Post-Socialist Hungary Research Articles

Captured by Political Power: More-Than-Neoliberal Urban Development and Planning in Post-Socialist Hungary

By critically reflecting on the concept of “post-socialist neoliberalism” proposed by this thematic issue, we argue against the widely assumed hegemony of neoliberalism, not just in the post-socialist context, but anywhere. We suggest taking features that do not fit in the narratives of neoliberalism seriously and highlighting more-than-neoliberal rationales, too. We present cases from the literature focusing on post-socialist and illiberal contexts, especially in Hungary. As the critical reading of the literature and the secondary and primary data about Hungary shows, narratives of capitalist class domination and accumulation can be less than adequate. The maintenance of clientelist or neopatrimonial relations dominated by political power with politically created rents is a separate issue. Therefore, instead of assuming “in the last instance” determination by neoliberalism, which is only camouflaged with theoretically irrelevant contextual issues, we argue for the examination of neopatrimonial relations besides neoliberalism to better understand the mechanisms behind urban development. In doing so, we can explain how power is maintained without actual development, how corruption as a mode of rule is politically accepted, and why political struggles need to consider other aspects besides fighting capitalist class domination.

Recognition at the corporate celebration of Christmas: Freezing the postsocialist gender regime

This article critically examines the perpetuation of gender regimes within postsocialist Europe by analyzing how organizational recognition is performed as part of the corporate celebration of Christmas. A critical ethnography was conducted at a male-dominated company in postsocialist Hungary. The article’s findings align with three corporate Christmas scenes: the company owner’s speech, an award ceremony for families, and an award ceremony for the best employee. This study contributes to critical organization studies by advancing an understanding of the postsocialist gender regime and those ideological forms of recognition that invisibly reproduce it through the seemingly innocent practices of Christmas celebrations. Furthermore, by providing a critical reconceptualization of workplace familism as an ideology, it is argued that it is a central and distinctive element of the gendered subtext of this particular postsocialist gender regime. Ultimately, three different and ritualized forms of pathological recognition (misrecognition, overidentification and reification) are identified, claiming to be constitutive of individual gender identity regulation and extending socioideological control beyond the boundaries of the organization.

Taxation and the Polanyian forms of integration in socialist and postsocialist Hungary

AbstractReciprocity, redistribution, and (market) exchange were the “forms of integration” put forward by Karl Polanyi as a “special tool box” to investigate relations between economy and society where the principle of price‐forming markets is not (yet) dominant. Though intended as the basis for a comparative alternative to the universalist assumptions of mainstream (neoclassical) economics, Polanyi did not make significant use of these concepts to analyze the noncapitalist societies of his day. This article investigates his Hungarian homeland, which in four decades of socialism evolved from Stalinist central planning to a mixed economy in which (re)distribution was supplemented by the expansion of market exchange, with personal taxation playing a negligible role. The constellation of (re)distribution and market has changed significantly in the postsocialist (neoliberal) era, but Scandinavian‐type societal reciprocity has remained elusive. Long after admission to the European Union, Hungarian fiscal and social policy regimes are distinctive as the market form of integration combines with low taxation and political interventions to (re)distribute resources (including transfer income from the EU) to support the formation of a national bourgeoisie. Theoretically, the perspective of the socialist Karl Polanyi is contrasted with that of the liberal institutionalist economist János Kornai.

From a Small Village to an Exclusive Gated Community: Unplanned Suburbanisation and Local Sovereignty in Post-Socialist Hungary

In Hungary, after the regime change in 1989, one of the most important institutional changes concerning suburbanisation was the high sovereignty of local authorities, albeit without appropriate funding for sovereign operation. This type of local sovereignty made mezzo-level planning and cooperation of independent municipalities ineffective. The inherent systemic political corruption of the rapid post-socialist privatisation hindered spontaneous cooperation as well. As a result, suburban infrastructure, even in municipalities with high-status residents, remained underdeveloped (from traffic connections through waste management to water provision). Our research field, Telki, was successful in selling land because its scenic location and the absence of industrial and commercial activities made it attractive for high-status suburban settlers. These newcomers were not interested in the further functional development of the village, and, as they took local political power, they successfully restricted economic and functional development. Consequently, selling land and introducing property taxes remained the most important source of income. The colonisation of the village by newcomers also meant the displacement of lower status original villagers and, today, mostly high-status families with young children feel at home in Telki. Others feel excluded not only because of real estate prices but also by the lack of appropriate functions or simply by the narrow concept of an appropriate lifestyle in the village defined by local power. The consequence of a complete lack of cooperation and rational planning is not only social injustice, elite segregation, and environmental harm, but also the reduced economic and housing potential of the Budapest agglomeration.

