Romanian Journal of Political Science 

About: Romanian Journal of Political Science is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & Democracy. It has an ISSN identifier of 1582-456X. Over the lifetime, 129 publications have been published receiving 658 citations.

The Triple Crisis in Hungary: The "Backsliding" of Hungarian Democracy after Twenty Years

Abstract: Introduction: The triple crisis in the New Member States In Hungary the crisis of the democracy has taken place most markedly in both aspects of democracy, i.e. in the formal democratic institutions (procedural democracy with rule of law and the checks and balances system) and in their public performance (quality of democracy with the criteria of good governance). Therefore Hungary may offer itself as a worst case scenario, even when looking back until 2010, but it is much more so, if the period the incumbent Orban government has also been taken into account. The Democracy Index 2011 has put it clearly: "Some negative trends have recently got worse. Hungary perhaps the prime example among the EU's new member states in the region." (DI, 2011: 21). The Freedom House Report, Nations in Transit 2013 has supported this view when it has evaluated the backsliding of democracy in the "New EU States": "the most prominent example of this phenomenon may be Hungary, whose Nation in Transit rates have weakened more since EU accession than those of any other member state, with the largest decline in 2010 and 2011. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban the conservative Fidesz party has used its parliamentary supermajority to increase political control over a number of key political institutions, most notably the judiciary and the media regulator." (FH, 2013: 6). Thus, this paper asks about the special reasons for this Hungarian worst case scenario, i.e. how Hungary has become from the trendsetter in the late eighties the latecomer, the worst performer in the early 2010s. No doubt that the international ranking institutions have shown similar worrying tendencies of the "backsliding of democracy" in all new democracies due to the global crisis, since the "Global backsliding in democracy has been evident for some time" (DI, 2011: 2). The titles of the Freedom House Reports and the Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit have indicated this trend (see FH, 2011a,b and FH, 2013 as well as DI, 2010, 2011 and 2013). Still the general framework to analyse the Hungarian development can only be the group of the New Member States, above all the eight NMS from Poland to Bulgaria where this tendency has also been pointed out in the above Reports at length and in depth. Therefore, for the proper analysis of the particular features in the Hungarian developments, it is necessary to compare them in their major points and on their key issues with the NMS developments in general. But this paper does not claim to give a general picture of the NMS case and it restricts itself to the analysis of Hungary. (3) The most intriguing issue in this paper is why and how a deep change took place at the 2010 elections producing the two-thirds, constitution-making majority of Fidesz that led to some kind of backsliding democracy during the incumbent government as the latest Nations in Transit Report has emphasized. Simply said, the main problem in the Hungarian case is not the "parliamentary supermajority" in itself but the abuse of this majority by violating the checks and balances system, i.e. seeking "political control over a number of key political institutions". There have been many political analyses about the decline of the Hungarian democracy in the Orban government. Hungary has also become ill famed in the international media. But the main issue has remained unanswered so far: why did the voters give confidence in 2010 to a national-social populist party in Hungary after twenty years of democratization, i.e. why millions of Hungarians were so disillusioned, so exhausted and so desperate that they abstained at the elections or supported this "constitutional coup d'etat" as the abuse of "parliamentary supermajority" against the young democracy. (4) Instead of simply arguing about the widespread discontent with the "democratic mess", this paper goes deeper to discover the long process of the socio-economic crisis that generated the protracted political crisis and its cumulative effects led to the "rupture" in 2010. …

How Media and Politics Shape Each Other in the New Europe

Abstract: Line of inquiry How well do media theories from the developed West fit postcommunist Europe? Surely since the late eighties of the 20th century to nowadays the evolution of the media in Eastern Europe (EE) was spectacular and often unpredictable for media theorists In their classic Four Theories of the Press, authors Sibert, Peterson and Scramm (1) famously claimed that 'the press has always taken on the form and coloration of the social and political structures within which it operates Especially, it reflects the system of social control whereby the relations of individuals and institutions are adjusted' How does this fit the role that media seems to play in prompting revolutions, insurrections and other forms of rapid political change, a role so obvious in Eastern Europe that it shaped the budgets of democracy promoters donors everywhere for the last two decades? The ascension of Al-Jazeera, ignored for many years by the American government also opened the door to fresh reflection on the influence of media Some believe that have entered an age where electronic transnational media can be more influential than any government It can mobilize or discourage government action, but can also play a role towards other politically influential groups: political oppositions, subversion movements and civil society In American military academies media studies re-experience the flourishing of the Vietnam War days, the previous war lost by US in newsrooms prior to being settled in the battlefield Media researchers side either with classical theory, which denies much political influence to the media, or new, post-CNN theory, which goes to great length emphasizing it It is only fair to say that history moved faster than theory and there is considerable catching up to do by scholars in this field The history of the media in postcommunist Europe in the last two decades could find an equivalent in a history of the French media between 1788, with the invitation by the King to citizens to address pamphlets to the General States and 1800, with Bonaparte's law, which reestablished control In between, one can find moments of triumph and moments of agony, journalists rising to be heads of legislatures as well as journalists sentenced by revolutionary tribunals One needs a broad historical framework to examine the relationship between media and politics before, during and after times of upheaval, or, depending on the point on the time curve a study focuses (ascending-revolutionary or descending counter-revolutionary) results may seriously distort the general picture Alexis de Tocqueville famously said that the Revolution that began in 1848 was not another one, but another chapter of the one which had started in 1789 This sheds some light on what could be a good time frame to study revolutionary times The new era of media influence we entered with the 1989 revolutions is certainly related to technology progress The main newspaper of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, Ukrayinska Pravda, was an Internet based publication which had 15 million hits a day during the 2004 elections When Serb authorities cracked down on Belgrade B-92 radio station it could move to the Internet and continue to broadcast Classic media consumption may be path dependent of the national context (2): however, it is the 'new' media which has a growing public, and the exchanges between the new and the old, as well as directly between new media and politics allow a media system presently to develop more independently from the local circumstances This gives the media higher potential for playing an influential role and makes it harder to control by traditional means To understand the relation between media and politics in postcommunist Eastern Europe this paper builds on scholarship that presumes a two-way relationship (3) and discusses a circular model It also looks at a broad timeframe, to cover revolutionary aftermaths as well as revolutions themselves …