Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article helps to better understand the role orientations of the Central European Members of the European Parliament, the factors that influence their strategies, and the relationship between their roles and activities. Based on the results of a quantitative survey research with MEPs from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia in the 2009–2014 term, I argue that it is possible to explain the political roles of MEPs by their attitudes towards politics and policy, and the territorial focus of representation (European vs. national level). Due to the internal mechanisms of the EP and its position in the multi-level governance system of European politics, these two dimensions represent dilemmas that all MEPs face, when it comes to the efficient use of their scarce resources: time and energy. This study demonstrates that socio-demographic factors, attitudes and political socialization all have an influence on what roles MEPs choose. The time spent in the EP, age, previous political experience, party affiliation, left-right self-definition and career ambitions are all important factors that can explain the political behavior of MEPs. The Central European MEPs' focus on politics vs. policy and the European vs. national political arena have different roots, and different variables explain them. Orientation towards politics and policy largely depends on previous political experience and future career ambitions. Focus on the European or the national level is best explained by age, party affiliation and left-right self-definition.

This paper investigates the impact of Central European MEPs on party cohesion in the European Parliament. By applying the principal-agent theory, it is also analyzed how loyal are the MEPs of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to their European political groups and national parties. The empirical research carried out in this study demonstrates that the Central European MEPs have not brought more division to their political groups, but have been loyal members of their European parties. The Central European MEPs have not weakened the cohesion of the EP party groups, but party cohesion was even further strengthened between 2004 and 2014. Cohesion is the strongest in the biggest parliamentary groups. EPP and S&D set the direction for most politicians on most occasions. Clear 'rebel' cases, when national parties as a whole went against their European political groups are not more than 2-3 percent of all votes in the two biggest European political families. National parties have a bigger room of maneuver in the smaller political groups. In ECR and GUE-NGL the difference between loyalty to the national party and the European party group is significantly higher than in EPP and S&D.

1. Introduction -- 2. The Visegrád discomfort: understanding the predicaments of and the prospects for progressivism -- 3. The state of social democracy in the Czech Republic -- 4. The state of social democracy in Hungary -- 5. The state of social democracy in Poland -- 6. The state of social democracy in Slovakia.

Abstract
While studies of the formal adaptation of parliaments to the European Union (EU) have dominated legislative scholarship in the last two decades, there is a growing interest in the substantive impact of the EU on legislative production and parliamentary behaviour. We contribute to this research agenda by exploring the effects of Europeanisation on the national parliament of one democratically backsliding EU member state, Hungary. Comparing periods marked by Europhile and Eurosceptic parliamentary majorities between 2004 and 2018 shows that governmental attitudes towards the EU are not reflected in parliamentary law-making and that parliamentary attention is mainly influenced by the level of Europeanisation of the policy field. This shows that backsliding governments do not generally oppose greater integration and underscores the necessity to distinguish between rhetorical Euroscepticism and Eurosceptic legislative action.

Empirical research about the European Union's impact on domestic public policy has been largely missing from academic research about Hungary. By presenting the results of analysis of three new databases, the aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the EU on Hungarian public policy between 2004 and 2018. The three aspects covered in this article are the Europeanization of law-making in the Hungarian parliament, the implementation of country-specific recommendations issued by the European Commission, and the similarities and differences between different governments in terms of handling infringement procedures. Our results show that the interaction between the Hungarian government (and in general, V4 governments) and the EU is much less conflictual at the policy level than what some high-profile political conflicts might suggest.

This paper examines the extent to which Visegrad countries take into account country-specific recommendations received within the framework of the European Semester, and the level of implementation experienced in the region as compared to that in the European Union. Based on a database created by using assessments of the European Commission's annual country reports, we discuss not only the national-level implementation of recommendations within a term of one year, but also their long-term implementation. According to the annual assessments, the four Visegrad countries all belong to the second half of the field for the EU as a whole, with slightly below 'some progress' achieved in implementing recommendations. However, the impact of EU recommendations on the public policy decisions of Member States is much greater in the longer term than annual assessments can show. Important proof of this statement is that, over a multi-annual period, the Orbán government took measures addressing nearly two-thirds of EU recommendations, which were assessed as at least 'some progress' by the European Commission. In overall terms, this study demonstrates that European integration can make an impact on Member States not only through hard, binding instruments and exclusive powers, but also in a softer way, through public policy coordination.

A Magyarország és az Európai Unió közötti viszonyról szóló közbeszédben és tudományos kutatásokban egyaránt háttérbe szorult eddig az uniós tagság következményeként hozott nemzeti szintű közpolitikai döntések empirikus vizsgálata. Három új adatbázis elemzésével arra teszünk kísérletet, hogy válaszokat adjunk arra a kérdésre, milyen hatással volt a magyar közpolitikára az uniós tagság 2004 és 2018 között. Áttekintjük, mekkora hatással volt az EU a magyar jogalkotásra, milyen mértékben teljesítette a magyar kormány az Európai Bizottságtól érkező közpolitikai ajánlásokat, és bemutatjuk, milyen hasonlóságok és különbségek vannak a különböző kormányok között a kötelezettségszegési eljárások terén. Eredményeink azt mutatják, hogy a közpolitikai szintű együttműködés az aktuálpolitikai viszonynál jóval gördülékenyebb a magyar kormány (és általában a V4-ek), illetve az EU között.

AbstractThis paper has put forward a new indicator based on the "ABC‐model" of attitudes designed to capture individual‐level Euroscepticism. We constructed a composite anti‐EU score based on affective, behavioural and cognitive sub‐indices. The study analyses data from a representative, countrywide Hungarian public opinion research. Looking for the drivers of anti‐EU attitudes, we took an integrative approach linking various theories of voting behaviour, Euroscepticism and populism studies. Our research showed that subjective well‐being significantly reduces anti‐EU attitudes. We found some empirical support for the "left behind thesis" in the Hungarian context, as severe economic grievances and fear of losing social status explained anti‐EU attitudes. Authoritarian traits turned out to be a major driver of Euroscepticism in Hungary. We proved that cosmopolitan values reduce affective and cognitive anti‐EU attitudes, but foreign experience and some international ties significantly correlated with anti‐EU stance. We confirmed that being a supporter of the governing Fidesz party and sharing culturally right‐wing political views significantly increase anti‐EU attitudes. We also revealed that partisanship's effect is strengthened by affective polarization and political interest.

This article investigates the perceptions of the European Union's policy impact by revealing the Hungarian public's awareness of the European Union's domestic policy influence and its attitudes towards Europeanisation. The study is based on descriptive and regression analyses of cross-sectional survey data. With respect to general knowledge about the European Union, as well as knowledge about the competences of the European Union and the member states, we found that slightly more than a third of the respondents can be classified as well-informed. We observed indications of "wishful thinking" about Europeanisation, as there was a significant correlation between the perceived and desired levels of policy integration. Respondents were more likely to support the EU integration of those policies that are in fact Europeanised to a larger extent. Pro-government supporters and voters of right-wing identity have a lower probability of supporting EU integration of policies. Although the classic "referendum question" suggests that the public support of Hungary's EU membership is stable, our results demonstrate that there are major limitations to the willingness of Hungarian society to support further integration and a policy favouring national sovereignty has strong roots in society. The divisions in society we found with respect to the distribution of policy competences between the European Union and Hungary lead us to conclude that the debates about the future of the European Union will likely continue to polarise Hungarian public opinion in the future.

This research explores the determinants of vaccine hesitancy during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. This article utilizes data from in-person public opinion research conducted in Hungary (March 2021, N = 1000). Government supporters, older people (60 +) and COVID-19 survivors were more likely to accept vaccination, but these variables lose significance, once controlling for personal fears and pandemic-related attitudes. COVID-19 related fears and precautious behavior reduce, while general level of fears increase the probability of vaccine hesitancy. Fear from partner's aggression and higher levels of financial security negatively correlate with vaccine hesitancy. Our study separately analyzes the effect of various pandemic-related conspiratorial beliefs on vaccine hesitancy. All analyzed false beliefs have a significant positive effect on vaccine hesitancy, but the strongest predictors are vaccine-related conspiracy theories ("microchip" and "population control" theories) and virus denial.

E tanulmány a magyar társadalom tudását és preferenciáit térképezi fel az Európai Unió közpolitikai hatásáról. A kutatás keresztmetszeti kérdőíves adatok leíró és regressziós elemzésére épül. Az általános EU-s ismeretekre, illetve az uniós és a tagállami hatáskörökre vonatkozó tudás terén is megállapítható, hogy a megkérdezettek bő harmada tekinthető tájékozottnak. A magyarok többsége nem rendelkezik tehát megfelelő tudással arról, hogy valójában milyen területeken van befolyása az Európai Uniónak a hazai folyamatokra. A kormánypárti választóknak szignifi kánsan alacsonyabb az általános EU-s tudásszintje, mint az ellenzéki szavazóknak, de a szakpolitikai tudásszint terén fordított a helyzet. Ennek oka, hogy a fi deszes választók kevesebb szakterületről gondolják, hogy tagállami irányítás alatt áll, mint az ellenzéki szimpatizánsok, és ez az érzet közelebb áll az EU és a tagállamok közötti valós hatáskörmegosztáshoz. Eredményeink megerősítik, hogy a kormánypártiság és a jobboldali öndefi níció negatív hatással van az integráció további mélyítéséről alkotott véleményekre. Fontos továbbá, hogy azon szakterületeken, amelyeken Magyarország uniós csatlakozása óta tényszerűen a legnagyobb arányban vannak jelen az európai eredetű jogszabályok, az EU befolyásának támogatottsága is magasabb. Tanulmányunk rámutat arra is, hogy az integráció további mélyítésének komoly korlátai lehetnek a magyar társadalomban, és erős bázisa van a nemzeti szuverenitás politikájának. Az általunk vizsgált 19 közpolitikai területből 8 olyan terület van, ahol a magyarok abszolút többsége szuverenista állásponton van, míg 9 szakpolitika esetén az integrációpártiak vannak abszolút többségben, a bevándorlás és az egészségügy kérdésében pedig egyik oldalnak sincs többsége. Emellett kiemelendő, hogy az Európai Unió kizárólagos hatáskörébe csak a magyar társadalom igen kis része utalna döntéseket: az Európai Egyesült Államok támogatói minden közpolitikai területen 10%-nál kevesebben vannak. A hatásköri kérdésekben tapasztalható megosztottság azt jelzi előre, hogy az EU jövőjével kapcsolatos viták is polarizálhatják a jövőben a magyar közvéleményt.