Opening up to the "Third World" or taking a detour to the "West"? : the Hungarian presence in Algeria from the 1960s to the 1980s

Hungary’s opening up to the world did not start with the disintegration of the Eastern bloc, rather, it had begun as early as the 1960s. By considering the example of Algerian-Hungarian relationships, the present study investigates Hungary’s participation in globalization from the 1960s to the 1980s. Hungarian-Algerian relations reveal an increasing number and rate of contacts from the 1960s. What common or differing motivations and standpoints led the Hungarian partici-pants (decision makers, companies, individual experts) to build these relationships during their activities linked to Algeria? To what extent was this a form of anti-colonial solidarity or, at least, cooperation against “the West,” and to what extent was it merely a matter of business? In what ways and frameworks did the Hungarian experts working in Algeria in the intersecting spaces of different cultures interpret their own experiences? The study constats, that from the mid-1960s to approximately the mid-1980s, Hungarian “intellectual export” was beneficial for both parties. The basis of cooperation was not opposition to the globalization of West-centered capitalism but rather a common notion of modernization, the top-down led projects of which received an export of experts from Hungary

A magyar szociálpolitika nemzetközi beágyazottsága : tudástranszfer és eredményei Magyarországon 1945 előtt

The study explores the connection between Hungarian social policy discourse and international knowledge production related to social issues in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. According to present analysis the experts developing the Compulsory Sickness Insurance Act of 1891 in Hungary intended it as part of a social engineering plan, as a preventive measure against problems they expected to become more severe in the upcoming years, as industrialization was still in its infancy in the country. As large-scale industry and welfare institutions developed, social policy (especially in 1907 and 1927-28) became a battleground of different parties with varying interests, therefore we can no longer talk about the relatively free adaptation of international knowledge, which characterized the initial steps in the creation of the welfare system. The study reveals that participation in the international transfers of knowledge required experts, whose professional and partially political position was created due to the participation in the transfer. The essay presents how social policy experts succeeded in transferring international knowledge in the field to Hungary, developing relations with the political elite, and contributing to social policymaking through these relations. This account also challenges the notion that in the final decades of dualism the government’s liberalism became “self-preserving”, as the political elite was receptive towards the input of social policy experts and was ready to handle the social issues emerging with industrialization by creating new institutions. Finally, the study examines the channels of knowledge transfer established by Hungary’s membership in the International Labour Organization (ILO) between the two World Wars, and the international social policy guidelines which were adopted into Hungarian legislation due to the country’s ILO membership