The Dog that Did Not Bark? Assessing the Impact of the EU on Party Politics in Hungary

Abstract

The literature on the impact of the EU on parties and party systems has not resolved the debate on how we should measure the scale or significance of changes in domestic politics, and indeed what sort of changes should be seen as EU-induced. Applied to the Hungarian case, existing indicators suggest that while, given the need to contest European elections, some inevitable adaptation occurred on the level of the parties, on the level of the party system the impact of European integration has been rather limited. Although an EU connection is detectable in a number of important political developments in recent times, these EU-related factors at most added to the cumulative impact of a range of other influences. A broader implication is that research strategies that start from an assumption of the existence of a link between changes in domestic politics and European integration may well overstate the case for Europeanization.

Notes

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories (London: Geoffrey Cumberlege–Oxford University Press World Classics, 1951), p.25.

Europeanization carries multiple meanings in the literature. Here it simply refers to the impact of European integration on domestic politics; that is, as Poguntke et al. suggest, the European level is taken as a possible explanatory factor for changes at the national level: see generally Thomas Poguntke, Nicholas Aylott, Robert Ladrech and Kurt Richard Luther, ‘The Europeanization of National Party Organizations: A Conceptual Analysis’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol.46, No.6 (2007), pp.747–71.

See Whitefield and Rohrschneider's contribution to this volume.

See, for example, Karen Henderson, ‘Exceptionalism or Convergence? Euroscepticism and Party Systems in Central and Eastern Europe’, in Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart (eds.), Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp.103–25; Robert Ladrech, ‘Europeanization and the Variable Influence of the EU: National Parties and Party Systems in Western and Eastern Europe’, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, Vol.10, No.2 (2008), pp.139–50.

Peter Mair, ‘The Limited Impact of Europe on National Party Systems’, West European Politics, Vol.23, No.4 (2000), pp.27–51.

Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt, ‘Nine Second Order National Elections: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol.8, No.1 (1980), pp.3–44.

Paul Lewis, ‘The EU and Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: Questions and Issues’, in Paul Lewis and Zdenka Mansfeldová (eds.), The European Union and Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006), pp.1–16; Zsolt Enyedi and Paul Lewis, ‘The Impact of the European Union on Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe’, in Lewis and Mansfeldová (eds.), The European Union and Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe, pp.231–49; Agnes Batory, The Politics of EU Accession: Ideology, Party Strategy and the European Question in Hungary (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008).

Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak, ‘Europeanization, Euroscepticism and Party Systems: Party-based Euroscepticism in the EU Candidate Countries of Central and Eastern Europe’, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Vol.3, No.1 (2002), pp.23–41; Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak, ‘Contemporary Euroscepticism in the Party System of the EU Candidate States of Central and Eastern Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol.43, No.1 (2004), pp.1–27.

Michael Merlingen, Cas Mudde and Ulrich Sedelmeier, ‘The Right and the Righteous? European Norms, Domestic Politics and the Sanctions against Austria’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.39, No.1 (2001), pp.59–77.

There is some scholarly controversy over how much the EU really mattered. See, for instance, Geoffrey Pridham, ‘Coalition Behaviour in New Democracies of Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Slovakia’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.18, No.2 (2002), pp.75–102; and Tim Haughton, ‘What Does the Case of Slovakia Tell Us about the EU's Active Leverage?’, paper presented to the EUSA Biennial Conference, Montreal, 17–19 May 2007.

Taggart and Szczerbiak, ‘Europeanization, Euroscepticism’; Pridham, ‘Coalition Behaviour’.

Robert Ladrech, ‘Europeanization and Political Parties: A Framework for Analysis’, Party Politics, Vol.8, No.4 (2002), pp.389–403; Poguntke et al., ‘The Europeanization of National Party Organizations’.

Ladrech, ‘Europeanization and Political Parties’.

Poguntke et al., ‘The Europeanization of National Party Organizations’, p.749.

Enyedi and Lewis, ‘The Impact of the European Union’.

Mair, ‘The Limited Impact’.

Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart, ‘Theorizing Party-based Euroscepticism: Problems of Definition, Measurement and Causality’, in Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart (eds.), Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism: Vol. II: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp.238–63 (p.256).

Lewis, ‘The EU and Party Politics’.

Ibid., p.2.

Enyedi and Lewis, ‘The Impact of the European Union’.

