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The relationship between scientific philosophical theories and value research
131-147Views:81The purpose of this study is to examine, in what extent the mainstream approaches of scientific
theories can be applied on the field of the value-research. Therefore, I will examine these models
through the lense of scientific philosophical approaches of 20th century. Of the three most
significant philosophical theory (Popper’s falsification theory, Kuhn’s paradigm theory, and Imre
Lakatos’s theory of scientific research programs), I apply Lakatos’s theory, since it fits the best
to explain, how parallel research streams emerged on the field of value research. In this study I
strive for conciliate Lakatos’s program and the three significant value models. In the scientific
research program theory Lakatos found that many research programs coexist simultaneously.
Each has a hard core or negative heuristic (as Lakatos calls it) of theories immune to any revision
surrounded by a protective belt or positive heuristic of malleable theories. Every research
program vies against others to be most progressive. In my opinion the core of the program is
the value definition itself, which is used by the different researchers in the field of value studies.
This value definition barely changed during the past few decades. On the other hand, there are
numerous value models aimed to assess people’s value system. These models can be considered
as the protective belt revolving around the hardcore definition. The aim of this paper is not to
emphasize Lakatos’ theory from the philosophical approaches of science, but to examine value
research through a philosophical eye. This approach also can ease the communication between
the value research by exploring the common core of them. -
Incubating radicalism in Hungary – the case of Sopron and Ózd
79-102.Views:29The paper analyses young people’s interpretation of the past, evaluation of the present and po-litical behaviour patterns based on semi-structured interviews (n=60) conducted in two contra-sting constellations of modernization, Sopron and Ózd. First the perception of the most pressing social and political problems, second the potential of political and civic actions are compared. Finally an attempt is made to outline a ‚hopeless’ and an ‚indifferent’ idealtype of political cultu-re. Together they create the opportunity for both the birth of antidemocratic tendencies and the space in which they can evolve. In this sense they provide the preconditions for ‚mainstreaming the extreme’ that is the incubation of radicalism in Hungary.
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What’s the matter? A text mining analysis of political topics and user engagement on politicians’ Facebook pages during the 2018 Hungarian general election campaign
94-123.Views:16The research investigates the way users interact with leading topics of the 2018 Hungarian
general election campaign on candidates’ Facebook pages. It expects that the prominent
(immigration, corruption) and campaign-related topics generate more user engagement, while
policy topics and mobilization content are less interacted. It also tests the theory of issue ownership
in relation with user engagement. These expectations are tested on a dataset that includes all
posts (38030 posts) posted by all candidates during the campaign (511 candidates). Topics
are identified by text mining methods. The study demonstrates that corruption, development
policy and campaign are highly engaged topics, while immigration was more interacted only on
opposition politicians’ pages since the followers of pro-government candidates engage less with
immigration-related content. The most surprising result is that a reversed issue ownership effect
can be detected since politicians are generally less successful with their own topics. -
Solidarity in question – the ambivalences of helping interactions in late modern Hungary: Editorial foreword
5-9Views:32Editorial foreword
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The Changes in political participation among Hungarian youth
25-41Views:29Citizens’ political participation is a key issue of a democratic political system. The starting point of the paper is political participation of young people in democratic institutions is not merely a question of young people’s interest in politics, but also the result of institutional opportunities and mobilization channels that are available for them. The present article aims to interpret the political participation of Hungarian youth is interpreted more broadly than in former studies. On the one hand it shows how a change of attitudes occurred among Hungarian youth concerning the perception of political participation perception. On the other hand it describes the institutional and social context where participation of Hungarian young people is taking place today.
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Classification of depression-related online forums using Natural Language Processing
181-208.Views:32The study of the phenomenon of depression is not new in sociology, but since the depression
is becoming a wider social problem, it is still a relevant issue today. In addition to the biomedical and psychological aspects of depression, the sociological perspective is becoming more
noteworthy in the discourse about the causes of depression. In the research of the discourse
on depression, the online texts offer many new possibilities, as the forum’s anonymity and
accessability make the online seeking for help popular. In this research, natural language
processing (logistic regression) was applied to find patterns in the definition of depression
in lay discourses. These methods make it possible to analyze a large amount of text - which
would have been difficult to process with human resources. During the analysis, 67 857 posts of
English-speaking online forums were categorized along the categories of the scientific discourse
about depression. This study presents the first results, which shows logistic regression classifier
performs like the annotators. . Although the research has analyzed English-speaking forums, my
findings may be useful to anyone observing abstract sociological concepts in online texts written
by users. -
Certain issues of reliability and validity in the case of generalized trust survey measurement in light of the Hungarian data
5-22Views:66Trust is a field of research in social sciences that has complex, well-developed theoretical
approaches, but its empirical tools are less precisely grounded. The most common survey tool
for measuring generalized trust is a formula often referred to in the literature as “standard”
trust question, which reads as follows: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can
be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?” The aim of the paper is to
examine this standard survey item along the dimensions of reliability and validity. In our analysis,
we use Hungarian data obtained from various international surveys. Our results indicate serious
validity problems, as the standard question shows only weak linkage with additional variables,
which, based on the conceptual background, should be in a close relationship with trust.
KEYWORDS: trust, generalized trust, survey methods, reliability, validity -
„Gezeget garba, lábagat a bad alá!”
275-278Views:17The author divides the book into four main sections, which, while maintaining the chronological order, attempt to sketch the social history of a German minority village in the Lowlands in the 20th century. For the less patient reader, the experiment was successful, and the result is another valuable work that serves as a model to follow, courtesy of Ferenc Eiler and the Institute for Minority Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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Equal opportunities at work? Equal opportunities and legal protection in the labour market
46-63Views:44The study examines the realization and the development of legal protection of equal opportunities
in the labour market. The purpose of the research is to identify the most common problems
related to the violation of equal opportunities during the period since the Equal Treatment
Authority began its work.
