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The European Parliamentary Election as Second-Order Election
29-51Views:242Elections are in fact specific mechanisms for aggregating political preferences of the majority of voters into one will, transforming votes into seats. This is the major role of any election, whether at local, parliamentary, or EU level. The elections of the members of the European Parliament by direct and universal suffrage started in 1979, with the proposal that the members of the EP to be elected in accordance with a uniform procedure in all EU countries. In pursuit of a uniform electoral procedure for all the member-countries meant that European elections must be based on the principle of proportional representation using either the list system or the STV system. However, it turned out, that some challenges and difficulties arose reaching agreement on common principles of all countries and on the harmonisation of national traditions. One of the consequences of the complex relationship between the national parliamentary and the EP elections is that the composition of the EP does not precisely reflect the actual balance of political forces in the European Community, because the national political systems actually decide most of what there is to be decided politically. The European elections turned out to be second-order elections as additional political events to national elections. The most important political issues thus are determined more by the domestic political cleavages, than by decisions originating in the European Community. The present paper analyses the interrelationship between the first-order national elections and the second-order European elections based more or less on the works of Reif–Schmitt (1980), Marsch (1998), Covař (2016) and others.
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Election and Representation
8-38Views:213Whether we approach representation in a wider sense (philosophical) or in a narrower sense (political), the concept is – either way – polysemic, because its meaning is determined in many respects by many factors. Representation therefore should be delt with as a contested concept. Political representation – it turns out – is a modern concept, in which the particular but very complex relationship between the representative and represented has been brought in close relationship with such basic concepts as freedom, democracy, free elections and justice, whereas political representation had litte or nothing to do with these core values earlier. In spite of the pluralist interpretation of the concept, we can distinguish statistical and substantive political representation, the first referring to voters’ political preferences expressed in Parliamentary seats, while the substantive representation refers to the content of the governmental decisions in public affairs, with respect to social expectations. The purpose of this paper is to examine political representation through morphological method, for a better understanding of its inner structure and of the interdependency of its core elements.
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Leadership challenges in virtual environment: The importance of the synergism in ICT toolset and leadership development
27-48.Views:186The companies connected to the global value chain inevitably and necessarily apply virtualized
solutions in their work organization. As such, the appropriate implementation of the shoring
strategies, the increasing competition and the supply-demand imbalance on the local market of
the high-skilled workers, all puts the existing organizational and leadership practices to the test.
The article aims to highlight the main challenges the virtual team leaders (VTL) are facing and
some best practices that might widen the toolset of the modern VTL. The results are based on a
case study of a multinational info-communication technology (ICT) service company in which
experienced managers and leaders shared their strategies. The main takeaways of the empirical
research are (i) the emphasis on the “early-adopter” behavior and the proper usage of the latest
technology in the communication, (ii) the importance of the ability of building trust and setting
common goals; (iii) despite that everyone is perfectly connected via the internet, the regular
personal presence is still the most powerful leadership tool. -
Majority Decision Making
81-100Views:265Modern democracies, based on pluralism, recognize and affirm diversity, permit peaceful
coexistence of different interests, values and convictions, and advocate a form of political
moderation. For democracy to function and to be successful two of the most challenging
questions must be raised and answered: Who have the right for collective decision-making?
What principle should be used for these people to be elected? With the development of modern
democracies it has become more and more accepted the idea that democracy should rest upon
the principle of majority rule, coupled with individual and minority rights. Majority rule thus
refers to the quantitative aspect of democracy, while individual and minority rights express
the qualitative or constitutional aspect of it. A detailed analysis of democratic decision-making
processes shows that not all decisions made by legislature – whose members are elected by the
majority of the people – are effective and good decisions, and points at the fact that most of the
democratic decisions are not made by the majority but by minority groups, who quite often take
the initiative and can seriously influence the majority. This paper focuses on these issues. -
The Effects of the 2011 Electoral Reform on the Results of the Hungarian Legislative Elections II. –: Empirical Analysis
89-111Views:409A radical electoral reform took place in Hungray in 2011, as a consequence of the sweeping
victory of the Fidesz-KDNP coalition in 2010. The government initiated and implimented
a reform which was not based on a consensus of all political parties. Taking advantage of its
political position (qualified majority government), Fidesz introduced among other changes the
winer compensation, and gave voting right to non-resident Hungarians. The present paper tries
to present some of the value-based and interest-oreinted arguments related to the reform of
2011, showing that the real (power) interests were hushed up, while the government tried to
legitimize the electoral reform based on several value-oriented arguments. -
Thomas Hobbes and the dilemmas of the natural state Second chapter: The tipology of the state of nature
3-22Views:288The primary purpose of this paper is to reflect upon four aspects of the Hobbesian state of nature. Firstly, the question is whether we can interpret this original state as a mythical, abstract,
imaginative and timless state, focusing only on the final conclusion of the Hobbesian theory, or
it may contain a well-defined timspan, having its own historical development based on a clear
logical construction. Secondly, this study aims at examining the natural character of man in
the state of nature, and his harmony with his environment in respect with their „naturalness”.
Thirdly, it tries to describe the assumed interpersonal relationships within the „primitve” state.
