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Majority Decision Making
81-100Views:26Modern 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. -
Pastoral care for the Gypsies/Romas: Societal engagement of the Churches
86-106Views:31In my adolescence, I noticed that in my small hometown village of Nógrád County, the majority
of the Romani don’t attend mass and sever their ties with Roman Catholic religion. This tendency
remains to this very day, and I continue to experience the same thing where I now live in Pest
County. What could be the reason for this separation? I set out to find the answer with the help
of twenty years of experience as a divinity teacher and my previous empirical sociology research.
Is the clergy to be blamed for the large numbers of Gypsies and non-Gypsies leaving the fold?
I wanted to personally find an answer to the question from the concerned parties. Therefore,
at the permission of the bishop of the Diocese of Vác, as a Roman Catholic civilian theologian,
I visited the pastors of the Historical Churches at the various offices and parishes to ask them
questions about the Romani. -
Debunking Myths about the American Presidential Elections of 2016 and Failures in the Social Sciences
51-61Views:24Throughout 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 -
The Effects of the 2011 Electoral Reform on the Results of the Hungarian Legislative Elections II. –: Empirical Analysis
89-111Views:72A 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. -
In the thick of relationships? Personal and distance relationships with relatives and friends in Hungary in 2015
65-101Views:53The study presents the structure and intensity of the relationships of the Hungarian population over 16 years of age through a descriptive analysis of four variables measuring the frequency of personal and distance contact with relatives and friends from the EU-SILC 2015 survey. According to the data, the relationship structure is on average balanced, half of the relationships are related to relatives or friends, and the relative proportions of personal and long-distance relationships are similar. According to our results, in addition to age, the financial situation of the household has a significant correlation with the characteristics of the relationship structure. One of the lessons of multivariate regression models is that the effect of other background variables on the relationship structure intensifies in parallel with aging, leading to a deepening of relationship inequalities among the elderly. Another lesson of the models is that the inclusion of household characteristics (financial situation, number of household members, material transfer relationship with other households) has a significant effect on the mechanism of individual background variables, thus confirming that a deeper study of relationship intensity and relationship structure within the household is essential. At the end of our analysis, we compiled clusters based on the intensity of relationships, the direction of relationships, and the channel of contacting, with a relative majority of more than one-third of the respondents with extremely weak relationship embeddedness.
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Processes of change in the Hungarian and Ukrainian Community in Izsnyéte, Transcarpathia
62-85Views:22I started my research in Izsnyéte, Transcarpathia, in 2012 with an anthropological research group. Initially, we were curious about the coexistence mechanisms of the local settlement, the cultural peculiarities of the ethnic groups living there, but due to the war situation, we had to stop our empirical research sooner before 2015. In 2017, as a doctoral student, I continued my empirical research in Izsnyéte, where Hungarians represent an absolute majority against the state-forming Ukrainian ethnic group. The basic research concept was to choose a local settlement close to the border where two or three different ethnicities have lived together for decades. In my study, I examine the process of ethnicity production and the processes of image and change of the living ethnicities of the settlement and their applicability to each other in comparison with the data of previous research, reflecting on the changes, mainly in the light of assimilation. Already the results of the 2012 research showed spatial isolation, in many cases dissimilation was experienced among coexisting ethnicities, but with many other factors and aspects several years later, it caused diverse processes.
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Through the screen of the majority ...: Public opinions on the social situation of Roma and their media representation
74-92Views:33This paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey on public opinion on the social situation of Roma and their media coverage. The survey was based on the attitudes of the population towards the Roma, their perceptions and prejudices, and their perceptions of the media coverage of the Roma.
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Linguistic Landscape of Turistical Attractions in Transcarpathia
91-118Views:21The change of the linguistic landscape is a sore spot for the minority population that can be
driven out of the virtual language use. Linguistic landscape is not only indicative of the language
vitality of an area or region’s population, but can also reflect the real language ethnicity.
Extralinguistic factors are as important as the two basic functions of linguistic texts and
the models explaining the elements of the linguistic landscape. Such a factor is a small area
or region’s economic, in our case touristic development. The increased tourist demand of the
majority brings about numerous phenomena that are of significant influence on the linguistic
landscape of the minorities’ territory. This research is aimed at revealing the influence a local
economic investment makes (can make) on the formation of the territory’s linguistic landscape.
I would like to show the changes in the linguistic landscape recorded by Hodinka Antal Research Centre in its photo database of 2011–2012, February and September of 2016, as well as of 2017 on the
basis of my observations and photographs.
