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The political representation of Hungary’s ethnic minorities in the context of voter turnouts in the local self-governmental elections and in the parliamentary elections
25-39Views:45The political representation of minorities within a nation-state is a task that has always posed a great challenge to countries with substantial ethnic minorities, since both the hardships of establishing an adequate legislative environment, both the sensitivity of the subject make it exceedingly difficult for the legislator to develop a sufficient system. The issue of the proper representation of those 13 recognised minorities that are considered constituent components ofthe state were part of Hungary’s political history since the regime change, and for a rather long period of time it seemed that the adequate solution for their political representation was the local governmental system of ethnic minorities. Since 2011 however, the electoral system makes it possible for ethnic minorities to be represented within the Hungarian Parliament as well, which raises the question of whether this will shift the attention of the affected minority groups from the local self-governments towards the parliamentary representation. In this paper, after reviewing the changes within the legislative environment and – in close connection with that – the problems surrounding the issue of political representation of ethnic minorities, I will attempt to answer this emerging question through a brief analyses based on the turnout-data regarding the 2014 and the 2019 elections local governmental elections.
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Electoral Systems in East Central Europe
26-50Views:47The democratic transition in Eastern and Central Europe provides a good opportunity to
examine how to apply the findings of the science of elections in a new dimension. This study
based on 167 elections in 23 countries shows the formation, evolution and political consequences
of the new electoral systems. The hypothesis of the paper is that the elections and electoral
systems in this region not always correspond to the conventional wisdom. Our analysis divides
into five parts the region (Central Europe, Western and Eastern Balkans, Baltic States and the
other former republics of Soviet Union). This division helps to get an sophisticatad picture about
the emergence and changes of the new electoral systems. By showing country by country we can
demonstrate the similarities and differences between and within subgroups as well. Finally
using three well-known indices (least square index, effective electoral and parliamentary
number of parties) the study summarizes – country by country and subgroups by subgroups by
type – the political consequences for the proportionality and party structure. The analysis of the
167 elections demonstrates that Eastern and Central Europe does not show uniformity regarding
the political consequences of the electoral systems. Their influence is more moderate than in the
established democracies and they are also much more volatile. Their changes have shown rather
diverging than converging trend in the last quarter century. The conventional findings are
difficult to apply for this region, they are only partially valid, especially the formation of party
structure differ from the previous experiences. In sum the Eastern and Central European elections
do not invalidate the conventional statements of the elctoral studies but they offen do not show
corresponding image. So they significantly contribute to the further development and refinement
of the previous findings. -
Incumbency advantage of mayors in cities with county rights in Hungary
40-51Views:46There are twenty-three cities with county rights in Hungary. These cities are playing extremely important role because of their location, population and their administrative duties. For these reasons they can fall prey to national parties and political actors even during local elections. The aim of this study is to analyze these settlements in regard to the incumbency of mayors. Incumbency means the holding of an office, and the incumbent politician is the current holder of a political office. My goal is to show – by quantitative comparison – that the so-called incumbent advantage is prevalent in these cities. I also examine whether the candidates of the winning parties at the first order general elections are faring better than their competitors.
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Mobilization incongruence in the Hungarian local electioms
5-24Views:41In local elections, national voting patterns are often not repeated as results show significant incongruence in terms of turnout, party performance and seat shares. Political science explains these various differences with several distinct theoretical frameworks that approach this incongruence from the aspect of voter behavior. The aim of this study is not to provide an alternative for these conventional explanations but to complement them with the detailed analysis of mobilization in an attempt to clear up certain gaps in the models. My main proposition is that parties can mobilize their supporters for the local elections with differing effectiveness producing incongruence in voter turnout and seat shares. In the capital and in the larger cities there is a mobilization gap mainly affecting left-wing voters that causes lower turnout and weaker electoral performance by these parties. This gap can most probably be explained by a combination of social and institutional factors and has a profound effect on election outcomes.
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Debunking Myths about the American Presidential Elections of 2016 and Failures in the Social Sciences
51-61Views:36Throughout the campaign and following the elections of 2016, the two major political parties
cherished stories about what happened, and why it happened. Some of these stories have some
basis in fact, while others are completely mythical, and nevertheless believed. These stories, or
myths, arise from the political desires and belief systems of those who tell them. In what follows
we will examine these stories in the lights of the facts -
Competitive elections and the challenges of the concept of competitiveness
37-52Views:136The paper relates to the literature on contemporary non-democratic systems with multi-party elections. It aims to prove that electoral competitiveness is a key concept for understanding these systems, but this concept is currently underdeveloped. It first reviews the main approaches of competition and competitiveness, then, using the widely accepted type of competitive authoritarian hybrid regime, argues that the concept developed by its inventors does not provide sufficient support to detect competitiveness, because the factor of uncertainty used by the concept creators to justify its existence is not accompanied by any real indicators. The conclusion of the article is that competitiveness should therefore be derived not from the unidentifiable uncertainty factor, but from the concept of electoral integrity, which indicates the existence or the absence of genuine (competitive) elections, and from the concept and characteristics of electoral manipulations.
