BODA, ZSOLT
CRISIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC GOODS AND CHALLENGES OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

The global environmental crisis forces us to change our way of life. The ecological crisis is not a technical problem, that is, it cannot be reduced to some well-formulated and easily solvable dilemmas. The challenge we face is a truly political one: we have to change our social institutions, including norms, values and modes of operations of the society. The challenge is also a global one, as the ecological crisis itself, and its roots as well. However, the lack of global political authority makes this challenge particularly difficult. How can the states, and other global actors, like companies or NGOs work out and enforce legitimate norms that can govern the much needed institutional change? How can this global collective action problem be solved? The first possible solution is the political one: international institutions, and intergovernmental cooperation. However, existing institutions are obviously too weak to meet the challenge. The second possible solution is the privatization of the global commons. Indeed, the market seems to play a growing role in managing global environmental commons. The third one is the ethical self regulation of the global society, which is exemplified by the activity of the global civil society.

KOVÁCS, LÁSZLÓ IMRE
THE HUNGARIAN SYSTEM OF ELECTING MEMBERS FOR THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Together with nine other States, Hungary acceded to the European Union, thus 25 Member States held European Parliamentary elections in June, 2004. The legal preconditions of the elections had to be established in all accessing countries. According to the legal system of the European Union, all EU citizens are entitled to vote in any Member State where they reside. The National Parliaments have the responsibility of developing the electoral systems with respect to the recommendations of the Council of the European Union. Based on these, PR-systems (party list systems or STV) need to be applied with a treshold of maximum 5 percent. The Hungarian Parliament legislated several Acts. The current paper analyses the content of these Acts and demonstrates the debates that occured during the process of legislation. The Parties soon reached an agreement on the first question, which was related to the suffrage. They modified the relevant dispositions of the Hungarian Constitution and solved an issue that had been on the agenda for a long time as well. Until this point, those citizens who stayed abroad at the time of the natioanl parliamentary elections or referendums did not have an opportunity to vote. Yet from this point, voting on the embassies became possible. As a consequence of the mistrust between the Parties, the procedure appeared to be comlpicated and expensive as a result of the pressure of the Fidesz-MPSZ. Athough, it had been modified before the elections due to the influence of the press and public opinion. The party list system became the method of the elections, in which the whole country constitutes one district. Other elements of the system favour stronger Parties: the algorythm is the d’Hondt method and the treshold is the maximum, 5 percent. The possibility of preferential vote emerged as well (which is strongly advised by the Council and is applied by most Member States) but the Hungarian Parliament chose the closed list, which is also a simlpler way for the party elite.

FÁBIÁN, GYÖRGY
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS AND ELECTION SYSTEMS

The direct elections to the European Parliament are the most important means of the European citizens to connect with the European Union. The current study firstly examines the attempts to form the uniform European parliamentary electoral system and the final result of these attempts. The author states that the European parliamentary electoral systems of the member-states reflect the national electoral laws, and conflict of the efforts to shape the uniform electoral system and the different national electoral regulations is present from beginning to end in the European integration. The second part of the study summarizes country by country the main features of the European parliamentary electoral systems and the main differences between European and domestic electoral systems. The author briefly analyses the European parliamentary elections from the point of view of the campaigns, the nature of the party competition, the nomination procedure and candidates. Besides he reviews the political context, the turnout, the results of the elections, the proportionality of the results and the influence of the results on the stability, on the relations of the parties. He concludes that the so called „second-order election” theory is true and suggests that there is a gap between the increasing role of the European Parliament and the European elections which manifest the relation of the European citizens to the European issues. The low turnout, the more successfull performance of the small and new parties in the „euroelections”, the protest vote against governing parties – although it depends of the election’s timing – have emphasized the „second-order” character of the European elections. The European parliamentary elections are embedded in the domestic election cycle, the citizens’ participation and party preferences are determined by the point of views of the national, domestic politics. The „euroelections” rather may consider as a consultative referendum than the election of the representatives who are responsible for the European issues to his electors.

SZABