HUNGARY: BETWEEN HISTORY AND FUTURE

by Attila Antal
The history of real democracies has always involved tension and conflict.
Thus legitimacy and trust, which the theory of democratic-representative
government has tried to link through the electoral mechanism, are in fact
distinct. These two political attributes, which are supposedly fused in the
ballot box, are actually different in kind. Legitimacy is a juridical attribute, a
strictly procedural fact. It is a pure and incontestable product of voting. Trust
is far more complex. It is a sort of invisible institution
(Rosanvallon, 2008 3. p)
Just a few remarkable points about the current Hungarian politics. Recently Hungary and U.S.
have a really tense relationship with each other: the U.S. government pointed out several
times its concerns about the Hungarian corruption, law-making procedure and the
troublesome relationship between Hungary and Russia. The former Deputy Chief of Mission,
Andre Goodfriend expressed very critical opinion about the political of the Hungarian
government. FBI Director James Comey said the following words at Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and
Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. They
convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That's what people
do. And that should truly frighten us."1 There was a huge diplomatic scandal about that. This
short introduction has flashed that something is wrong in the Hungarian politics and this has
begun in the past.
That is why I would like to speak about Hungary in way of the language of history and cleavage.
I am really convinced that the Hungarian politics can be characterized by history and
cleavages. According to Lipset and Rokkan (1967), cleavage separates the voters into
advocates and adversaries on political issues and define their voting. I will argue here that

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/04/20/401017704/fbi-chiefs-comments-linkingpoland-to-holocaust-draws-angry-response (all web pages have been downloaded 07.09.2015.)

several cleavages determine the current Hungarian politics and they caused several
challenges.
I. HISTORY AND CLEAVAGES2
Hungary is small country with big history, but our history very controversial and the current
interpretation of national history is also very controversial. I would like to speak about the
crucial points of the Hungarian history.
1. Treaty of Trianon (1920)3
At first I have to note that the Hungarian people have a very strong feelings about the Kingdom
of Hungary, because we were a European Empire as the member of Austro-Hungarian
monarchy. Because of this the defeat of the World War I has defined our history. Furthermore
Hungary have lost its significant territories. Treaty of Trianon regulated the status of an
independent Hungarian state and defined its borders. According to Trianon, Hungary had lost
the 72% of its territory. It was not only a territory loss, but a population, cultural and economic
one.
2. The Holocaust (1944)4
During World War II, Hungary was a member of the Axis powers. By 1938, Hungarian politics
had increasingly become nationalistic because of Trianon and the Great Depression. Hungary
benefited territorially from its relationship with the Nazi Germany. March, 1944 German
troops occupied Hungary and soon mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in
occupied Poland began. Hungarian authorities deported more than 437 000 Jews. One in three
of all Jews killed at Auschwitz were Hungarian citizens. The Hungarian author, Holocaust
concentration camp survivor Imre Kertsz got Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002. His bestknown work, Fateless, describes the experience of 15-year-old boy in the concentration
camps.

Source: https://www.wikipedia.org/
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon
4
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_in_World_War_II
3

3. The Communist Regime: Hungarian People's Republic (1949-1989)5

Following the liberation of Hungary from Nazi Germany by the Red Army, Soviet forces
occupied Hungary. After the World War II the Soviet forces temporarily stayed in Hungary
it lasted 40 years. Hungary was governed by the Socialist Workers' Party, which was under the
influence of the Soviet Union. The Stalinist or totalitarian era lasted from 1949 to 1956. The
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 began on October 23 (actually now this is the Day of Republic
in Hungary) as a peaceful demonstration of students in Budapest. The students protested for
the implementation of several demands including an end to Soviet occupation. On November
4 1956 Nikita Khrushchev sent the Red Army into Hungary. During the Hungarian Revolution
an estimated 20 000 people were killed. The new dictator was a Soviet loyalist, called Jnos
Kdr, as head of the newly formed Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. After the retributions
against the revolutionaries a new era started and framed by Kdr new policy under the motto
"He who is not against us is with us".
4. Regime Change in 1989-19906
By the 1980s, Hungary began to suffer from inflation, which particularly hurt the very poor
people. Hungary ran a massive foreign debt, and poverty became widespread. So the
consensus, which we called the pact of Kdr and meant a minimum living standard for the
people under the Soviet regime, has collapsed. The opposition groups forced the weakened
communist party to Hungarian Round Table Talk in the summer and autumn of 1989. After all
an agreement was reached involving six draft laws that covered an amendment of the
Constitution, establishment of the Constitutional Court, the functioning and management of
political parties, multiparty elections for National Assembly deputies, the penal code and the
law on penal procedures. These are the legal basis of the Hungarian regime change and
because of the Round Table Talks and this legal revolution we can speak about negotiated
regime change.

