Living law, normative pluralism, and “fare dodging” on public transport in Budapest

Abstract

This paper explores a situation regulated by plural normative orders, which every-day public transport users and ticket inspectors experience and practice in the urban realm of the Hungarian capital city, Budapest. The paper analyses everyday interactions between members of the public and public transport staff (typically ticket inspectors) in ways which are not only regulated by formal rules, but which manifest in a non-state regulated normative order. By doing this, the paper theoretically engages with the interplay between multiple normative orders and the urban dynamics in which they operate. The norms which regulate these practices can exist because of how the public transport system operates in Budapest. The paper is based on twenty-five in-depth interviews conducted between February 2017 and March 2019 with long-term Hungarian residents and British migrants living in Budapest. A synthesis of Ehrlich’s “living law” theory and Moore’s concepts of “semi-autonomous social fields” provide the underlying theoretical framework to examine these informal interactions.

Keywords:

• Hungary
• living law
• normative pluralism
• informality
• urban dynamics

Introduction

In Budapest, the tram 4-6 is the backbone of inner-city public transport on the ground, carrying 330,000-350,000 passengers on an average working day (BKK 2022). This tram usually consists of 6 interconnected carriages with 8 doors all together, which accommodates for the flow of passengers, as there is only 2-3 min running time between the stops. On one working day morning - while I was conducting my (PhD) fieldwork on people’s perception of “everyday corruption” practices - I was travelling on this tram line. Ten minutes into my journey, I observed some movement in the carriages, which was a sign that there were ticket inspectors on the tram. It seemed that the inspectors boarded the tram at different doors, putting their badges (sashes) up after the doors closed, and started to move through the packed tram asking people to show their tickets. Some people desperately wanted to reach the machines which validate their tickets, and other people moved closer to the door, preparing for a quick exit when the tram stopped next. After 2 min of chaos, the three ticket inspectors left the tram with a passenger who failed to show his ticket. It seemed to me that some other passengers also did not have valid tickets, especially when upon exiting they started to fast-walk or even jog away, pretending that they were in a hurry. However, the inspectors disregarded them and surrounded that one man as if he was a criminal.

From an outsider’s perspective, both the passengers’ and the inspectors’ reactions and behaviour seemed curious, and there were some details that especially fascinated me: firstly, despite the numerous “fare dodgers” on the tram, only one of them was caught; secondly, most passengers seemed to have a strategy in place for the occasion, and the inspectors were not in a rush to catch as many “fare dodgers” as they could; and finally, it seemed to me that this affair was a regular part of Budapest citizen’s daily travel. Confirming this observation, my wider fieldwork on “everyday corruption” practices (which examined state-funded realms other than public transport, primarily conducted through in-depth interviews) revealed that there seems to be a whole myriad of practices existing between passengers and ticket inspectors, as well as norms that they use to navigate these interactions in the “harcmezőn” [ENG: battlefield] - as one ticket inspector called it (BKK 2021).

This paper explores the dynamic nature of using public transport without tickets, which the Hungarian research participants called “bliccelés” (which can be translated as “fare dodging”). Apart from exploring the practices of “fare dodging”, in this paper I examine how “fare dodgers” mitigated the consequences of getting caught, either by avoiding paying a fine, or negotiating a cheaper alternative solution (i.e. paying a bribe to avoid paying a fine) with the ticket inspectors. While “fare dodging” is simply non-compliance, negotiating a bribe could be regarded as corruption, however both practices might be perceived as “accepted” by the participants of these transactions (GRECO 2002, 4). “Fare dodging” on the Budapest transport system is an interesting case to delve into, because the fundamental working and set-up of the (originally) socialist transport-system itself has not changed substantially with the democratic transition. Moreover, many of its issues have not been resolved successfully, which motivates both passengers and ticket inspectors to “get things done” informally (Ledeneva 2018, vii) in certain situations. While carrying out these practices, passengers and ticket inspectors seemingly obeyed non-state norms. This paper also deals with the issue that the state law (formal norms) and other non-state norms (informal norms) are not separate from one another, but they intersect in many ways (von Benda-Beckmann and Turner 2020, 3). Therefore, this paper will answer the following research question: How does “fare dodging” in the Budapest transport system give rise to a normatively plural situation in which formal state law and other normative orders interplay?

In the introduction I have set out the aims and described the research problem and question. The rest of the paper is organised in the following manner: the next section provides a context as well as a conceptual framework, situating this paper within the study of informality in a post-socialist urban realm. Section three provides a theoretical framework of the study by suggesting a synthesis of Ehrlich’s (2002) and Moore’s (1973) theoretical work. In section four, I briefly discuss the methodological considerations. In section five I present the empirical material and its analysis, highlighting the most important findings of the study. The paper finishes with concluding remarks.

Background and conceptual framework

“Fare dodging” is a major issue for the heavily state-subsidised Budapest transport system because it causes a loss of income for the Centre for Budapest Transport [HUN: Budapest Közlekedési Központ (BKK)].¹ In 2015, the BKK’s official records showed that 2-4% of the passengers were not willing to pay for their travel, but the BKK estimates that the real number is closer to 10% of passengers, however many of these practices remain undetected (Szalai 2021).

“Fare dodging”, and the methods of avoiding the negative consequences of getting caught discussed in this paper, can be understood as informal practices that people participate in to “get things done” (Ledeneva 2018, vii) in everyday life. The characteristics of these practices are such that they are acceptable to some who participate in them, are condemned by others, and at the same time are known to many people but usually practiced covertly (Ledeneva 2018, vii). These practices are often intertwined, and therefore it is difficult to separate where informality stops, and corruption begins - especially considering that the people involved might find them acceptable. Moreover, informality and corruption are concepts that the relevant literature examines in tandem, therefore in this paper I do not categorise “fare dodging” and negotiating a bribe into either category, rather I call them informal practices. As informal practices are socially constructed, I am interested in how the norms surrounding them emerge from people’s interactions. Shore and Haller (2005, 8) suggested that when examining informal practices, researchers might find that “there are rules (informal) and cultural codes that govern the way corruption itself should or does take place”. This notion is in line with Nuijten and Anders’s (2007, 2) conceptualisation of corruption (informal practices) as being not an individual act, but a phenomenon that is embedded in the wider matrix of power-relations in society.

