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• The Effects of the 2011 Electoral Reform on the Results of the Hungarian Legislative Elections I. : Theoretical aspects of the reform

  195-209

  Levente Nagy

  Views:

  31

  The 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.

• 2019 Nyíregyháza City Council election: The Rawlsian interpretation of the local electoral reform

  67-92

  Views:

  10

  One 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.

• The Effects of the 2011 Electoral Reform on the Results of the Hungarian Legislative Elections II. –: Empirical Analysis

  89-111

  Levente Nagy

  Views:

  50

  A 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.