News Coverage of Domestic Violence in Post-Socialist Hungary: Shifts in Meaning and the Gender Aspect

ABSTRACT This paper discusses, with the help of a CDA-based, historically comparative multiple case study, how news media portrayals of domestic violence have shifted in Hungary as the country’s sociopolitical structure has changed between 2002 and 2013, and how the aspect of gender has been gradually introduced and recognized as a structural element of violence, in line with shifting constructions of victimhood. It attempts at illustrating how domestic violence was brought into public attention in a Central-Eastern European country that, for political-historical reasons, has traditionally been hostile to feminism, and also delineating an alternative trajectory for issue-formation and -development, one that was characteristically different from how the domestic violence originally emerged into public attention in Anglo-American societies in the 1970s.

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary. By Maya Nadkarni. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020. xv, 234 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Glossary. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. Notes. $28.95, paper.

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary. By Maya Nadkarni. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020. xv, 234 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Glossary. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. Notes. $28.95, paper. - Volume 81 Issue 1

Comparative study of labour market development in post-socialist Hungary and Azerbaijan since 1990

Comparative study of labour market development in post-socialist Hungary and Azerbaijan since 1990

Nadkarni, M.: Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary

Nadkarni, M.: Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary

Nostalgia as double-edged sword: Australian-Hungarians reclaim lost belonging in post-socialist Hungary

ABSTRACT Based on multi-sited ethnography, this article examines the return visits of Australian-Hungarian diaspora subjects after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In particular, it explores how nostalgia becomes an instrument for navigating the ambiguities, paradoxes, and disappointments of return and forging new and creative relationships with the home country. I argue that as much as nostalgia has contributed to the shattering of returnees’ illusions in the face of ‘reality’ upon returning, it has also helped them to facilitate deeper feelings of immersion with their home country. In this way, this article elucidates the restorative properties of nostalgia for identity and belonging.

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary by Maya Nadkarni

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary by Maya Nadkarni

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary by MayaNadkarniIthaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. 234 pp.

Remains of Socialism: Memory and the Futures of the Past in Postsocialist Hungary by MayaNadkarniIthaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. 234 pp.

Set for Success: Hollywood Runaway Productions in Socialist and Post-socialist Hungary

Set for Success: Hollywood Runaway Productions in Socialist and Post-socialist Hungary

Access to urban green spaces and environmental inequality in post-socialist cities

Access to urban green spaces and environmental inequalities are increasingly on the agenda in contemporary cities due to increasing density of people, widening social inequalities, and limited access to Urban Green Spaces (UGS). This is even so in post-socialist cities where recent urban sprawl and suburbanisation could be strongly linked to the scarcity of adequate green spaces in the inner-parts of cities. This paper examines the provision and accessibility of public green spaces in Debrecen, a second tier city in post-socialist Hungary, with applying a walking distance approach. Using GIS technology and socio-demographic data of residents the study assesses the availability and accessibility of green spaces in the city, and their social equity. According to research results the geographical distribution of UGS is very uneven in the city, some neighbourhoods lack public green spaces, while others are well-supplied. This is partly due to the natural environment and the post-WWII development of the city. Research findings show that the quality of residential green spaces is generally poor or very poor. Research also confirmed the widening environmental inequalities within the local society. New upmarket residential areas, where the wealthiest section of population reside are rich in high-quality (private) green spaces. Other lower-status neighbourhoods, including some of the socialist housing estates, suffer from the lack of good quality green spaces. Authors argue that environmental justice should be a core concept of city-planning considering not only the officially designated public green spaces, but also other forms of urban green (institutional, private etc.).

Community gardens in post-socialist Hungary: Differences and similarities

Interest of scholars in community gardens has skyrocketed recently. However, little is known about how community gardens are adopted in post-socialist countries and what modifications took place. The present article aims to identify spatial differences and management practices of gardens organized in Hungary from a critical geography perspective. The paper presents the findings of a nationwide research based on online research and interviewing including 44 community gardens. Results show that in contrast to the gardens in the USA, these located in Hungary are organized on the peripheries (of cities) and local governments play a significant role in organizing and managing them.

