This paper examines and compares the Swedish and Hungarian society along three dimensions: interpersonal (generalized) trust, interpersonal relationships, and values of cooperation. These are all crucial components of social capital, could be seen as its most relevant domains, which, in a macro perspective, express the cohesion and integration of a given society. Thus, the above-mentioned indicators provide deep insight into the social fabrics and dynamics of Sweden and Hungary, as well as the potential changes. The empirical analysis is based on data obtained from waves 1–10 of the European Social Survey (ESS). The relevance of the analysis is due to the specific representation of Sweden in the Hungarian political discourse and in some parts of the media. According to this framing integration and cohesion of the Swedish society is in an increasingly poor state, whereas in Hungary things are going much better. Our paper aims to shed light on this issue along the dimensions presented above. Our results show that, in terms of the dimensions of social capital examined, Swedish society is not in a bad state at all, and in fact presents a significantly more favourable picture than Hungarian society on the basis of the same indicators.

Elections 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.

One of the most important event of the 2024 super election year was the elections of the European Parliament – which took place from June 6 to 9 – because the European Union has reached a turning point. Classified as a second order election, it has taken on a new significance in the light of the current global political events, of the geopolitical, social, and political situation, as well as of the crisis resulting from the pandemic, wars, and migration towards Europe. All of this raises several questions: What characteristics possess the tenth EP election under these new circumstances? In case the EP election starts showing new features, one may ask whether it can be described in terms of the second order characteristics. Further: how have the changes under these circumstances affected the nature of the election, the participation, the electoral results, and the performance of major and minor parties, as well as the ruling parties? To what extent can secondariness of the EP elections still be considered evident?
The situation is further complicated by the fact that this was the first election held after Brexit, which not only influenced the number of seats in the European Parliament and their distribution among countries, but also affected the electoral process as well as the composition of the parliamentary seating arrangements.

Murányi István (2022): Fiatalok állampolgári szocializációja. Debreceni Egyetemi Kiadó, Debrecen, 108 oldal