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The 2019 local elections in Szeged
52-66Views:45The 2019 local, municipal election outclasses the second-order elections in the given political constellation. This is especially true in the case of Szeged, where the opposition – unlike the situation at the national level – has the power for a long time. To change this situation, the governing parties, taking advantage of their dominant position – and using all means – conducted a very vigorous campaign, changing the city into a battlefield. According to the results, the governemt’s attempt was not successfull, it was rather contraproductive. The reigning mayor and city management won an unprecedented victory. The root cause of it is a special urban policy which extracted the local politics from the partyfights and overrode party interests, and which represented the interests of the city succesfully and with credibility even against cross-wind. Based on the cooperation of the entire opposition the implemented urban policy is symbolized by and embodied in the person of the mayor in office since 2002.
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Trojan horse and fig leaf: the role of populism in the global crisis of democracy and the postmodern autocracies
30-61Views:72It is my contention that populism could be an appropriate framework to understand and link the phenomena of global crisis of democracy and spread of postmodern autocracies. In order to substantiate this claim with the method of literature review, I have examined first the characteristics of these phenomena and then I have focused the nature of relationship between them, in particular with regard to the complex system of stability of new types of autocracies, in which, I think, populism playing a key role. Populism, understood it as an autocratic interpretation of democracy and representation, could be a particularly dangerous Trojan horse for democracy. Above all, because of its idea of a single, homogeneous and authentic people that can be genuinely represented only by populists, and because of this representative claim is a moralized form of antipluralism. In addition, populism is also an important feature of postmodern autocracies, especially of electoral autocracy. By means of populism, it is possible for these regimes to camouflage and even legitimise the autocratic trends and exercise of power, as well as the creation an uneven playing field for political contestation behind their formally multi-party elections and democratic façade. As a radical turn towards traditional forms of autocracies would be too expensive, postmodern autocrats need manipulated multi-party elections and other plebiscite techniques that could serve as quasi-democratic legitimation, as well as populism that could transform political contestation to a life-and-death struggle and, provides other important cognitive functions. Therefore, populist autocracy, as a paradigmatic type of postmodern autocracies, will remain with us for a long time, giving more and more tasks to researchers involved in them.
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The 2022 Italian election under the microscope
53-72Views:121The 2022 parliamentary elections marked a turning point for the Italian political system in many ways. As a result of the measures approved and introduced over the past almost ten years to change the electoral system (electoral reforms, decisions of the Constitutional Court, constitutional amendments, parliamentary reforms, etc.), Italian voters had the opportunity to elect the new members of both chambers of the parliament under the same electoral system, for the first time in the Republican era. The purpose of the article is to present the steps leading to this historic moment by analysing in detail the different measures affecting the electoral system and their impact. The paper then describes the electoral results and explains the processes leading to the vast victory of Italy’s first female Prime Minister, with a particular focus on the return to the bipolar logic favoured by the electoral system following the release of the three-pole system in 2013.
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2019 Nyíregyháza City Council election: The Rawlsian interpretation of the local electoral reform
67-92Views:56One 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.
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The Effects of the 2011 Electoral Reform on the Results of the Hungarian Legislative Elections II. –: Empirical Analysis
89-111Views:109A 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. -
The Effects of the 2011 Electoral Reform on the Results of the Hungarian Legislative Elections I. : Theoretical aspects of the reform
195-209Views:70The 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. -
The Suppression of Discourse: The Hidden Internet Communities Related to the Alt-right and the US Presidential Elections of 2016
62-80Views:33I examine the US presidential election of 2016 and how hidden groups related to the alt-right
manipulated the social media with hoaxes and memes. I examine some of the media platforms
and forums where these contents mainly appeared during the campaign and I also present the
anatomy of the groups’ previous actions, and from these I attempt to demonstrate that their
efforts are coordinated and their methods have become more sophisticated in the recent years. -
Political reorganization in the shadow of the pandemic and war: The 2022 Latvian parliamentary election and its consequences
73-94Views:70Latvia’s party system has been one of the most unstable in European comparison since the 1990s, essentially since independence and democratization. Although there was a period in the middle of the 2010s, which showed the stabilization of the range of relevant parties and a decrease in the number of parties, by the end of the decade the fluctuation between the parties of the Baltic republics was again high. The Kariņš cabinet, formed after a record long time after the 2018 election, nevertheless set a unique record in the country: it was the first government to complete a full four-year parliamentary term. The government faced two challenges during its tenure, the pandemic that began in the spring of 2020, and the Russian aggression against Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022. Both had a significant impact on the development of the party structure. The aim of this paper is to present the changes in the political palette of Latvian parties in the last two legislative cycles, to analyze the results of the October 2022 election, giving priority to the effects of the Russian-Ukrainian war on the transformation of the party structure and the results of the elections.