The Budapest transport system started as a state-subsidised and comprehensive service supporting "the path to socialist development” (Machon and Dingsdale (1989, 159). However even today, after many attempts to improve its financial sustainability, its running cost is still 67% state subsidised, while only 33% is paid by its passengers (Szalai 2021). Therefore, it appears that the Budapest transport system has the characteristics of a “dysfunctional state institution” (Morris and Polese 2016; Polese et al. 2018,13). Ledeneva et al. (2017, 12) pointed out that considering the impact of dysfunctional state institutions on people’s everyday life can lead to another understanding of informal practices, which is “problem solving”: it may be the only means of satisfying basic needs. This literature, that takes into consideration the shortcomings of the post-socialist transport system, helps me to examine the external, systemic pressures on both passengers, and on the ticket inspectors themselves, which prompt them to engage in informal practices. This means that the local context includes structural pressures stemming from the dysfunctional nature of the transport system (similarly to other centrally planned and organised state institutions under socialism e.g. health care, education).

Connecting the literature on post-socialist informality to the literature on urban studies, I call upon Lefebvre’s ([1967] 1996) concept of “right to the city”. Marcuse (2014, 5) argued that this concept can be understood as a political claim - or moral right – to demand justice and social change, and the “motor force” for this (social) change is embedded in the everyday “lived experiences” (Kozlowska 2010, 3) of all kinds of people. To contextualise Lefebvre’s concept, Marcuse (2014, 5) provided a historical background of urban development in the US and Western Europe. Although post-socialist cities have a different historical background and development, Kiss (2002, 71) argued that similar processes and changes happen in both Western post-industrial cities and post-socialist cities (like Budapest) due to the shift in world economy since the 1970s in the former, and the change in political system in 1989 in the latter. The similar processes include a common decline in the significance of industrial production while shifting the focus to knowledge-based sectors, and subsequently the decline of industrial employment, while increasing foreign interests moved into the cities (Kiss 2002, 71, Kintrea and Madgin 2019, 3). These changes naturally induced change in the everyday life of the residents, and therefore these changes also affected how public transport should be structured to support people’s daily life (Mulíček and Seidenglanz 2019, 158).

Mulíček and Seidenglanz (2019, 158) argued that public transportation is embedded deeply into the spatial and temporal settings of the city - transport routes, lines, stops, timetables, vehicles, as well as transport policies interconnect the various places of the city in space and time. Mulíček and Seidenglanz (2019, 159) suggested that Lefebvre’s concept of rhythms can help us to gain a nuanced understanding of the urban spatio-temporality of the city, and I also find it useful to explore the relationship between the urban realm and normative pluralism. Lefebvre (2004, 15) argued that “everywhere where there is interaction between a place, a time, and expenditure of energy, there is a rhythm”. This means that time and space play a role in shaping and structuring people’s “lived experience” in the city. Specifically, in this paper I will focus on how the disruption of passengers’ daily rhythm by the BKK’s attempts to reduce the financial impact of “fare dodging” affects Budapest citizens’ “lived experiences”. Lefebvre also implied the necessity of analysing the structures of power that hold back the transition of life that he envisaged in cities (Marcuse 2014, 5). Therefore, it is worth paying attention to the context, in this case specifically to the urban realm, because it allows us to consider whether there might be certain “conditions” that encourage informal practices (corruption) to thrive (Shore and Haller 2005, 2) and give rise to a normatively plural situation.

Theoretical framework

For the purpose of this paper, I use a synthesis of Moore’s (1793) concept of semi-autonomous social fields and Ehrlich’s (2002) social associations to be able to explore the socially constructed norms emerging from the interactions of passengers and ticket inspectors.

Ehrlich was one of the first scholars who pointed out the coexistence of normative pluralities (Nelken 1984, 444). Ehrlich (2002) (originally published in 1913) distinguished between the law created by the state (juristic law and statutes) and informal norms produced by non-state social associations (‘living law’). Ehrlich (2002:27) argued that ‘the living law is the law which dominates life itself even though it has not been posited in legal propositions. The contextualised interpretation (Hopman 2022,159) of this is that ‘living law’ consists of state law and non-state norms that “a plurality of human beings […], in relation with one another, recognise […] as binding, and generally at least, actually regulate their conduct according to them” (Ehrlich 2002, 83).

On the one hand this can be interpreted as Ehrlich emphasising the importance of examining non-state norms (informal norm) besides the state (formal) norms when trying to understand what people experience as ‘law’ (Hertogh 2004, 457). On the other hand, Ehrlich in a sense stressed the importance of considering the local context when examining the role and rule of state law, which is also helpful in exploring the connection between the urban realm and normatively plural situations. Additionally, I found his work suitable for analysing informal practices and their working normative orders, because Ehrlich linked “law” to the actual normative practices of groups, even when these were inconsistent with the state law (Nelken 1984, 445). To better balance Ehrlich’s theory, I propose a synthesis between his work and Moore’s “semi-autonomous social fields”.

Moore argued that more or less autonomous social fields can create their own sets of norms and sanctioning mechanisms (Nelken 1984, 451), and that state law often is mediated through these “semi-autonomous social fields” (von Benda-Beckmann and Turner 2020, 11). Moore (1973, 722) argued that the semi-autonomy of a social field lies in the fact that it can generate rules, customs, and symbols internally, and it has the means to induce or coerce compliance. Moreover, at the same time these social fields are also affected by the rules and decisions and other forces that derive from the larger world that surrounds them (Moore 1793, 722).

