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• Hopes and concerns of democratization: Ideas about popular vote in Hungarian political discourse 1985–1989

  5-27

  Anna Unger

  Views:

  85

  The article analyzes the political discourse concerning direct democracy between 1985–89, when the issue of introducing popular vote at local and national level became relevant, both as a general institutional reform of political decision-making, and as the result of some major initiatives launched by social movements. The analysis covers the related law journal articles, party-state documents, the writings of political and intellectual elites (including the opposition), and the wider public (mainly daily and weekly newspapers). The discourse analysis is based on the academic literature of direct democracy and some new aspects, like the timing of introducing direct democracy, its role and perspectives, the consideration of threats and benefits, and the relevance of international examples as possible models for reform. The paper finds that the opposition and the party-state regarded the introduction of popular vote differently: while the emerging opposition emphasised the function of controling the state power by popular votes, the party-state expected to stop shrinking its social legitimacy. Meanwhile, general public seemed to be indifferent about this remarkable democratic reform.

• Debunking Myths about the American Presidential Elections of 2016 and Failures in the Social Sciences

  51-61

  Eric Beckett Weaver

  Views:

  36

  Throughout 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