Hungary’S U-Turn

János Kornai

Society and Economy, 2015, vol. 37, issue 3, 279-329

Abstract: For two decades Hungary, like the other Eastern European countries, followed a general policy of establishing and strengthening the institutions of democracy, rule of law, and a market economy based on private property. However, since the elections of 2010, when Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party came to power, Hungary has made a dramatic U-turn. This article investigates the different spheres of society: political institutions, the rule of law, and the influence of state and market on one another, as well as the world of ideology (education, science and art), and describes the U-turn’s implications for these fields and the effect it has on the life of people. It argues against the frequent misunderstandings in the interpretation and evaluation of the Hungarian situation, pointing out some typical intellectual fallacies. It draws attention to the dangers of strengthening nationalism, and to the ambivalence evident in Hungarian foreign policy, and looks into the relationship between Hungary and the Western world, particularly the European Union. Finally, it outlines the possible scenarios resulting from future developments in the Hungarian situation.

Keywords: Hungary; democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
Note: The paper is a signifi cantly expanded version of the one published in Capitalism and Society (Volume 10: Issue 2, article 1, 2015, available online at http://capitalism.columbia.edu/ journal/10/2) and Élet és Irodalom (April 3, 2015, in Hungarian). The main text of this expanded version is identical with that of the paper published in Capitalism and Society. The footnotes attached to the original text appear here as endnotes and have been supplemented with numerous additions. The list of references following the original main text has been complemented with a large number of new items.
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.akademiai.com/doi/pdf/10.1556/204.2015.37.3.1 (application/pdf)
subscription

Related works:
Working Paper: Hungary's U-Turn (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aka:soceco:v:37:y:2015:i:3:p:279-329

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Akadémiai Kiadó Zrt., P. O. Box 245, H-1519 Budapest, Hungary
https://akjournals.com/

Access Statistics for this article

Society and Economy is currently edited by Szent-Iványi, Balázs

More articles in Society and Economy from Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kriston, Orsolya ().