On Civil Society and the Social Economy in Hungary

Júlia Szalai,Sara Svensson

doi:10.17356/ieejsp.v4i4.471

Júlia Szalai, Sara Svensson

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v4i4.471

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Abstract

While the development of civil society organisations in Hungary has been impressive in terms of number and diversity, its influence has remained limited on policy-making. Administrative attempts to draw civil society under tight regulation and control have produced a blurring of the boundaries between the civil and the public spheres that, in turn, has impaired the independent voice and criticism of civil society. Therefore, economic acts based on solidarity and originating from civil society do not automatically form or increase a ‘social economy’ but become as contested by and as intermingled with political developments as other acts of civil society. This development also has affected the profile of civil activities: against the earlier impressive weight of anti-poverty, anti-racist and human rights engagements, the ‘non-risky’ activities of sports and leisure services have come to domination. A turn toward declining participation is a warning sign of the decreasing contribution of civil society to everyday democracy.

Highlights

Against the backdrop of the continuous European ‘crises’ that have accompanied the European project through much of the early 21st century, academic and policyoriented attention to alternative modes of economic production have increased
A literature review of all articles in leading scholarly journals published in Hungary in the fields of political science and sociology since 2010 did not result in any articles directly dealing with social economy, and surprisingly few focusing on civil society non-state actions in various parts appear in many scholarly analyses
We find it probable that intense ongoing thinking around the issues of civil society and social economy means that more material exists as conference papers and workshop contributions that are less accessible to the scholarly community and the general public

Summary

Introduction

Against the backdrop of the continuous European ‘crises’ that have accompanied the European project through much of the early 21st century, academic and policyoriented attention to alternative modes of economic production have increased. In 2012, the European Commission published an authoritative definition of the social economy that was meant to orient funding and decision-making of the ever more diversified sphere, it focused on the financial and managerial aspects of the embraced activities: ‘[The social economy is a] set of private, formally-organised enterprises, with autonomy and freedom of membership, created to meet their members’ needs through the market by providing services, insurance and finance, where decision-making and any distribution of profits or surpluses among the members are not directly linked to capital or fees contributed by each member’ (European Commission, 2012) While this definition importantly influenced privatepublic cooperation and assisted legislation within the nation-states, increased diversity of the sphere and the need for better incorporating social innovation as a distinctive contribution of its services and production inspired new scholarly work to further develop and refine the concept of the social economy. Third: in addition to its productive role, the social economy is a significant terrain of democratic relations and policy-making

The policy environment of civil society organisations in Hungary

Access of civil society to political decision-making

On the finances

The Policy Environment of the Social Economy

Findings

Conclusions