5
6

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_People%27s_Republic
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_communism_in_Hungary_(1989)

5. Political Cleavages and History

These historical elements of the Hungarian history became political cleavage after 1990 and
the voter behaviour has been determined by these cleavages. In this sense for political Left
(which is the formal successor of the communist party) the tragedy of Trianon is not important
and they even do not understand it. On the other side Trianon is a fundamental base of the
political Rights identity. The opposite is the case with the Holocaust, which is the core element
of the Social-liberal politics in Hungary and sometimes its existence has been refused by the
Far Right. After 25 years of the regime change the Hungarian Left could not process its own
history include the Communist Regime. As long as the anti-communism is a fundamental
cohesive force on the Right. For the Social-liberals the legal revolution of 1989 is a crucial
point, because the amendment of the Constitution has become a new Constitution, on which
a new Democracy has been built. Recently the Hungarian Right simply denies that 1989 was a
regime change and according to the Orbns Government the real regime change has been
frayed out in 2010.
Cleavages

Left (Social-Liberal)

Right (Conservative)

1. Treaty of Trianon

Not important

Political identity

2. The Holocaust

Political identity

Refused

Could not process

Anti-communism

4. Regime Change in

New Constitution and

There was not a real regime

1989

Democracy

change

3. The Communist
Regime

II. CONSTITUTIONALISM, DEMOCRACY

According to these historical divisions a new kind of cleavage has been emerged after 1990,
around the relationship to the liberal democracy and liberal constitutionalism. This cleavage
has created two constitutional paradigm in Hungary: legal constitutionalism and political
constitutionalism. In my point of view the Hungarian politics, particularly the fundamental
changes of the past 5 years, can be characterized by legal and political constitutionalism.

1. Legal Constitutionalism (1989-2010)

From 1989 the legal constitutionalism was the main paradigm of the Hungarian legal and
political thinking. The Constitution of 1989 and the jurisdiction of the Hungarian Constitutional
Court based on this concept. The idea of constitutional rights and the rule of law are in the
centre of to legal constitutionalism. According to this the constitutions secure the rights
central to a democratic society. This approach defines a constitution as a written document,
superior to ordinary legislation and entrenched against legislative change, justiciable and
constitutive of the legal and political system. argues Richard Bellamy.7 The judicial review
and of course the strong Constitutional Court are the fundaments of the democracy. According
to Bellamy, the legal constitutionalism based on two pillars: The first is that we can come to
a rational consensus on the substantive outcomes that a society committed to the democratic
ideals of equality of concern and respect should achieve. These outcomes are best expressed
in terms of human rights and should form the fundamental law of a democratic society. The
second is that the judicial process is more reliable than the democratic process at identifying
these outcomes.8 So the courts, especially the Constitution Court, can overrule the people's
will incorporated in parliament decision.
Under the concept of legal constitutionalism we have created very strong liberal democratic
institutions and the procedural legitimacy of the constitutional system was relatively strong,
but the social-liberal political elite did not pay attention to the trust in democracy. In Hungary
the people tend not to trust in national institutions.

7
8

Bellamy, 2007 1. p
Bellamy, 2007 3. p

1. Figure Trust in Intuitions in Hungary (Source: European Commission, 2014)

2. Political Constitutionalism (2010-)

In 2010 in Hungary the political right gained supermajority in the Parliament and Viktor
Orbns government has totally redesigned the constitutional system and legal
constitutionalism has collapsed. The new Hungarian Constitution based on the political
constitutionalism. Bellamy argues that legal constitutionalism attempts to take certain
fundamental constitutional principles outside of politics, viewing them as preconditions for
the political system.9 This is depolitization and it creates apolitical politics, by the way this is
very similar to Carl Schmitts theory. According to this concept the democracy need to be
defended against judicial review. Bellamy summarized: The judicial constraint of democracy
weakens its constitutional attributes, putting inferior mechanisms in their place. That is not to
say that actually existing democracy is perfect and decisions made by judicial review

Bellamy, 2007 147. p

necessarily imperfect, merely that the imperfections of the first cannot be perfected by the
second.10 In this point of view the political majority cannot be restricted by constitutional
institutions and even by the law.
What are the main elements of the current Hungarian political constitutionalism?
Restriction of the Constitutional Courts power, who was the main counterweight
institution of the Government.
Reinforce of the Governments power.
The Government has a stabile majority in the Parliament and at the same time the
members of the parliament have lost their autonomy and they have been controlled
by the Government.
The Government can overrule the decisions of the Constitutional Court, this raises the
dilemma of the unconstitutional constitution.
Instead of separations of powers the concentration of powers is the ruling principle.
III. CONCLUSIONS WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
Robert Kagan argues that we assumed after the end of the Cold War that all kind of strategic
and ideological conflict will be end (this was concept of the end of the history). Kagan adds:
The world has not been transformed. In most places, the nation-state remains as strong as
ever, and so, too, the nationalist ambitions, the passions, and the competition among nations
that have shaped history.11 I am really convinced that he has right, but we should see this
returning of the history as a chance to fix it and do not deep our cleavages. As Thomas Pain
pointed it out: We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

10
11

Bellamy, 260. p
Kagan, 2008 3. p

REFERENCES
Applebaum, Anne (2013): Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. Anchor
Books
Bellamy, Richard (2007): Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defence of the
Constitutionality of Democracy. Cambridge
Bozki Andrs (2002): The Roundtable Talks of 1989: The Genesis of Hungarian Democracy.
Central European University Press
Craig, Paul (2009): Political Constitutionalism and Judicial Review. In: Effective Judical Review:
A Cornerstone of Good Governance. C. Forsyth, M. Elliott, S. Jhaveri, A. ScullyHill, M.
Ramsden, eds., Oxford University Press, Forthcoming; Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper,
No. 58/2009.
Elster, Jon (1996): The Roundtable Talks and the Breakdown of Communism. University of
Chicago Press
European Commission (2014): Europeans in 2014. Special Eurobarometer 415. TNS opinion &
social, DG COMM Strategy, Corporate Communication Actions and Eurobarometer Unit12
Kagan, Robert (2008): The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Lipset, Seymour Martin Rokkan, Stein (1967): Party systems and voter alignments: crossnational perspectives. Free Press
Rosanvallon, Pierre (2008): Counter-Democracy: Politics in an Age of Distrust. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press

12

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_415_en.pdf