Hungary: Unpicking the Permissive Consensus1

Parts of this article draw on Ph.D. research for which the support of the ESRC is gratefully acknowledged. The author would like to thank those involved in EU communications and the accession referendum who were interviewed or otherwise provided information in Budapest in April and September–October 2003, and Tibor Závecz of Szonda Ipsos for providing some polling data.

Abstract

Hungary's was the only referendum on EU membership held in Western or East-Central Europe by the time of the Union's 2004 enlargement in which less than half the electorate participated. The ‘yes’ result was high, reflecting broad pro-accession sentiment but also low participation, a relationship linked to the status of EU membership in the post-communist context. This analysis focuses on explaining the low referendum turnout. It finds that most non-participation was due to longstanding features of Hungarian electoral behaviour and public attitudes to the EU which feature in Szczerbiak and Taggart's model, namely low levels of participation in elections in general and referendums in particular, low contestation of EU membership at elite and mass levels, and a low intensity of EU-related preferences. It also suggests that the kind of anti-government partisanship which in non-post-communist settings might be translated into ‘no’ positions, in the Hungarian case primarily contributed further to abstention.

Notes

Parts of this article draw on Ph.D. research for which the support of the ESRC is gratefully acknowledged. The author would like to thank those involved in EU communications and the accession referendum who were interviewed or otherwise provided information in Budapest in April and September–October 2003, and Tibor Závecz of Szonda Ipsos for providing some polling data.

One national referendum, in 1990, was invalid because turnout was only 14 per cent. For comparative turnout data, see Siaroff and Merer (2002); Birch (2003: 60–61).

Discussion of turnout here draws on Böhm et al. (1995) and Angelusz and Tardos (1999; 2002a; 2002b).

Supporting this suggestion, the referendum ‘no’ vote at county level varied only between 12 and 19 per cent, whereas county-level turnout ranged from 36 to 56 per cent. On the basis of its January 2003 polling, Szonda Ipsos identified a ‘hard core’ ‘yes’ of 32 per cent and a ‘hard core’ ‘no’ of 13 per cent.

Török used different methodologies for 1999, 2000 and 2001 onwards, so the figures are not directly comparable, but they provide a general impression.

Népszabadság, 21 March 2003.

Government order 216/2002 on the creation of the EUKK, Magyar Közlöny, 2002, No.132, 24 Oct., article 2.

The absolute shares of non-voters look too low because of Hungarians' persistent retrospective misreporting: 71 per cent of respondents said that they had voted in the referendum; Népszabadság, 15 April 2003 and Magyar Hírlap, 16 April 2003. In a similar TÁRKI poll, the figure was 79 per cent; Népszabadság Online, 18 April 2003.

Author interview with Tibor Palánkai, EUKK Board Chairman, Budapest, 29 Sept. 2003. All currency conversions have been made at January 2003 exchange rates.

Népszabadság, 15 April 2003.

Népszabadság Online, 18 April 2003.