How risky debt became ordinary: A practice theoretical approach

Existing research on how consumers experience increasing debt as normal focuses on the shifting moral meanings surrounding debt. Examining rapid mortgage debt escalation in post-socialist Hungary, we propose a different approach. Using practice theory, we identify credit use as ‘ordinary consumption’: a non-expressive practice which enables other, meaningful practices; akin to energy use. Like energy, credit is channelled by background infrastructures, such as mortgage instruments. We find that mortgage debt grew and became ‘naturalized’ through the co-evolution of practices associated with a ‘normal life’ centred on the home on the one hand, and of available mortgage instruments on the other. This process did not change what debt means but stripped its meanings, making debt increasingly unreflected and invisible. We argue that this invisibility is not a natural characteristic of mortgages but a contested quality. High-risk mortgages became invisible through particular selling devices and discourses that positioned mortgages as ‘expert goods’, to be preselected and installed by qualified advisers. Emphasising the socio-material structuring of this process, we conclude by integrating the meaning-laden and unreflected credit practices into a new theoretical framework, as contingent qualities of credit consumption.

Rebound Effect, Fast Adaptation to Social Change or Cultural Continuity among Two Generations of Hungarians

The aim of the present research was to reveal what kind of values, self-conceptualisation and beliefs of personhood characterize two generations of Hungarians, almost three decades after the socio-political changes from socialism to capitalist market economy. Participants were high school students (N = 239) and adults (N = 122). Value-orientation was measured using the Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ, Schwartz et al, 2001), beliefs of personhood were measured by the Lay Contextualism Scale (Owe et al., 2013). Self-construals were measured in case of the high school students by using 23 items from Gudykunst et al. (1996) self-construal scale and in case of the adults a modified version of it (Owe et al., 2013). Results indicate that in the post-socialist Hungary, individualistic values and independent self-concept strongly characterize both the high school students and the adults, but the younger generation displays higher tendency towards individualism.

The Impact of Host-Country Political Risk on Multinationals’ political Strategy Development

The paper investigates how high levels of political risk in a host market’s institutional context influences MNE subsidiaries’ corporate political activity (CPA) strategy. Existing studies have found that subsidiaries facing high-risk contexts prefer a non-engaged approach to CPA, by exercising ‘no exit’ and ‘no voice’ strategies. Based on interviews with business leaders in post-socialist Hungary – a context characterised by high political risk – we present contradictory evidence. We find that subsidiaries – do not limit their strategic responses to non-engagement but use a variety of different engaged and non-engaged strategies to maintain their position in the high-risk host market, but these strategies differ from the traditional ‘voice’ strategies used in low-risk contexts. The paper identifies five different strategic choices: 1. Active responsiveness, 2. Passive responsiveness, 3. A non-responsive strategy of ‘dormancy’, 4. Restructuring to avoid being ‘bought up’ or pushed out of the market and 5. Exit, when firms leave the country. We theorise about the determinants of non-market strategic choices in high-risk environments and suggest that existing theories need to be expanded by applying an institutional legitimacy perspective to political risk.

Humans no more: apocalypse and the post-socialist condition in Frozen May

The article aims to analyse how post-apocalyptic fiction is used in a recent Hungarian film to describe a post-socialist condition which is defined by a nonhuman presence. As Péter Lichter’s debut feature film Fagyott május/Frozen May (2017) is rooted both in genre and experimental cinema, the paper focuses on its dychotomic structure and its connections both with Hungarian cinema and literature. I will argue that Frozen May and other recent Hungarian films examining the topic of apocalypse offer a new interpretation of the condition of post-socialist Hungary. Due to its local historical-cultural references and concept of ‘alternative regime change’, the paper will also examine Attila Veres’s debut novel Odakint sötétebb/Darker Outside (2017).

Legal infrastructures: How laws matter in the organization of new markets

Research into the creation of markets highlights the importance of law-making, seen to express relations between stakeholders in emerging organizational fields. Less understood is the role of existing regulation, despite related work on path-dependency. We unpack the role of extant laws by analysing consecutive attempts to establish the mortgage market in post-socialist Hungary, mobilizing the anthropology of law and actor-network methods. Based on interviews and archival documents, we find, first, that existing laws exert agency in the market-building process not only through abstract legal ‘traditions’ but through technical features which may resist the market arrangements proposed by political-economic coalitions. Second, the resistance of law can vary based on whether its spokespersons (guardians of legal consistency) become ‘market engineers’ under specific organizational configurations. We theorize this agency with the concept of ‘legal infrastructure’, and show how it acts as a non-human organizer of markets, ensuring compatibility across the economy.