The synthesis between these two theories is necessary to provide an analytical framework, because Ehrlich was primarily interested in “law” as an organising principle of society that ensured social cohesion, and accepted existing hierarchies (dominations) within the social association, paying relatively little attention to conflict and disputes (von Benda-Beckmann and Turner 2020, 8). In this paper I will take into account that interactions between people in the social associations do not necessarily take place on a level playing field, and therefore it is important to consider power-relations and inequalities within the social association, where Moore’s concept of the enforcement of self-established rules (1973, 722) is helpful. Therefore, I conceptualise that the passengers and ticket inspectors interact as actors situated in a so called “semi-autonomous association”. These “semi-autonomous associations” can generate rules and coerce or induce compliance to them, which can be identified as informal, however the formal law (state-made regulations) and changing, structural power-relations can also affect its working normative order in intended and unintended ways. Moreover, I propose - inspired by Ehrlich and Moore, but not following them by letter - that the “semi-autonomous associations” can transform the function and intended purpose of the formal laws to enable its ‘members’ to use it for supporting non-compliance with other formal laws. This goes beyond Moore’s (1973, 721) conceptualisation that “various processes, that make internally generated rules effective are often also the immediate forces that dictate the mode of compliance or noncompliance to state-made legal rules” within the regarding the “semi-autonomous social fields”.

Methodology

For this specific paper I present data from twenty-five in-depth interviews conducted between February 2017 and March 2019 with long-term Hungarian residents and British migrants (arriving in the last 10 years and having spent at least 1 year in the country) living in Budapest. This is a small segment of the empirical data collected within my larger PhD project exploring long-term local residents’ and migrants’ perceptions of “everyday corruption” in Scotland and Hungary. The data collection included four shorter periods of fieldwork (7-10 days) in Hungary. I employed snow-ball sampling as the recruitment method, initially by utilising my personal contacts. I also posted a call for migrant participants on social media sites (such as ones for British expats in Budapest) to be able to recruit a more diverse group of participants. This method mitigated for the shortcomings of snowball-sampling, such as a tendency for people to recommend others ‘like themselves’. I conducted the in-depth interviews in person, in public places (e.g. cafés), and I both audio-recorded the data and took notes - unless the participant requested note-taking only, which was about one third of the participants. The interviews lasted between 45 and 90 min. The participants signed informed consent forms and are referred to by pseudonyms. The interviews were complemented by observing “everyday corruption” practices (and taking field notes) when the opportunity arose.

During the interviews I asked questions such as: how would research participants define corruption?; how did they perceive typical informal practices - whether they perceived them (on a scale) as corruption, not corruption, or something else?; which informal practices did they find ‘acceptable’ and why?; and what were the norms or rules of these informal practices according to them. In this paper I analyse research participants’ narrative accounts of them participating in “fare dodging”, as well as finding informal solution to avoid paying fines. These detailed accounts also included descriptions of the ticket inspectors’ practices. However, to gain a more nuanced and complete picture, I also searched online for reported cases in the media, and on the BKK’s own website that might shed more light on the inspectors’ narratives.

I am a Hungarian national, but I had been living in Scotland for several years when the research started, therefore I had an ‘insider’ but ‘outsider’ position with each of the groups of participants. Being a native Hungarian also meant that I was familiar with the practice of “fare dodging”, and I was able to conduct the research multilingually. When I transcribed from Hungarian to English, I thought deeply and carefully about the meaning of the sentences to produce a translated transcription that is linguistically close in a nuanced way to the original language (Gawlewicz, 2016:32).

I interviewed 13 Hungarians and 12 British migrants, aged 25 to 65, from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, with almost equal numbers of male and female participants. The migrants who participated in my research were a diverse group, however, they were generally in a good socio-economic position. This is in line with the literature on ‘lifestyle migration’ that seemed to match my collected data. Benson and O’Reilly (2009) argued that ‘lifestyle migration’ refers to people who take the decision to migrate based on their belief that there is a more fulfilling way of life available to them elsewhere.

Data presentation and analysis

In this section I present Hungarian long-term locals’ and British migrants’ perspectives side by side. I purposefully use migrants’ perspectives to gain a deeper understanding of “fare dodging” and connected practices (i.e. negotiation of bribes) and their norms. I assume that these relatively recently arrived migrants did not grow up with these specific informal norms, therefore for them learning them is a more conscious process. Similarly, migrants might identify situations when they could engage in the negotiation of a bribe in a more conscious way than the locals, therefore including their narrative accounts provides a more nuanced understanding of capturing the terms in which people understand their social life (von Benda-Beckmann and Turner 2020, 3).

Practices initiated by the passengers (justifications and power-relations)

Hungarian research participant Kamilla (female, age 35) explained that as a rule of thumb, whenever she can, she does not buy tickets when using the public transport in Budapest. This was a common answer amongst the Hungarian participants, however I was still puzzled about her categorical statement and inquired why she would engage in “fare dodging”. Kamilla gave me an answer that was centred around one of the dysfunctional features of the transport system -its having “one-price tickets”. This refers to how a normal ticket costs the same whether it is used to travel one stop or the entire length of the line, as long as the passenger does not change mode of transport. Other impedimental factors, that physically prevented (rather than being a choice) passengers buying tickets, such as “broken ticketing machines” and “the lack of ticketing machines” were also mentioned by most of my research participants, even if these issues did not necessarily affect them personally. It seemed that research participants called upon these factors to motivate the notion of referring to the informal practice as “bliccelés” [fare dodging]. This choice of word indicated that they perceived this as being “less harmful” and “lower level” than calling it for example “cheating”. Interestingly, the BKK, as well as the media, also consistently used a specific word for catching “fare dodgers” – “fülöncsíp” [ENG: caught by the ears]. This word is commonly used in the context of catching a disobedient child, which also indicates perceiving the informal practice as low-level and not harmful.

