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Based on unprecedented access to information, Government and Politics in Hungary provides not only a historical overview but also an analysis of the main political actors, constitution, electoral system, parliament and political parties of Hungary.This timely and detailed analysis contains a wealth of important data which serves two major objectives. The first is to survey the most important institutions of the political and governmental systems and the cultural and behavioural characteristics of Hungarian politics. The second, is to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the two-way relationship between cultural-behavioural and constitutional-institutional levels of politics in Hungary. The book challenges many stereotypes of post-communist political literature and reveals why Hungarian politics does not fit into many of the generalizations and 'pigeon holes' of contemporary political science

Annotation "Based on unprecedented access to information, Government and Politics in Hungary provides not only a historical overview but also an analysis of the main political actors, constitution, electoral system, parliament and political parties of Hungary." "This timely and detailed analysis contains a wealth of important data which serves two major objectives. The first is to survey the most important institutions of the political and governmental systems and the cultural and behavioural characteristics of Hungarian politics. The second, is to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the two-way relationship between cultural-behavioural and constitutional-institutional levels of politics in Hungary." "The book challenges many stereotypes of post-communist political literature and reveals why Hungarian politics does not fit into many of the generalisations and 'pigeon holes' of contemporary political science."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Most political science interpretations of the post-2010 Orbán regime have been written either within the framework of populism or in the democratization paradigm. We have learned much from these papers about Hungary's drift in an authoritarian direction, but they also have drawbacks. This article aims to fill the gap between these two approaches and offers a theoretical framework to analyze the impact of populism and other trends of contemporary politics (like de-alignment, growing electoral volatility, citizens' disengagement, personalization, legitimacy problems, the decline of party membership and partisanship, the mediatization of politics, etc.) on the political regime. It argues that these trends add up to an authority and regime type that can be conceptualized by Weber's concept of plebiscitary leader democracy (PLD). PLD forms a new hybrid regime type that differs from comparative authoritarianism and other hybrid regime types known from the literature in three respects. First, PLD is less about institutional framework and procedures than about the sources of legitimacy; second, it serves better to understand how the regime works than measuring its distance from liberal democracy; third, it is an ideal type that aims to reveal the endogenous logic of democracy that generates authoritarian elements of the regime. The article also demonstrates the suitability of the concept of PLD for empirical research through presenting a structured case study of the Orbán regime. The PLD model enables us to reveal the endogenous logic of the Orbán regime and the impact of populist governance on it.

The market analogy of democracy played a central role in one of the leading versions of democratic theory in the last fifty years, in the so-called 'elite' or 'competitive' theory of democracy. In the present paper, 1 first clarify that the dominant school of the market analogy (Downs and his followers) turned its back on the approach of the originator of the analogy, Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter argued that both economic and political competition - due to the activity of entrepreneurs - are necessarily monopolistic and destroy equilibrium. Second, I show how followers of the Schumpeterian market analogy improved upon it by using the concept of natural monopolies and making it conform to the characteristics of politics, while further distancing themselves from Downsian interpretation and the dominant Public Choice approach. Finally, I demonstrate a normative implication of monopolistic competition, namely its consequences for the concept of 'agency loss'.

"The market analogy of democracy played a central role in one of the leading versions of democratic theory in the last fifty years, in the so-called 'elite' or 'competitive' theory of democracy. In the present paper, 1 first clarify that the dominant school of the market analogy (Downs and his followers) turned its back on the approach of the originator of the analogy, Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter argued that both economic and political competition - due to the activity of entrepreneurs - are necessarily monopolistic and destroy equilibrium. Second, I show how followers of the Schumpeterian market analogy improved upon it by using the concept of natural monopolies and making it conform to the characteristics of politics, while further distancing themselves from Downsian interpretation and the dominant Public Choice approach. Finally, I demonstrate a normative implication of monopolistic competition, namely its consequences for the concept of 'agency loss'." (author's abstract)

"Joseph Schumpeter entwickelte eine berühmte Kritik über die klassische Demokratietheorie, wobei er die Grundhypothesen der Theorie ablehnte. Dieser Artikel will die Widersprüche erläutern, die die innere Logik der Aggregativen Theorie der Demokratie schwächen. Erstens wird erläutert, dass im Gegensatz zur Beschreibung der Wirtschaft durch die Equilibrium-Theorie in der Volkswirtschaftlehre, die Welt der Politik durch Disequilibrium gekennzeichnet ist. Es wird gezeigt, wie Multidimensionalität und Rikers Heresthetik die Rahmenbedingungen des Medianwählermodells widerlegen. Zweitens wird in Anlehnung an die Saliency-Theorie und an Susan Stokes' 'Changing Calculus of Support'-Hypothese, ein neues Modell der demokratischen Konkurrenz dargestellt, welches das Problem des politischen Ungleichgewichts aufgreift und eine Alternative zum Medianwählermodell repräsentiert. Das 'Changing Calculus'-Modell erklärt das Wesen politischer Prozesse und trägt damit zum Verständnis der Zusammenhänge zwischen politischer FührerInnenschaft, politischen Wissens und der politischen Situation bei. Drittens untersucht der Artikel eine wichtige, normative Folge des 'Changing Calculus-Modells'. Die Manipulation der Agenda und der Urteilsdimension durch politische AkteurInnen schwächt den Wirkungsmechanismus des 'Friedrich's Law'." (Autorenreferat)

AbstractThe essay focuses on the neglected problem of democratic politics, i.e. on the role of leadership. Although in democracies public office holders are controlled to a certain extent, leaders still have wide room for political manoeuvre and decide without any 'instruction' of the citizens. Re-working Weber's and Schumpeter's theory, the author aims to build the model of leader democracy. He highlights the major traits of it in a comparison with the deliberative and the aggregative–utilitarian concepts of democratic theory. The theory of leader democracy is applied to the problem of representation, which, in contrast to mechanical mirroring, gains a new, dynamic and qualitative meaning.