Fourthly, the paper presents different states of nature reasoned out from a close reading of the
text. All four aspect may help us to get a better understanding of the ambivalent character of the
Hobbesian state of nature. -
Thomas Hobbes and the dilemmas of the natural state: First chapter – The axiomatic nature of total war
3-24Views:327The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, one of the founders
of modern political philosophy, best known for his masterpiece, Leviathan. The aim of this essay
is not to provide a full scale analysis of Hobbes’ main work, nor to present his moral or political
philosophy, nor to reflect on the significance of his impact on later political thinkers. The aim is
more modest, and the theme under scrutiny is more narrow: the paper is devoted to a critical
analysis of the main premise (state of the nature) of Hobbes’ theory of power, including the
ambivalent character of the state of nature, as well as the logical dilemmas that arise during
the analysis.After a general presentation of Hobbes’s philosophy and of the logical construction of his
work, I will tend to focus on two aspects of the state of nature: firstly, I will analyse the assumed
analogy between the state of nature and the Book of Genesis; secondly, I will examine whether
the „war of all against all” is an axiomatic outcome of the „primitive” state. It turns out, that the
answers for these questions are not so unanbiguous. -
Az egyenlőtlenség apológiája
8-23Views:211A 19. század három nagy ideológiájának (liberalizmus, konzervativizmus, szocializmus) elemzése, az e témákkal kapcsolatos művek tanulmányozása mellett megköveteli annak a társadalmi kontextusnak a vizsgálatát is, amelybe ezek az eszmék beágyazódtak. Ezen túlmenően, a három ideológia egymásra hatását, kölcsönös hely- és helyzetváltoztatását is célszerű megvizsgálni annak érdekében, hogy jobban megérthessük fejlődésüket, változásaik okait, és nem utolsó sorban e három eszmeáramlat huszadik századi metamorfózisát.
Ami a liberalizmust illeti, a szabad és vállalkozó egyént központba állító, a piac teljes önállóságát és az állam minimális szerepét hirdető klasszikus liberalizmus fokozatos térvesztésével, a 19. század második felében egyre több gondolkodó értelmezte újra a liberalizmus eszmerendszerét Nagy-Britanniában is.
Az új, revizionista liberalizmus hívei1 nemcsak az állam növekvő szerepvállalását és bizonyos szférák államosítását2 szorgalmazták, hanem a társadalom egyre szélesebb rétegeinek a politikába való beleszólását, azaz a választójog kiszélesítését is.
A francia pro-szocialisták, majd Marxnak és híveinek tudományos szocializmusa jelentős hatást gyakorolt a szigetország gondolkodására, melynek következtében a század utolsó évtizedeiben ott is egyre jobban terjedtek a szocializmus különböző változatai. Ennek magyarázata elsősorban abban keresendő, hogy a konzervatívok túlzottan magabiztosak voltak, nem törekedtek saját hitük igazságtartalmának bizonyítására, azt magától értetődőnek vélték, s ez kedvező közeget teremtett a szocializmus térnyerése számára (Mallock 1882, 22).
Elérkezett azonban az a pillanat, amikor a rivális ideológiák ellenében a konzervativizmus hívei szükségesnek vélték sajátjuk védelmezését. Ennek egyik kiemelkedő képviselője William Hurrell Mallock3, aki úgy gondolta, hogy rendet kell teremteni a „széles körben érvényesülő szellemi erjedés és anarchia” világában, a „gondolkodás káoszában”. A káosz okát Mallock elsősorban a szocializmus tanainak terjedésében látta, és tudományos konzervativizmusával az angol konzervativizmusra legkomolyabb fenyegetést jelentő szocializmust támadta.
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The Effects of the 2011 Electoral Reform on the Results of the Hungarian Legislative Elections I. : Theoretical aspects of the reform
195-209Views:336The second wave of democracy after World Wa II, followed by the third wave in the 1970’s and
the 80’s – including the historic democratic transitions in Eastern Europe after the collapse
of the Soviet Empire – led to the expansion of democratic electoral systems around the world.
The design of electoral systems and of the undergoing electoral reforms has become a vital
component of the democratization process. The study of the theory and politics of electoral
reform led to the adoption of new theoretical and methodological approaches in order to cope
with the challenging phenomena.
The main goal of this paper is to interpret the concept of reform, and to unfold some of
theoretical aspects of it in order to identify some of the main components of the concept. With the theoretical approach we can get a better understandic of the reform itself, and we can
demonstrate that electoral reform is a complex process which should not be reduced to a simplistic
model in which a few actors driven by a few motives can fully explain the whole phenomenon.
The theoretical study of the reform can show that some politial events, the established party
system (first and foremost the distribution of power between the various parties), the type of the
actual electoral system (its advantages and disadvantages) as well as some contingents factors
must be taken into consideration in order to have a better understanding of the nature of the
political arena in which reform proposals are promoted and the reform itself takes place. -
2019 Nyíregyháza City Council election: The Rawlsian interpretation of the local electoral reform
67-92Views:268One of the main perspectives and urgent tasks of the newly formed government following the general elections of 2010 was to reform the local eletoral system. It is true, that the number of seats of the local representative bodies were significantly decreased, but it begs the question whether this change can reasonably explain the fact that the government considered this step as one of the first and most significant measures of its governance. To raise this question is justified by the fact that the reform (Act No. L of 2010 on the election of local government representatives and mayors) was introduced on June 14, 2010, with only sixteen days after the new Parliament approved and voted for the government’s program, and elected Viktor Orbán as prime minister of Hungary. After a brief presentation of the institutional framewortk of the local electoral system, the aim of this paper is twofold: first, I would examine whether the local electoral reform of 2010 could be considered as a „fair” step, based on John Ralws’ conception of „justice as fairness”, second, I would like to explain the actual process of transforming votes into local legislative seats in the case of the city of Nyíregyháza, in 2019.