In my interpretation Kamilla’s answer was consistent with the notion that my research participants who have engaged in “fare dodging” wanted a sensible way of getting around in their city, as part of their perceived “right to the city” (Lefebvre [1967] 1996). For Kamilla, as for many other passengers, not buying a ticket was justified by the shortcomings of the system. As the conversation progressed, I pointed out that she could just avoid the issue and buy a season ticket as she uses public transport daily, living and working in the city centre. Once again, I received the categorical answer: “I could, but I just won’t”. Contemplating her own answer and flawed argument she added: “ez egy elvi kérdés” [ENG: it is a matter of principle], which means that from this angle, “fare dodging” could also be argued to be a political act.

With this statement Kamilla went beyond explaining her choice of “fare dodging” by referring to the dysfunctional features of the transport system. Rather her explanation referred to the wider political and social context, and the structural power-relation within. During our conversation Kamilla described herself as someone who came from a “polgári család” [ENG: bourgeois family] and also felt it was important to identify herself as an “értelmiségi” [ENG: intellectual]. This firstly indicates that she had the financial means to buy a ticket, and secondly that she is likely to have a political belief that makes her resent and protest against the current political system (government). In line with this, she continued to explain that she did not perceive “fare dodging” as harmful behaviour, especially compared with other informal practices, for example political corruption happening in Budapest: “they [politicians] steal everything, and it [transport] should be free anyway”. This explanation or justification shows many parallels to Lefebvre’s ([1967] 1996) call of “right to the city”. I interpret Kamilla’s action of refusing to buy tickets as a continuous challenge to the current power-relations between the city dwellers and politicians running the city. In line with this, my Hungarian research participants generally perceived that the transport system is inefficient, which is supported by frequent media news stories about the transport system being on the brink of collapse (Szalai 2021). This is coupled with the fact that other investments in the city are prioritised and funded (e.g. football stadiums, financial district, new museums, government buildings), while many issues with the transport system remain unresolved.

Many Hungarian research participants extended their justifications of “fare dodging” as being a form of resistance towards the state and formal policies, which often manifested in a claim that Budapest city dwellers have the right to free transport. As Istvan (male, age 25) put it: “I already pay tax, it should be free”. The logic behind this notion is that the transport system is subsidised from state funding (67%), therefore citizens already pay for it with their taxes. My interviews revealed that at the same time as complaining about the shortcomings of the transport system, passengers had mixed attitudes towards its development in general. When the BKK introduced the change that on some buses people could only board at the front doors, and needed to show their ticket to the driver as a pre-emptive measure against “fare dodging”, it met with city dwellers’ resistance. One of my Hungarian research participants, Laszlo (male, age 65) reflected on this measure as follows: “I have been boarding at the back door for my whole life, they can’t tell me where to go”. This is a good example of how a seemingly minor change to the transport system affected people’s everyday rhythm, and therefore it faced resistance. Due to this resistance the BKK had to abandon a widespread application of this policy and restrict it only to less busy lines at the weekends.

This raises the question of how Budapest citizens’ everyday rhythms and expectations looked like when using the transport system (Mulíček and Seidenglanz 2019, 158). Many of my research participants noted that due to the route that they took, they very rarely meet ticket inspectors, apart from at the entrances and exits of the four Metro lines (due to the lack of a barrier system). This means that many passengers expected that they could commute without the distraction of having to show their tickets, or in case of intentional “fare dodgers” (like Kamilla), validate their tickets. In line with this, when I asked Kamilla whether she had had any encounters with ticket inspectors, she answered that on her normal travel route she had met inspectors only on a few occasions. She also said that she always has a ticket “just in case”, which she can validate before she gets caught (passengers buy tickets in advance, and they are only “used” for a journey when validated at a ticket machine on the platform or vehicle). I need to highlight here that although she said she would not buy a ticket (as a principle), it turns out that she always has one, as a tool to mitigate negative consequences.

Kamilla’s description of her routine indicates alternative rules that she followed to avoid being caught for “fare dodging”. The existence of these routines and rules, and that they were more widespread than just an individual’s act, was confirmed by my own observations presented in the introduction. Similarly, British migrant participant Angus (male, age 50) said that he observed the same informal practices on many occasions: “…people just don’t validate their tickets, just standing close to the machine, and only validate it if the inspector is on board. I also saw people trying to talk their way out when they are caught, or they wouldn’t provide their ID card”. Angus also added that he was frustrated by this, because he perceived the Budapest transport system as “cheap and a good system”, but “people seem to think that it is okay to cheat”. With this description Angus provided observations of a number of practices – some of which pre-empt getting caught, and others that are employed when the “fare dodger” has been caught by the inspector. His description also indicated that these practices are frequent and have observable patterns, which points towards regarding these as practices emerging from social life, with their own rules (norms) (Ehrlich 2002, 83). Angus, in contrast to the Hungarian research participants, seemingly did not have the same negative sentiment towards the set-up and current working of the transport system, therefore he frowned upon the intentional “fare dodgers”.

So far, I have addressed when passengers purposefully did not validate tickets on the transport system, but as my research revealed there were unintentional “fare dodgers” as well. This could easily happen, because most of the transport means are accessible with an expired season ticket (due to the lack of barriers), which leads to people not noticing that they do not always have a valid product to travel with (e.g. if it has expired without them realising). Somehow contradictorily with his frustration regarding other people cheating, Angus added that he had been caught “fare dodging” once. He explained that he normally buys a monthly season ticket, however on one occasion he left it at home. He had already boarded a trolley bus when he noticed that he did not have the season ticket, but he had a normal ticket with him. However, he did not validate the ticket, because he was “only going two stops”, and he added that “I travel with the trolley all the time and I have never met a conductor before or since, so I didn’t bother… of course the ticket inspectors came {saying this in an annoyed tone}”. This confirms that he was not expecting ticket inspectors, and that his daily rhythm was distracted by them. This perceived interruption, and that he felt justified in not validating his ticket because of the short length of the journey, contribute to the notion that he is perceiving himself as being the “honest” fare dodger [HUN: tisztességes bliccelő]. He also ignored the fact that, although in the beginning he did not know that he had left his season ticket at home, upon realising it he intentionally did not validate his ticket, and as a consequence he found himself in the same situation as the people who he observed and condemned in his previous example. The notion of the “honest” fare dodger came up quite frequently, as many participants, who although on a given journey did not validate a ticket, felt that they were within their rights, because “after all they had a season ticket, just not with them”. Both Angus’ and Kamilla’s accounts highlight another issue of the dysfunctional transport system, which is the passengers’ perceptions of the low enforcement rates against “fare dodging”, since they both said that they rarely meet inspectors. Therefore, they both perceived that it is not worth validating their tickets, as they did not want to use a 1-euro ticket just to travel a very short distance.

