THE POWER OF THE WEAK: POLITICAL PARTIES IN HUNGARY

Autori analiziraju razvoj i snagu političkih stranaka kao aktera u procesima demokratske tranzicije i konsolidacije u Mađarskoj. Pri tome polaze od teze da su političke stranke u postkomunističkim zemljama suočene s istim konkurentima u političkoj areni kao i stranke na Zapadu – od snažnih interesnih grupa, preko sve jače tržišne borbe i nadnacionalnih medija, do državne administracije. Autori zaključuju da su stranke u Mađarskoj, premda ne tako stabilne i bez razvijene stranačke organizacije i članstva, ipak u dominantnom položaju u oblikovanju i kontroli političkih procesa. Razlog za to vide ponajprije u činjenici da stranački sustav sustavno proizvodi izrazito kompetitivne izbore, s jasno izraženim vladinim alternativama, te snažnom vezom među rezultatima izbora i sastavom vlade. Kako su u položaju da oblikuju trenutni politički i društveni preobražaj svojih zemalja, političke stranke imaju izvanrednu mogućnost da sui generis uspostavljaju stranački poredak u društvu, zaključuju autori.The authors analyse the evolution and the strength of the political parties as actors in the processes of democratic transition and consolidation in Hungary. Their starting point is that the political parties in transitional countries are faced with the same rivals in the political arena as the parties in the West: powerful interest groups, the increasing market competition, the supranational media, and the state administration. The authors conclude that the parties in Hungary, though not as stable and as developed, are nevertheless dominant in shaping and controlling the political processes in that country. The reason for that primarily lies in the fact that the party system systematically generates very competitive elections, clear alternations of the parties in power, and a strong link between the electoral outcomes and the government composition. Being in the position to shape the contemporary political and social transformation of their countries, these political parties find themselves in an excellent position to sui generis set up party systems in their societies

Public Service Motivation: a rationalist critique

There has been significant and growing interest and empirical research around Public Service Motivation (PSM) in recent years. There are few critiques of the construct, and none from a rationalist perspective. Given that the origins of PSM lie in attempts by public administration scholars to counter rationalist explanations of bureaucratic behaviour, this lack of a counter-criticism is surprising. This article provides a rationalist critique of PSM. It argues that PSM is consistent with, not an alternative to, rationalist understandings of what motivates individuals. It also argues that a significant gap in the PSM literature is around how civil servants and others make decisions; decisions about the public interest, and thus how and when to allocate public resources. By seeing PSM as consistent with rationality, and specifically as a form of expressive interests, answers many of the remaining questions about PSM and addresses the substantive gaps in the construct

Party system closure and openness: conceptualization, operationalization and validation

The degree of closure of the governmental arena is a central aspect of the stabilization of party systems, and yet little systematic effort has been devoted to its operationalization. The article proposes a new index, examines its reliability and validity, and reports the ranking of 60 party systems. By redefining the units of measurement we suggest new indicators that are uniform and transparent in their logic of construction, can be applied both to specific government-changes and to time periods, and are sensitive to the degree of change. The article finds a hierarchy among the components of party system closure, dominated by coalition formula. While new and established democracies can both produced closed patterns, the analysis of inter-war European party systems shows that closed systems are less prone to authoritarian takeover. The article demonstrates the power of inertia: the completely closed configurations stand out as the most durable ones

Romania - Polity Contestation and the Resilience of Mainstream Parties

ERC POLCON project funded