial governance reform attempts before 2010, and the turning point after starting a strongly centralised model. The focus of the research was not so much on the objectives of the reforms, but rather on the context and the actors of the reform processes. It was presumed that the defeat of decentralisation could be explained by the weakness of the actors to preserve the formerly strong positions of local governments. The research hypothesised that, following the transition years, the gradually fading enthusiasm of parliamentary and party-political elites contributed to the failures of correctional reforms and to the limitation of institutional guarantees for safeguarding the interests of local governments.
The economics and politics of reform in Hungary
International Organization, 1986
Reform of the domestic economic system is the distinctive element of Hungary's foreign economic strategy in the 1980s. The need for systemic economic reform stems from Hungary's status as a small country, heavily dependent on foreign trade, many of whose imports can no longer be met within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance alone. The many obstacles to economic reform lie in a heritage of policy choices that responded to domestic and CMEA supply constraints rather than to principles of comparative advantage. Such policies undercut the initial economic reform in 1968 and contributed to a major economic crisis in 1979–82. The subsequent changes in policy priorities and institutional mechanisms prompted by this crisis aimed to reduce Hungary's insulation from the larger international economy and make the economy more efficient. Politically, economic reform is possible in Hungary largely because of the impact of the 1956 revolt on both the subsequent composition of t...
From Financial Centralisation to Political Centralisation. The Focal Points of the Municipal Reforms from the Transition Until Present Day Hungary, 2020
After the transition in 1990, Hungary copied Western European examples in the political sense. As a result, the traditions of German and French public administration exerted a considerable impact on the Hungarian municipal system. However, Hungary has recently turned away from this trend and developed its public administration structure in a state-centred way. The structure, which was decentralised at the beginning, displayed signs of fiscal centralisation at first, with elements of political centralisation becoming more and more dominant. From the aspect of our examination, the course that the municipality system has run within the relation system of central power since the transition era is a core issue. For independent research, we examined how the population perceived access to local public services and what subjective population expectancies were associated with the objective conditions of the public services system. How important is it for them whether the given service is provided by the state, the local authority, a non-profit or a for-profit organisation?
Local Governance in the New Urban Agenda, 2020
After the transition in 1990, Hungary copied Western European examples in the political sense. As a result, the traditions of German and French public administration exerted a considerable impact on the Hungarian municipal system. However, Hungary has recently turned away from this trend and developed its public administration structure in a state-centred way. The structure, which was decen-tralised at the beginning, displayed signs of fiscal centralisation at first, with elements of political centralisation becoming more and more dominant. From the aspect of our examination, the course that the municipality system has run within the relation system of central power since the transition era is a core issue. For independent research, we examined how the population perceived access to local public services and what subjective population expectancies were associated with the objective conditions of the public services system. How important is it for them whether the given service is provided by the state, the local authority, a non-profit or a for-profit organisation?