However, even if people got caught, as Angus observed, there were ways of getting away with “fare dodging” without paying a fine, with people talking their way out the fine, or by not providing their ID cards to the inspector (which is necessary for them to issue a “additional ticket” {fine}). Kamilla also confirmed that even if she would get caught, she knows alternative solutions to avoid getting fined: “if it comes to that, I can always just walk away, you know, they can’t do anything without a ‘közterület felügyelő’ [HUN: public area inspector]”. Another Hungarian research participant, a law student, Bela (male, age 30), explained that using public transport without a valid “product” (ticket) is “a breach of contract”. However, he also confirmed that “you can just walk away… if you have the guts… they {ticket inspectors} don’t have the right to take your personal documents and they can’t touch you”. According to the state law inspectors are not “hivatalos személy” [ENG: a person with public authority], therefore if there is not such a person present, such as a “közterület felügyelő” or police officer, then they cannot hold “fare dodgers”, and cannot take their ID. This matches Angus’ description above, when he said that passengers would not provide their ID for the ticket inspector, and therefore they are not able to administer a fine. People’s right “to walk away” seems to be widely known by Budapest residents. My fieldwork revealed that all British migrant participants knew about this right, as Daniel (male, age 50) puts it: “I know that they threaten to call the police or something, but I think they just pretend to do that. If there are no police close by then they can’t do anything”. This means that calling on their rights (granted by the formal law) helped passengers to facilitate an illegitimate act of “fare dodging”. Using the state law in support of getting away with a ‘breach of contract’ is a good example of how the formal law makes a way into the working normative order of the “semi-autonomous association” that includes the passengers and the ticket inspectors, and how it has unplanned and unintended consequences, transforming the function of the formal law. I need to note that although these unintended consequences are clear to the relevant authorities, there seems to be a lack of enforcement and will to change the formal law, because as with many other state-funded institution, the focus is on ‘keeping the system running’. These accounts also highlight the issue regarding power-relations, and more specifically how they change dynamically when using public transport, and their effects on the working normative order of the “semi-autonomous association”. It can be said that as long as the ticket inspectors are not accompanied by a person with “public authority”, or cannot call on them right away, passengers can find a way to avoid paying a fine, even if they have been caught “fare dodging” (‘if they have the guts’ and do not panic). Therefore, in this situation “fare dodgers” have more power within the “semi-autonomous association”. However, when this situation changes, for example with a presence or a sudden appearance of a person with the right authority, the passengers’ power diminishes.

Practices initiated by the ticket inspectors (justifications and power-relations)

Ticket inspectors have relatively low salaries (just around the living wage) which is complemented with a bonus for each ‘ticketing’, which provides an incentive to catch “fare dodgers”. Reportedly there is an expectation that each inspector should issue at least 1,000 tickets each year (Ambrus, 2021). These factors indicate that the ticket inspectors also experience the structural pressures stemming from the current, still dysfunctional set-up of the transport system. The coming discussion will examine the strategies that ticket inspector employ to mitigate these pressures.

British migrant participant, Chandler (male, age 40), described how once he was on-board a bus, and, as he was only going a couple of stops, and there were no ticket inspectors around that he could see, he did not validate his ticket. Then to his surprise a ticket inspector appeared: “He was already on the bus, in civilian clothing, but when he saw me, he put on his BKK sash and asked for my ticket.” Chandler told the inspector that he had a ticket, but he had not validated it, admittedly hoping that he could avoid being fined by talking his way out. However, this tactic was not successful, he had to get off the bus with the ticket inspector at the next stop. “He said it will be 8000 HUF, but if I pay him now not at the office - where you normally have to pay the fine - it will be cheaper.” Chandler ended up paying 2000 HUF. Chandler added that he perceived the whole situation as “dodgy”, but “I just wanted to get on with it, regardless of whether it was dodgy or not”. He explained that later he realised that the ticket inspector was “moonlighting”: “I think it wasn’t during his working hours, and he just went out to give out some tickets and earn some money”. He arrived at this conclusion because he explained that afterwards when he replayed the situation in his mind, he realised that this single ticket inspector was already on the vehicle without the sash (their identification), which was somewhat unusual, as he put it: “They are usually moving in groups together. I think they do this to increase the pressure on people, but also so that they can observe each other”. Chandler’s description matched another case reported by the BKK’s own website as a promotional news story, advertising that “Inspector Caught an Inspector”, meaning that ticket inspectors observed a moonlighting inspector working for kenőpénz [ENG: bribes, directly translated to “money given to make things smoother”, like “oiling a machine”], who faced criminal trial (BKV 2010). The key point to make is that initiating these kinds of informal practices can have grave consequences, however these cases remain mostly undetected, because both the inspector and the “fare dodger” usually benefit from the transaction. The ticket inspector can pocket significantly more money than from the bonus that he would receive for issuing a formally registered ticket. The passenger also benefits, because they pay significantly less than they would have to if they were formally fined. This implies that there was a self-enforcing mechanism of the transaction, that is partly based on its mutual benefit aspect, and partly on the power of the threat that actors might report the transaction to the relevant authorities (Li, 2018:640). Another key point is that the inspectors’ action of trying to make income on the side points to the dysfunctionality of the transport system, and specifically to two factors: (1) ticket inspectors’ salaries are low, and although they get a bonus after each ticketing, they can make 4 times more by initiating informal payments; and (2) travelling in a legitimate way on the extensive transport system is controlled by manpower, rather than other solutions, such as for example a barrier-system.