Klaus Goetz, ‘European Integration and National Executives: A Cause in Search of an Effect?’, in Klaus Goetz and Simon Hix (eds.), Europeanised Politics? European Integration and National Political Systems (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp.211–31.

Ladrech, ‘Europeanization and Political Parties’, p.396, emphasis added.

Paul Taggart, ‘A Touchstone of Dissent: Euroscepticism in Contemporary Western European Party Systems’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol.33, No.3 (1998), pp.363–88.

Taggart and Szczerbiak, ‘Europeanization, Euroscepticism’; and Taggart and Szczerbiak, ‘Contemporary Euroscepticism’.

For example, in Ladrech, ‘Europeanization and Political Parties’.

For example, Gary Marks and Carole Wilson, ‘The Past in the Present: A Cleavage Theory of Party Response to European Integration’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol.30, No.3 (2000), pp.433–59; Gary Marks, Liesbet Hooghe, Moira Nelson and Erica Edwards, ‘Party Competition and European Integration: Different Structure, Same Causality’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol.39, No.2 (2006), pp.155–75; Nick Sitter, ‘The Politics of Opposition and European Integration in Scandinavia: Is Euro-scepticism a Government–Opposition Dynamic?’, West European Politics, Vol.24, No.4 (2001), pp.22–39.

Lewis, ‘The EU and Party Politics’.

For more on the strategic use of European issues see Haughton and Rybář in this collection.

See Stephen Whitefield and Robert Rohrschneider's contribution to this collection.

Szonda Ipsos poll quoted in Brigid Fowler, ‘Hungary: Unpicking the Permissive Consensus’, West European Politics, Vol.27, No.4 (2004), pp.624–51 (p.642).

Brigid Fowler, ‘The Hungarian EU Membership Referendum, 12 April 2003’, EPERN Referendum Briefing No.4 (Falmer, Brighton: Sussex European Institute, 2003).

‘Europe is Our Future, Hungary is Our Home: Discussion Paper on European Reunification’, Fidesz Hungarian Civic Party, 2002.

Agnes Batory and Dóra Husz, ‘The First European Elections in Hungary’, in István Hegedűs (ed.), Hungary's Accession: A New Member State of the Expanding European Union (Budapest: Hungarian Center for Democracy Research – Szazadvég Press, 2007), pp.155–81.

‘The Future Has Started’, Fidesz and Hungarian Democratic Forum election programme 2002, p.23.

‘Go Hungary’, Fidesz election programme 2006, p.38.

A theme echoed in the appeals of many parties in the region: see the other contributions in this volume.

‘Strong Republic, Successful Hungary’, Hungarian Socialist Party programme 2006.

‘For a Normal Hungary’, Hungarian Democratic Forum programme 2006.

‘Freedom, Competition, Solidarity’, Alliance of Free Democrats programme 2006, p.181.

Geoffrey Pridham, ‘European Party Co-operation and Post-communist Politics: Euroscepticism in Transnational Perspective’, in Szczerbiak and Taggart (eds.), Opposing Europe?, Vol. 2, pp.76–103 (p.88).

Interview with Fidesz official, 26 May 2008. This is not at all surprising as particularly the smaller parties employ few paid permanent staff members. For instance, the Democratic Forum's website listed 12 names in total in its staff directory for the party's central office, including the party's single MEP: see the Hungarian Democratic Forum website available at: <http://part.mdf.hu/index.php?akt_menu=462&PHPSESSID=ccbb918a6a4ce1ccf92aa35be7f516f2>, accessed 25 July 2008.

This may have to do with the fact that only two Free Democrat MEPs were elected in 2004, one of whom, a founding member of the party, was a member of various bodies of the party regardless of his status as an MEP.

Hungarian Socialist Party Statute, adopted 24 Feb. 2008.

See the party's website available at: <http://www.mszp.hu/index.php?gcPage=public/szervezetek/mutatSzervezet&fnId=4350>, accessed 23 July 2008.

Zsolt Enyedi, ‘Playing with Europe: The Impact of European Integration on the Hungarian Party System’, in Lewis and Mansfeldová (eds.), The European Union and Party Politics, pp.64–85.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Agnes Batory

Agnes Batory is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Central European University in Budapest. She is co-editor of a book on voting behaviour in European elections and the author of The Politics of EU Accession (Manchester University Press), and of articles in the European Journal of Political Research and Party Politics.