The study explores whether types of discrimination can be identified, which are the most
prominent and which are the most disadvantaged characteristics of the labour market in
Hungary today. The correlations discovered demonstrate that although regulation of the legal
background has greatly facilitated the awareness of individuals in this field, there is a need to
create further forums of discussion to achieve measurable results. -
Environmentalism of university students in relation to their materialism, life satisfaction, views on politics and pandemic
70-97Views:70Recently, an increasing focus has been made on studying environmental problems and the
related social phenomena. Understanding the environmentalism and its influencing factors
in the case of higher education students can greatly help the preparation and identification
of sustainability policies and educational practices in higher education institutions. In this study, we investigated environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behavior of
students at 17 Hungarian universities as a function of a number of hypothesized influencing
factors. These included materialistic values, life satisfaction, political views, and views on the
Covid-19 pandemic. According to our results, these were all related to environmentalism. More
environmentally conscious students were less materialistic, less right-wing in their political
views, more satisfied with their lives, and also differed in their views on pandemic issues. Beside
a weaker impact of environmentalism and political views, life satisfaction was largely influenced
by the relative financial situation perceived by respondents. -
Legitimacy and tax morale in fiscal contract: The role of collective services and government communication in shaping taxpayers’ moral considerations
140-156Views:32The purpose of this paper, building on the so-called fiscal contract theory, published by Margaret Levi (1988, 1998) and Jeffrey F. Timmons (2005), is to investigate the nature of the relationship between the so-called tax morale and government legitimacy. More specifically, it discusses the important theories and empirical researches to highlight on the significance of the role of the government in influencing citizens’ moral considerations during taxpaying. According to the fiscal contract theory, there is an unspoken agreement between taxpayers and the government to oblige the government to maintain services reflecting on collective needs and to oblige citizens to comply with the law, i.e. to pay their taxes. Thus, taxpaying is voluntary, but conditional. This paper relies on this theory when it argues that fiscal contract is rooted in citizens’ responsibility for their community, inducing their tax morale. In other words, this bilateral agreement suggests, that tax morale, what is rooted in citizens’ responsibility, is a significant factor of taxpaying motivations.
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The slave trade and trust
172-177.Views:29Does culture have an impact on society, and if so, how? The study by Nathan Nunn and Leonard Wantchekon set out to examine the impact of the slave trade, which has left its mark on the African continent and its economy, but which ended some 100 years ago, on the cultural, norm-following, beliefs and values of individuals. Their aim is to explore the reasons that led to the historical disconnect within Africa between local governments or municipalities (politics), between the outlying communities (neighbours) and even within family relations, which may still influence economic development today. Nunn and Wantchekon's hypothesis is based on an earlier study by Nunn, which showed a causal link between the 400-year slave trade and the income conditions of the African population today, looking at the long-term economic effects of the slave trade.
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Political development: what, why, how? A comparative framework for Hungarian history
5-26Views:61The essay focuses on the comparative analysis of Hungarian political development before 1989–90. Instead of dealing with the 32 years since the change of regime, the author is interested in how many different interpretations of political development can be identified. The author singles out examples of political development in developed countries (for example the United States) as well as developing countries (those countries which have become decolonized in the 1960s). The starting point of the analysis is that Hungary cannot be described by either the categories used for developed countries or those that are used for developing ones. While the essay recognizes that the measure of progress at all times for Hungarian development is the example of Western development, it does not accept the approach according to which Hungarian development is a “dead-end” because it differs from Western development in many ways. The essay puts forward the hypothesis of the “normality” of Hungarian political development.
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Reflecions on the society of control – Footnotes to the Delezoguattarian machine
210-228Views:51The present study revolves around the concept of the Deleuzean machine. It undertakes to
introduce the machine from Deleuze’s concept of the societies of control. Thus this paper is not
a presentation of the critique of the Freudian and Lacanian notions of desire that the machine
is introduced as a late capitalist abstract agent, but a genalogy of the machinic mechanism – as
a logic of operation – is outlined from a new perspective. The emphasis of the study is not on
psychoanalises and capitalism, and on schizoanalysis as a critique of them, but ont he operational
logic of the societies of control: the articulation of controlling freedom. Fort he latter, concepcts
such as territory, de- and reterritorialization, as well as the operating principles of cybernetic systems are shed light on. By examining this concept, therefore, the ways of understanding the
social, economic and political processes of ourt time can be shed new light. -
From Sunday lunch to the ballot box: Political socialisation and political homophily in Hungarian society
8-36Views:151Political socialisation is the process of forming an individual’s political identity, in the course of which the individual’s attitude to politics and political worldview is formed. Political socialisation takes place in different spheres, of which the family and parents are of particular importance. Previous research in Hungary has confirmed that the family is an “incubator” of citizenship. However, there is little data available in Hungary that would allow for a more precise understanding of the transmission of political attitudes. This study investigates political homophily within the family (between parent and child) and the effects of parental political characteristics on the individual in Hungary. Our data are drawn from a nationally representative telephone survey of 2000 respondents sampled in 2023. The results show that in nearly two-thirds of Hungarian families, family members held the same political views during the respondent’s childhood, with the highest proportions of homophily indicators, fathers’ and respondents’ voting activity, and mothers’ and respondents’ conservative-liberal attitudes. The effect of parental characteristics was tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). Parents’ political interests and ideological positions had a strong direct effect on the same child characteristics, but the individual’s political participation and party preference were only indirectly influenced by parents. The success of attitudinal transmission was strongly enhanced if the parents were themselves, homophiles, along with the trait in question. Our results point to the important role of the family as a primary agent in political socialisation and suggest new research directions.