Chandler also mentioned the perceived pressure that the ticket inspectors apply, by moving in groups. Many other participants described how ticket inspectors’ demeanour is generally intimidating. Although in the previous section I have presented different ways in which passengers can get away with “fare dodging”, inspectors’ powers of intimidation cannot be underestimated. One of the Hungarian research participants, Levente (male, age 25), described his general experience with ticket inspectors as the following: “They boarded the bus last, blocking the doors so nobody could escape, and as soon as the door closed they put on their “Nazi badges”, and then they started to move around saying “jegyeket- berletek” [HUN: tickets and season passes] {mimicking the inspectors in a forceful voice}”. Other research participants, like British migrant John (male, age 50), also described the ticket inspectors’ method in a similar way: “… and I saw this guy boarding the bus and putting on the badge, and I am like “oh no”… you know how they do it, just when bus door closes”. To explain the significance of this, I have to note that ticket inspectors are supposed to put on their sash (at other times travelling in civilian clothes) before boarding according to the formal regulations of the BKK. Therefore, deviating from this is a seemingly minor, but effective, informal way to catch and intimidate “fare dodging” passengers. Levente went as far as referring to the inspectors’ sashes as “Nazi badges”, associating their behaviour with oppression. Similarly, some research participants described tickets inspectors’ appearance on public transport with negative connotations, almost disgust, saying that they “razziaznak” [ENG: they are on a “razzia” (sudden, unexpected, violent raid)]. Likewise, Hungarian research participant Anna (female, age 30) said: “‘összeszorul a gyomrom’ [ENG: my heart sinks] if I see them, even if I have ticket”. This confirms that these Budapest residents often felt that their everyday rhythm was disrupted by the ticket inspectors. This feeling of disruption matches the working patterns of the ticket inspectors, which is devised to have the maximum impact of surprise by regularly changing the inspected modes of transports and travel routes, as well as the time of inspection (BKK 2021). Additionally, inspectors work in groups of three, which means that their presence and behaviour can intimidate passengers and apply pressure on people. Inspectors’ power of intimidation has the implication that, even if in principle the “fare dodgers” could “just walk away” (as it is within their rights), it requires someone “having the guts” to do so, as was remarked by Hungarian research participant Bela in the previous section. While being in a group granted ‘power’ of persuasion to the ticket inspectors by applying pressure and intimidation, in other situations – as the following example will show – they chose a different strategy of persuasion.

Hungarian research participant, Jozsef (male, age 45) said that when he was caught “fare dodging” on the tram, he had to leave the tram with only one of the inspectors, while the others continued their journey. Jozsef continued to explain as follows:

After filling in the form [to issue the fine] she [the ticket inspector] sighed, looked up, and said something along the lines that she would do me a favour: She would destroy her note of my personal data and I could pay half price. She said that she was a single mother and that it was tough for her as well.

This quote highlights that power-relations are not straight forward and can change with the situation. Jozsef was caught by a group of ticket inspectors, and at this point the power-relations were in favour of the inspectors. He had to leave the tram with one of the inspectors to pay the fine. However as soon as the inspectors were separated this provided a possibility for a situation when an informal transaction could take place, which in this case was initiated by the ticket inspector. Seemingly, the power-relations still supported the ticket inspector to issue a fine, because Joszef did not “walk away”, and provided the necessary information, however suddenly the ticket inspector was appealing to him to pay a bribe. She did this both by saying that she was doing Jozsef a favour, and by justifying her action and gaining the sympathy of Jozsef by saying that she was a single mother. This means that at this point Jozsef had more power in deciding what action to take. This example highlights how ticket inspectors and passengers were aware of the same norms, and when the situation allowed for it, they were able to come to informal arrangements following these norms.

The norms of negotiating “kenőpénz” [bribe]

The two sections above have already hinted that often there is a possibility to solve things “in another (clever) way” [HUN: megoldjuk okosba] for a “fare dodger” who gets caught. The method of negotiation was described by many of my research participants through detailed narrative accounts, for example, as Hungarian participant Andrea (female, age 30) put it: “the ticket inspector suggested that we could solve it ‘here and now’ [megoldhatjuk itt a helyszínen]. But he was unlucky, because I didn’t have that much cash, in the end he was happy with 1000 HUF…he even gave me a ticket…”. Many of the transactions presented in the previous section demonstrated that the ticket inspectors and the “fare dodgers” in relation with one another recognised certain rules as binding, and in general actually regulated their conduct according to them (Ehrlich 2002, 83), and also that these informal norms were supported by (a version of) some formal laws regulating the same interactions. In my interpretation many research participants perceived the possibility of negotiating a cheaper price (in the form of a bribe) as a usual, normal part of the operation of the “semi-autonomous association”. As Hungarian participant, Janos (male, age 35) put it: “of course they pocketed the money…but this is just how they operate…it’s normal”. British migrant participant Angus (male, age 50) had a subtly different take on explaining the existence of these practices: “it is just the way how things are done, so I just go along with it”. This means that both Janos and Angus considered the possibility of negotiating a bribe as a “normal” part of the everyday reality of the transport system in Budapest, however Angus implied that he does not necessarily agree with them or find them acceptable, but rather he learnt to deal with them and engage in the same practices using the same rules as the locals.

