Suchergebnisse

The aim of the paper is to highlight the main characteristics of the recent Hungarian public administration reform, as well as to reveal the inconsistent nature of some of its elements and to describe the connected risks. The starting point of the article is the Magyary Zoltán public administration development programme. The reform steps are compared to the ideal type NPM approach. The Hungarian public administration reform can be characterized by strong centralization and the revitalization of Hungarian anti-liberal traditions at macro level, and by the support of the enhancement of market rules and management at micro level.

"In this volume, leading social scientists, empirical analysts, and policy practitioners demonstrate the various ways in which the insights of János Kornai, a renowned early analyst and critic of the command economies of Eastern European communist states, are stirring academic and policy discussions about current challenges. While dissecting the economic theories and practices in the Soviet Bloc, Kornai devised and applied concepts such as soft-budget constraints, rush versus harmonic growth, surplus versus shortage economy, non-Walrasian equilibrium, bureaucratic coordination, and the invisible power of the communist party. These concepts are commonly applied to a variety of issues in the contexts of fundamental transformation. The cases discussed in this volume include the transitional paths of postcommunist economies, the pitfalls of East European market-building, economic repercussions of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the process of integration in the Eurozone. The volume concludes with János Kornai's remarks about the value of democracy and other research topics, delivered at the conference celebrating his 90th birthday in February, 2018"--

What do the diametrically opposite tendencies in the height of the North Korean and South Korean population over the past sixty years, the paternalism in the current pension systems, and the Greek crisis have in common? Readers should not promptly reply "nothing", as Constraints and Driving Forces in Economic Systems shows. The contributions to this volume analysing various topics actually all discuss the same point: the forces driving development and the constraints hindering progress in economic systems and subsystems

AbstractIn the European Union right-wing and left-wing populist parties are increasingly becoming stronger. Meanwhile in Central and Eastern Europe autocracies are emerging and becoming stabilized. Italy and Hungary are two notable examples of these processes. Italy is the only country in Western Europe where a coalition of purely populist parties won an election, while Hungary has the most mature autocracy in the European Union. By using survey methodology, we examined the preferences of Hungarian and Italian students regarding the values of liberal democracy. We seek answers to the questions whether there are any significant differences between the proportion of Hungarian students and Italian students who identify themselves with the values of liberal democracy and which of these values of liberal democracy they consider to be protected values. Based on our results, we claim that students from both countries are more likely to support liberal democratic values than to support either right-wing or left-wing populist values, even if the distributions of the two groups differ significantly. We found that Italian students adhere more strongly to liberal democratic values, while Hungarians are more open to left-wing and right-wing populism. Our results confirm that in Hungary, because of the values that many people hold, conditions are conducive for establishing a sustainable autocracy, while in Italy, the demand for such a system is much weaker.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Comparative studies exploring the national differences of mainstream public management frameworks and methods have been requested for long by scholars and practitioners alike. Preliminary results of a recent survey within the CO-VAL research program (https://www.co-val.eu) involving six European countries suggest that such differences exist in the field of public sector innovation and value co-creation too. The objective of the paper is to disclose those political and cultural factors that can be partly or fully accounted for the sometimes rather divergent survey results of Hungary compared to the other five countries. These results are as follows: (1) much less completed public sector innovations than the average (2) much less direct user involvement in the innovation process than the average (3) much less input to the innovations from outside the public sector (except ICT firms). In addition, the widespread practice of non-visible (and sometimes forced) innovation and co-creation aiming at an acceptable service level will be presented, based on prior research. METHODOLOGY: Besides the CO-VAL survey and prior research mentioned above, detailed description of the recent political regime (often called "illiberal" state) and the resulting public administration practice will be applied as the basis of discussion, together with the conclusions of large-scale national culture studies, especially those of the GLOBE project (https://globeproject.com/). EXPECTED RESULTS: The authors assume that some possible determinants of the observed innovation and co-creation patterns are political: the over-centralization of the institutional system and the decisions within the organizations, the strong politicization of public administration issues, the dominant legal approach (within the preset political limits), and the lack of resources (even mandatory tasks are hardly covered). Other influencing factors, however, seem to be cultural in nature (and as such, are even more difficult to change): the very high power distance and very low institutional collectivism indices of the nation as well as its higher than worldwide average score in group collectivism. Since quasi-autocratic political systems are not unique even within the EU anymore and the cultural characteristics of Hungary are rather similar to the rest of Central-Eastern Europe, these results might be generalized for other countries as well.

