Civil Society and Policy Actors in Post-communist Hungary: Linkages and Contexts

Abstract

The paper seeks to contribute to the debate on the political strength or weakness of civil society in Eastern Europe by focusing directly on relations between social actors and policy-makers in the broader context of the post-communist political settlement in Hungary. Drawing on concepts from the literature on polity and governance, the paper takes the example on social policy-making in Hungary in the late 1990s and early 2000s to explore the complex relations between civil society organisations and policy-makers in successive governments' attempts to legislate on hospital privatisation.

Key Words:

• Civil society
• policy actors
• health policy
• interest representation

Acknowledgements

The research on which this part of this article is based was funding in the UK by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for Terry Cox, ref: RF/7/RFG/2004/0349 from the LeverhulmeTrust, and in Hungary for Sándor Gallai by grant TÁMOP-4.1.1.A-10/2/KMR-2010-0011 of the New Széchenyi Plan. Terry Cox would like to thank participants at the Visiting Fellow's Seminar of the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the paper.

Notes

1 However, there is some debate between writers who share the liberal view of civil society based on shared values. See for example Diamond (1994), who suggests that although civil society is an important precondition for democratic consolidation, political institutionalization is a more important factor.

2 For examples see the essays collected in Rueschmeyer et al. (1998, p. 267). See also, among others, Bernhard (1996) and Miszlivets (1997). For a more comprehensive and sympathetic review of this literature, see Pérez-Solórzano (2006), and for more critical reviews, see Petrova and Tarrow (2007) and Cox et al. (2007).

3 For similar arguments and supporting evidence see also Cox (2007, 2012), Fink Hafner (1998), and Kubik (2005).

4 In the study as a whole, examples of attempted policy change were taken from the areas of pensions, labour, health and telecommunications. The leading policy actors were identified initially from a survey of media sources and public documents and then by a process of ‘snowballing’. The research aimed to test ideas of elite domination, policy networks and communities, and globalising influences. Questions were asked in order to identify the extent of competition and contest over various aspects of newly proposed reforms and how far outcomes conformed to the interests of particular policy actors.

5 This partly reflects the different methods of research employed in the two studies, between on the one hand, surveys based on structured interviews in which actors were asked to describe and assess their own influence and effectiveness, and on the other hand, in-depth semi-structured interviews with a range of policy actors who were asked to assess each others' influence and effectiveness. It also reflects a different focus between the two studies: between a wide focus on a broad range of decisions of different degrees of complexity and significance in the earlier survey research, and a narrower focus on the passage of specific examples of legislation that was key to a government's programme.

6 For a comprehensive overview of the Hungarian political system see Körösényi et al. (2009). Also, for discussion of tripartite institutions see Cox and Vass (2000). For an account of detailed consultation on new legislation, in this case telecom reform, see Cox and Gallai (2009).

7 For further details and a more general picture of health policy-making and the attempts at legislation on privatisation of health institutions, see Cox and Gallai (2012)

8 Interview with a former Secretary of the Medical Chamber November 1998–October 2002, and Vice-President November 2002–August 2003, Budapest, March 2006.

9 Interview with a former Secretary of the Medical Chamber, November 1998–October 2002, Vice-President November 2002–August 2003), Budapest, March 2006.

10 Interview with a health expert from a private think tank, 29 March 2005, Budapest.