During our interview I asked British research participant, Rachel (female, age 35), whether she came across any practices in Budapest that puzzled her. In response she described a situation which happened to her when her mother was visiting. When they were travelling on one of the Metro lines, a group of ticket inspectors singled them out and asked for their tickets. Rachel explained that she always had a season ticket, so she was fine, but the inspectors indicated that there was a problem with her mother’s ticket, although they could not explain to Rachel adequately what the problem was (Rachel understands Hungarian). Rachel continued to describe the situation as the following: “they said that we can pay the fine now, or we can go to the public transport office and pay there”. Rachel said that although she was not convinced that there was any problem with the ticket, she did not want to argue. She told the inspectors to provide an invoice for the fine and she would pay it later at the public transport office. Rachel continued to explain as follows: “then they said that it is cheaper if I pay them. Then I suspected that they just wanted to get some money from us”. Rachel told them that she did not have cash with her. “In the end they just let us go…it was so strange”. While Rachel was not quite sure what happened, she understood that she was in a situation where she was expected to pay informally, and navigated the situation by claiming that she did not have cash with her, which seems to have diffused the inspectors’ attempt to make some money informally. Based on Rachel’s detailed narrative account, there were subtle indications of the inspectors’ intentions from the beginning of the conversation, such as setting up more and less favourable payment options. Rachel was not receptive to these offers, and employed one of the negotiation techniques unintentionally, by asking for an invoice. In this situation Rachel and her mother were faced with a group of ticket inspectors who tried to apply pressure on them to pay a bribe. I need to point out that Rachel’s situation was slightly different to what the other British migrants described. It can be assumed that the ticket inspector perceived that she and her mother were tourists (they probably heard them speaking in English) and therefore they saw them as an easy target to extort money, as they would not know the formal rules. In the other cases described above, British migrants were not specifically targeted, and were treated the same way as the Hungarian passengers.

The interviews revealed that many of the “fare dodgers” not only called on the state law to avoid being fined all together, but also utilised formal norms to negotiate the amount of the bribe that the ticket inspector requested. This happened by asking for either an invoice or a receipt when they suspected that the ticket inspector wanted to “pocket the fine”. British migrant research participant, John (male, age 50), talked about one of his experiences when a ticket inspector was “open for negotiation”. John was “fare dodging”, because he did not want to validate a ticket when travelling only a few stops on the tram. He described his conversation with the ticket inspector as the following:

So he tells me that I have to go to the public transport office and pay 10,000 HUF, or I can pay right now, and it is cheaper, 5,000 HUF. I am like, okay, I pay here, but could you give me a receipt? Receipt? No receipt! I am like okay, then I go to the office and pay there, because I would need a receipt. So in the end I only paid 3,000 HUF {sounding proud}.

The situation described by John is very similar to the one that Rachel and her mother were faced with. At first, the ticket inspector set out the worst option that could happen according to many passengers’ perception, which is needing to go to the transport office and to pay the full amount of the fine. Apart from the higher amount of the fine, having to physically go to the office makes this option less attractive, because it also demands that the “fare dodger” sacrifice their free time. However, the inspector presented John with a better and more favourable option, which was to settle the fine then and there, and also pay less. This was a call to engage in an informal negotiation of the bribe. While Rachel suspected that this was the case, she did not engage, but John was open to using informal ways to settle the matter. He found the price too high, and therefore asked for a receipt, which he knew the inspector could not provide if he wanted to pocket the money. It is worth noting that John’s account also demonstrates the thrill of the negotiation, and the fact that he was proud that he only had to pay less than one third of the formal fine. In John’s situation the power-relation seemed to be equal between the ticket inspector and the “fare dodger”, as both wanted to get things done informally.

Another feature of the transport system’s ticketing policy, which allows unintentional “fare dodgers” to take and show their season ticket at the administrative office (only paying an ‘administrative fee’, instead of a fine), seemed to be another formal rule that helped to facilitate the negotiation of bribes. Hungarian research participant Andras (male, age 35) said that he left his season ticket at home, and the ticket inspector caught him when travelling on one of the Metro lines. He explained the situation to the ticket inspector, but it did not help his situation:

He [the ticket inspector] said that I had to pay the cost of my travel, but I said that I wouldn’t pay. Then he told me that he would call the police, or I could choose to pay the 2,000 HUF, which is the administrative cost for showing the valid season ticket in the public transport office [HUN: utólagos bérlet bemutatás].

Andras explained that at first, he did not understand why he should pay the administrative cost now, but then he realised what the ticket inspector was implying, and therefore he asked directly: “do you want me to give you 2,000 HUF? And he was like: It wasn’t me saying it [HUN: nem én mondtam]… I thought about it a bit, but I gave him 1,500 HUF and I said goodbye”. In this situation the formal law was used in different, unintended and transformed ways by the members of the “semi-autonomous association”. At first, when Andras refused to pay, he called on his “right to walk away”, but this was mitigated by the inspector threatening to call the police. However, referring to the formal law was just used as an excuse to ask for an informal payment. Interestingly the inspector referred to the formal regulation (the administrative cost) to specify the amount of the bribe. The inspector’s call for an informal payment was so subtle that Andras almost did not understand it, and had to ask for clarification directly. With this direct questioning he broke the rules that required subtlety in the negotiation, and this put the ticket inspector on the spot, who answered by denying that this was what he had implied, and pretending that Andras had initiated the transaction. Andras’ behaviour changed the power-relations between them, and it enabled Andras to give less money than the inspector requested.

