Papers by András Körösényi
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. * Az írás a Politi cs and Governance f... more The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. * Az írás a Politi cs and Governance folyóirat 2016. évi második számában megjelent "Contingency and Political Action: The Role of Leadership in Endogenously Created Crises" c. tanulmányunk magyar változata. Szeretnénk köszönetet mondani a Politikatudományi Szemle két anonim bírálójának az írás magyar változatához fűzött értékes megjegyzéseikért.
European Political Science Review, 2021
To win a policy debate, political actors may apply two analytically distinct counterframing strat... more To win a policy debate, political actors may apply two analytically distinct counterframing strategies, rhetoric and heresthetic. Rhetoric is when counterarguments are formulated in the original dimension of the debate, while heresthetic is using arguments in a different dimension compared to the original frame. Although both rhetoric and heresthetic are ubiquitous phenomena in the process of public opinion formation, there are no general rules to specify their efficacy. Drawing on a survey experiment carried out in Hungary in 2020 (N = 2000), this paper uncovers the factors determining the effect of the two strategies. Introducing a conceptual distinction between open and trade-off framing situations, the paper demonstrates that the structure of the situation matters. While heresthetic has a robust effect in trade-off framing situations, rhetoric may have a strong impact in open framing situations. Moreover, the effectiveness of counterframing depends on the party affiliation of re...
Egyre kiterjedtebb irodalom foglalkozik a demokratizalodott orszagoknak autoriter iranyba tortenő... more Egyre kiterjedtebb irodalom foglalkozik a demokratizalodott orszagoknak autoriter iranyba tortenő „visszacsuszasaval”, amelyben gyakran hivatkoznak a 2010 utani Magyarorszagra. Jelen munka a weberi plebiszciter vezerdemokracia (PVD) koncepciojanak segitse- gevel probalja megerteni, leirni es elemezni a 2010 utani Orban-rezsimet. Előszor, Weber szovegeinek elemzesevel megkonstrualja a PVD elmeletet. Masodszor, az Orban-rezsimről szolo mini esettanulmany segitsegevel demonstralja a PVD analitikus erenyeit. Az iras fő tezise, hogy a demokratikus legitimacio es az autoriter uralom a PVD legfőbb jellegzetesseget alkoto kombinacioja nem a dolgok patologikus egyuttallasanak alkalmi kovetkezmenye, hanem a rezsim endogen jellegzetessege.
The paper compares the political leadership of Silvio Berlusconi and Viktor Orban from the beginn... more The paper compares the political leadership of Silvio Berlusconi and Viktor Orban from the beginning of their political careers to 2014. Besides giving a descriptive comparison of the Italian and Hungarian political leaders, the paper focuses on two questions: (1) the nature of their populism; (2) the quality and robustness of the changes induced by their policy. The paper concludes that both leaders introduced a new era in politics, but Orban has been more effective in transforming policy means and priorities and also in adjusting the institutional settings (polity). Unlike Berlusconi, he has become a founder of a new regime; a democracy with authoritarian elements. Both of them are populist leaders in terms of substance, as well as process and linkage, but the ideological nature of their populism is rather different. While Berlusconi represents liberal populism, Orban represents an illiberal one.
A mai magyar politikai rendszer alkotmányos és politikai alapszerkezete 1989-90-ben alakult ki. M... more A mai magyar politikai rendszer alkotmányos és politikai alapszerkezete 1989-90-ben alakult ki. Ma a politikai közélet szereplôi közül többen az alapszerkezet változtatásának szükségességét vetik fel, míg mások megvédelmezése mellett érvelnek. 2 E vita olyan kérdéseket vet fel, mint hogy mennyire lehetünk ma, 15 évvel a rendszerváltás után elégedettek a kialakult alapszerkezettel? Milyen ez az alapszerkezet és mennyire legitim? Igaz-e, hogy ma is az akkor kialakult alkotmányos-politikai keretek között élünk, vagy a politikai élet keretei gyökeresen megváltoztak? A létezô közjogi-intézményi keretek megfelelnek-e a politikai élet új kihívásainak, "szükségleteinek" vagy gyökeres reformra szorulnak? Az alábbi tanulmány ehhez az inkább látens, mint explicit vitának néhány olyan vonatkozásával foglalkozik, amelyek a politikatudomány számára is fontosak. Elöljáróban elôször is azt kell megállapítanunk, hogy az alapszerkezet az elmúlt tizenöt évben sem volt változatlan: az alkotmányos oldala kisebb, a kormányzati és politikai rendszer nagyobb változáson ment keresztül. Az alapszerkezet fogalma megtévesztô lehet annyiban, hogy stabilan létezô (stabilizálódott) strukturális vonásokra utal, melyek meggyökeresedtek, s amelyek legitimitást nyertek. Egy ilyen értelembe vett alapszerkezet léte viszont legalábbis vitatható: az 1989-es és 1990es alkotmányreformokat egyrészt ideiglenesnek tekintették megalkotói, másrészt azok nem alkottak koherens egészet: bizo