AbstractThis introduction to the Kornai 90 Symposium briefly overviews János Kornai's rich scholarship with the aim of highlighting those features of Kornai's work that are of particular interest to institutional economists. Above all, the introduction browses through some of his main works, such asOvercentralization,Anti-Equilibrium, andEconomics of Shortage, with a special emphasis on the soft budget constraint,The Socialist System, and Kornai's latest writings on Hungary's U-turn. We invoke the political contexts of these works to suggest their impact on Kornai's diverse questions, changing methods, and the constraint they put on his conclusions as well as on the reception of the research results. In the end, we underline that Kornai was an independent scholar with an interest in a variety of methods and approaches, who nevertheless, or maybe consequently, had a remarkable impact on the thinking of social scientists and practitioners alike. The four papers presented in the symposium are testimonies to the living impact of Kornai'soeuvreon institutionalist analysis today.

The study attempts to reveal the doctrinal foundations of Hungary's sweeping sub-national governance reforms (SGRs) that took place in the period 2010-2014. It compares actual SGRs with internationally mainstream doctrines of major contemporary reform, to determine the extent to and the ways in which Hungarian SGRs are a mixture of these trends as opposed to being a novel paradigm of its own. The study concludes that Hungary's reform path substantially diverges from all three major reform paradigms examined—that is, New Public Management, New Public Governance, and the Neo-Weberian State. We end with the proposition that this deviation is not of an unintended or accidental nature; rather, it seems to be part of a coherent and rationally pursued vision of (sub-national) governance, possibly referred to as "illiberal."

"In this volume, leading social scientists, empirical analysts, and policy practitioners demonstrate the various ways in which the insights of János Kornai, a renowned early analyst and critic of the command economies of Eastern European communist states, are stirring academic and policy discussions about current challenges. While dissecting the economic theories and practices in the Soviet Bloc, Kornai devised and applied concepts such as soft-budget constraints, rush versus harmonic growth, surplus versus shortage economy, non-Walrasian equilibrium, bureaucratic coordination, and the invisible power of the communist party. These concepts are commonly applied to a variety of issues in the contexts of fundamental transformation. The cases discussed in this volume include the transitional paths of postcommunist economies, the pitfalls of East European market-building, economic repercussions of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the process of integration in the Eurozone. The volume concludes with János Kornai's remarks about the value of democracy and other research topics, delivered at the conference celebrating his 90th birthday in February, 2018"--

Leading social scientists, empirical analysts, and policy practitioners demonstrate the various ways in which the insights of János Kornai, a renowned early analyst and critic of the command economies of Eastern European communist states, are stirring academic and policy discussions about current challenges. While dissecting the economic theories and practices in the Soviet Bloc, Kornai devised and applied concepts such as soft-budget constraints, rush versus harmonic growth, surplus versus shortage economy, non-Walrasian equilibrium, bureaucratic coordination, and the invisible power of the communist party. These concepts are commonly applied to a variety of issues in the contexts of fundamental transformation. The cases discussed in this volume include the transitional paths of post-communist economies, the pitfalls of East European market-building, economic repercussions of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the process of integration in the Eurozone. In conclusion János Kornai's thoughts on a variety of research topics as well as the value of democracy are included as he delivered at the conference celebrating his 90th birthday in 2018

International audience ; In the context of the modernization of public management in Europe, the attention paid to social entrepreneurs for innovation is increasingly important. This paper reveals that these actors significantly contribute to the development of collaborative governance aimed at improving social innovation related to public service through their role as initiator, boundary spanner or network leader. However, the public sector actors involved in the governance also have a significant role to play in enabling these innovations to emerge. This paper analyzes the forms and processes of innovation taken by this multi-actors collaborative governance. It is based on the study of 25 case studies associated with five countries of the European Union.

International audience ; In the context of the modernization of public management in Europe, the attention paid to social entrepreneurs for innovation is increasingly important. This paper reveals that these actors significantly contribute to the development of collaborative governance aimed at improving social innovation related to public service through their role as initiator, boundary spanner or network leader. However, the public sector actors involved in the governance also have a significant role to play in enabling these innovations to emerge. This paper analyzes the forms and processes of innovation taken by this multi-actors collaborative governance. It is based on the study of 25 case studies associated with five countries of the European Union.