The three different accounts from the British migrants and the Hungarian participant highlight the subtlety of engaging in these informal practices. First, they show that the participants of the transactions need to have a full understanding of the norms of the negotiation, and secondly, they need to have an adequate “performative competence”. The performative aspects of these interactions included hidden or implicit codes, gestures, and language (Blundo, 2017, 3). It seemed that in these transactions the subtlety of wording was important, and understanding as well as properly conducting them can lead to the success or failure of the transaction (Nuijten and Anders 2007, 17). Specifically in the Hungarian context, Jancsics (2013, 330) identified communication strategies in carrying out informal (everyday corrupt) transactions. There were different ways of initiating a corrupt exchange that Jancsics (2013, 330) observed, such as asking questions with a double-meaning as a “mating dance”, as opposed to the practice of “asking it openly”. The inspectors’ intentions had to be communicated subtly, because they needed to find out whether the “fare dodger” was willing to pay informally, therefore the performative aspects of these transactions can also be described as a “mating dance”. This subtlety is necessary, because even if in principle this informal practice is “good for everyone”, if a ticket inspector is reported it can have severe consequences, such as facing criminal trial, and the self-reporting can have negative consequences for the passenger as well. This feature is the basis of the self-enforcing mechanism of compliance of the “semi-autonomous association” as both the briber and the bribed may be incentivised to report the practice to the authorities (Li, 2018, 640). Therefore the “mating-dance” can be seen as part of the process of how the “semi-autonomous association” operates, because both actors need to find out in a subtle way whether the other person is opposed to such practices (corruption), and whether this suggestion provides them with a strong reason and opportunity to take it to the relevant authorities. The other key point is that this self-enforcing mechanism is dependent on the perceived threat of the possibility of calling on the formal rules.

Conclusion

The central research question of this paper was: How does “fare dodging” in the Budapest transport system give rise to a normatively plural situation in which formal state law and other normative orders interplay? To answer this question, I explained which features of the Budapest transport system encouraged the emergence of a normatively plural situation between the passengers and ticket inspectors. I discussed the practices initiated by the passengers and ticket inspectors separately in order to be able to gain a deeper understanding of people’s justifications for engaging in them, and following different normative order(s) to the formal law.

I found that many of these justifications provided by both ‘fare dodgers’ and ticket inspectors pointed towards the dysfunctional features of the transport system. This was another indication that the passengers and the ticket inspectors are not necessarily in conflict representing two opposing sides, but rather they are both affected by structural pressures. Since “fare dodgers” and ticket inspectors are both faced with similar issues emerging from the (urban) context, they find ways to solve the problems “in another way” [HUN: megoldjuk okosba], which are “beneficial for everyone”, rather than following the formal (state) generated rules. Therefore, it can be concluded that the dysfunctional features of the Budapest transport system greatly contributed to the rise of this normatively plural situation.

I argued that Lefebvre’s concepts (Lefebvre [1967] 1996, 2004) of “right to the city” and rhythm can provide a suitable framework to gain a nuanced understanding of the connection between passengers’ justifications and the context of the urban realm. The data revealed that many of my research participants felt that the power-relations in the city of Budapest should be changed and challenged in order to improve the transportation system. For many of the participants this improvement meant the ability to travel in a sensible way (e.g. to be able to buy tickets, have a barrier system, differentiate ticket price depending on the length of journey), but others were of the opinion that transportation should be free as it is already heavily subsidised by state funding (which is the tax-payers money). These notions can be understood as having a right to have a sensible travel experience, and the right to have free transport within the city. Passengers’ aspirations to improve the transport system, and dislikes of the system were in line with the informal practices that they engaged in, for example purposefully not validating tickets for a short journey, which can be understood as resisting and challenging the current system. The data revealed that although British migrants equally engaged in “fare dodging” and could even negotiate paying a bribe instead of a fine, their explanations lacked justifying participating in these practices by referring to the wider political environment, which was very common for the Hungarian participants.

I also showed that many Budapest residents felt that their daily rhythm was disturbed by the methods of how the ticket inspector’s institution and working patterns were set up. This resulted in negative feelings towards the ticket inspectors directly, and towards the transport system indirectly. When analysing the data, I also showed the importance of the changing power-relations between the ticket inspectors and “fare dodgers”. I argued that the power-relations affected whether a ‘fare dodger’ could avoid paying a fine, the “way of negotiation of the bribe”, and “the amount of bribe” that the inspector could ask for. My data showed that in many cases the power-relations were not in line with the power-relations assumed by the formal law, and additionally in other cases strictly following the formal law created a situation when the inspector’s power was undermined.

This paper presented a specific case, situated in the urban realm of the post-socialist Budapest, which focused on the features of the transport system that encouraged the emergence of a normatively plural situation. This research was a small-scale and in-depth qualitative study, and the main limitation was that I did not interview ticket inspectors. Therefore, for future research, it would be advantageous to conduct a larger-scale qualitative survey with passengers as well as to explore ticket inspectors’ and public transport stakeholders’ explanations on certain, puzzling issues. This would reveal how passengers and ticket inspectors experienced the formal law and it might help to devise policies and practical ways to improve the transport system and reduce “fare dodging”.

I argued that the passengers and the ticket inspectors can be considered as members of the same “semi-autonomous associations”. I suggested a synthesis of Ehrlich’s ‘living law’ and Moore’s “semi-autonomous social fields” to use as a theoretical framework for the data analysis. The semi-autonomy came from the fact that both the passengers and the ticket inspectors used some formal state norms to either support “fare dodging” (and avoiding a fine all together), or to negotiate the amount of the bribe, when the opportunities presented themselves. Asking for a bribe and paying a bribe seemed to indicate the shared norm in this “semi-autonomous association”, i.e. that it is acceptable to settle matters outside the formal norms. The use of “semi-autonomous social fields” enabled me to show the different normative orders in play, and how, for example, from the perspective of one normative order “fare dodging” is an act of noncompliance, but from the perspective of another normative order it can be understood as a justifiable act of defiance, and exercising their “right to the city” .In most situations when informal negotiations could take place, it required the ticket inspector operating on a one-to-one basis with the “fare dodger” (as they normally move in groups of three). The data showed that ticket inspectors most likely gave each other the opportunity to develop these situations, and by doing this, changed the power-relations purposefully in order to be able to negotiate on a more equal footing with the passenger.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The BKK is a state-funded institution as it owned by Budapest Council. The regulations set out by the BKK are also understood as formal (state) law for the purposes of this paper.