Informality as a safety net: civic agency and the crisis of local governments in Hungary

ABSTRACT

Most research on post-socialist civil society has focused on analysing the characteristics that explain (the lack of) civic strength. Although recent research has highlighted the rise of urban activism, it has failed to look more closely at the agency of actors. By focusing on informal groups and their engagement in public affairs in the aftermath of the 2019 local elections in Hungary, this paper seeks to unravel the civic strategies and narratives that underpin informal civic resistance to political and institutional pressures at a time when both local municipalities and civil society are experiencing a gradual loss of autonomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Informal civic action
• urban activism
• civil society
• post-socialism
• Central and Eastern Europe
• Hungary

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the two anonymous referees whose comments greatly improved the original paper. I would also like to thank K-Monitor for the opportunity to work with them in setting up and carrying out a significant part of this research.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The writing up of this article was made possible by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, “OTKA” postdoctoral excellence programme (PD_22), under grant number PD 142389.