"effice, quidquid corpore contigero fulvum vertatur in aurum." (Ovidius: Metamorphoses, XI. Midas... more "effice, quidquid corpore contigero fulvum vertatur in aurum." (Ovidius: Metamorphoses, XI. Midasz, 103-104.) 1 Kötetünk bevezető fejezetében rámutattunk, hogy válsághelyzetben megkérdőjeleződnek az addig magától értetődőnek tekintett normák, szokások, autoritások (1. fejezet). Kifejtettük azt is, hogy a válság gyakran közpolitikai paradigmaváltással is együtt jár. Ebben a fejezetben elméleti keretünk ezen állítását kíséreljük meg pontosítani, két magyar miniszterelnök, Bajnai Gordon és Orbán Viktor válságkezelését, pontosabban makrogazdasági politikájukat és annak tágabb eszmei kontextusát, "diszkurzív kormányzásukat" (Korkut et al. 2015) hasonlítva össze. Egyszerre szeretnénk tehát egy empirikus esetet felvázolni és elméleti keretünk közpolitikai paradigmaváltással kapcsolatos részét finomítani a kurrens nemzetközi szakirodalmakra támaszkodva. 1 "»Tedd,« mondja, »mihez csak ér testem, minden változzék sárga arannyá. «" (Devecseri Gábor fordítása) 2 A magyarra nehezen átültethető fogalom azon megközelítések összefoglaló neve, amelyek kulcszszerepet tulajdonítanak az eszmei tényezőknek a közpolitikai változásban (vö. Blyth 2011).
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2018
Hungary’s political backsliding, which has transformed it from a former frontrunner of liberal de... more Hungary’s political backsliding, which has transformed it from a former frontrunner of liberal democracy in the post-communist region to an illiberal and/or authoritarian state, has puzzled political scientists. As a contribution to understanding the problem of Viktor Orbán’s leadership and the regime change, we apply Stephen Skowronek’s concept of ‘reconstructive leadership’. The politics of reconstruction, with an emphasis on the introduction of new standards of legitimacy and the mobilisation of support for new modes of governance, leaves ample room for appreciating the role of political leadership. Through an analysis of three policy areas (constitution-making, macroeconomic and immigration policy) related to Orbán’s efforts at reconstruction, we argue that the Hungarian case underscores the formative role of agency even more than in Skowronek’s original conception. Reviewing possible criticisms of Skowronek’s perspective and some recent literature about ‘discursive institutiona...
East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 2018
Most political science interpretations of the post-2010 Orbán regime have been written either wit... more Most political science interpretations of the post-2010 Orbán regime have been written either within the framework of populism or in the democratization paradigm. We have learned much from these papers about Hungary’s drift in an authoritarian direction, but they also have drawbacks. This article aims to fill the gap between these two approaches and offers a theoretical framework to analyze the impact of populism and other trends of contemporary politics (like de-alignment, growing electoral volatility, citizens’ disengagement, personalization, legitimacy problems, the decline of party membership and partisanship, the mediatization of politics, etc.) on the political regime. It argues that these trends add up to an authority and regime type that can be conceptualized by Weber’s concept of plebiscitary leader democracy (PLD). PLD forms a new hybrid regime type that differs from comparative authoritarianism and other hybrid regime types known from the literature in three respects. Fir...
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017
The central puzzle of this chapter is the meteoric rise and abrupt fall in the popularity of Fere... more The central puzzle of this chapter is the meteoric rise and abrupt fall in the popularity of Ferenc Gyurcsány, the Hungarian prime minister between 2004 and 2009. The chapter applies the LCI to explain this riddle by analyzing his prime-ministerial career. The chapter also aims to contribute to the methodological refinement of the LCI. First, it introduces a milestone approach, which sets the data for six crucial moments in Gyurcsány’s political career to make the LCI a dynamic tool for the analysis. Second, in order to improve the reliability of the method and exclude researcher bias, it replaces researcher judgment with expert judgment in the cases of communicative performance and management skills, and with the fulfillment rate of the legislative program in the case of parliamentary effectiveness. The result of the research diverges from our initial expectations, since the aggregate value of the LCI decreased only rather moderately.
Politics and Governance, 2016
Among the recent literature about leadership and crisis situations two main strands are to be obs... more Among the recent literature about leadership and crisis situations two main strands are to be observed: structuralist ones mainly treat political leaders as reactive agents who have relatively little room for maneuver, while constructivist ones put greater emphasis on the opportunities in interpreting crises. Our claim is that there is a third analytical possibility mainly neglected in recent literature that is even more voluntaristic than the constructivist approaches. In this scenario, there is no external shock; leaders do not only interpret, but also “invent” crises. To make our claim plausible, we build a conceptual-descriptive typology of the potential relationships between crisis situations and agency. The typology is founded on Kari Palonen’s differentiation between Machiavellian and Weberian types of contingency, but uses his originally conceptual historical argument for analytical purposes. To underpin our theoretical argument, we present short illustrative examples to all...
Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung
»Monopolistische Konkurrenz, Auktion und Autorisierung. Eine Schumpetersche Analyse«. The market ... more »Monopolistische Konkurrenz, Auktion und Autorisierung. Eine Schumpetersche Analyse«. The market analogy of democracy played a central role in one of the leading versions of democratic theory in the last fifty years, in the so-called "elite" or "competitive" theory of democracy. In the present paper, I first clarify that the dominant school of the market analogy (Downs and his followers) turned its back on the approach of the originator of the analogy, Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter argued that both economic and political competition-due to the activity of entrepreneurs-are necessarily monopolistic and destroy equilibrium. Second, I show how followers of the Schumpeterian market analogy improved upon it by using the concept of natural monopolies and making it conform to the characteristics of politics, while further distancing themselves from Downsian interpretation and the dominant Public Choice approach. Finally, I demonstrate a normative implication of monopolistic competition, namely its consequences for the concept of "agency loss".
Schriften des Zentralinstituts für sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung der Freien Universität Berlin, 1997
Im Laufe des Transformationsprozesses entstand in Ungarn ein stabiles und gut entwickeltes Partei... more Im Laufe des Transformationsprozesses entstand in Ungarn ein stabiles und gut entwickeltes Parteiensystem. Die Parteien bildeten sich entsprechend politischer und ideologischer Orientierungen heraus. Sie verfugten ebenso uber eine Organisation, ein Parteiprogramm, eine Mitgliederschaft und Parteidisziplin wie die politischen Parteien westeuropaischer Lander. Ihrer Organisation und Struktur nach ahnelten sie eher Mittelklasseparteien als sozialistischen oder kommunistischen/faschistischen Parteien. Auserdem hatten die ungarischen Parteien eine direkte Struktur (nach Duverger2) mit individueller Mitgliedschaft3. Sie waren insofern eher Massen- als Kaderparteien, d.h. ihr vorderstes Ziel war der Wahlerfolg. Keine von ihnen wurde jedoch hinsichtlich ihrer Mitgliederzahl, die ziemlich niedrig war4, eine Massenpartei. Die Gesamtzahl der Mitglieder der sechs Parlamentsparteien betrug Ende 1991 ca. 200.000, d.h. ca. 2,5 — 3 Prozent der Wahler5. Es gab “catch-all”-Parteien (MDF, SZDSZ), Parteien, die spezifische Interessengruppen reprasentierten (FKGP), und Parteien, die nach einem ideologischen Prinzip organisiert waren (KDNP).
Die politischen Systeme Osteuropas, 2010
Andräs Körösenyi/Gäbor G. Fodor/Jürgen Dieringer Das politische System Ungarns 1. Einleitung: Der... more Andräs Körösenyi/Gäbor G. Fodor/Jürgen Dieringer Das politische System Ungarns 1. Einleitung: Der Übergang vom Kommunismus zur Demokratie-Phasen und Aspekte des Systemwechsels Ungarn feierte im Jahr 2000 das Millennium seiner Staatsgründung. Der erste ungarische ...
Toward Leader Democracy investigates how todays liberal democratic regimes are increasingly mo... more Toward Leader Democracy investigates how todays liberal democratic regimes are increasingly moving toward a pronounced focus on political leaders and their image, and explores the mechanics, evolution and implications of this phenomenon.
The Political Quarterly, 1994
Even if the relative alienation of the intelligentsia from the core values of the society is a ge... more Even if the relative alienation of the intelligentsia from the core values of the society is a general phenomenon. See e.g. D.
Government and Opposition, 1993
The Transition Process in Hungary Produced Well-established parties and a developed party system.... more The Transition Process in Hungary Produced Well-established parties and a developed party system. Parties came into existence along political and ideological lines. Parties had an organization, party programme, membership and party discipline similar to those of political parties in the Western European countries. The organization and structure of these parties resembled those of middle-class parties more than socialist or communis/fascist parties. Hungarian parties also had ‘direct structure’ with individual membership. All of them were closer to mass parties than to cadre parties, i.e. their primary aim was electoral success. But none of them became a mass party in terms of membership figures, which were rather low (the total membership of the six parliamentary parties was below 200,000 in 1990, so it was about 2.5 – 3 per cent of the electorate. There were ‘catch-all’ parties (HDF, AFD), parties with specific interest representation (SHP) and parties organized along some ideologi...
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Papers by András Körösényi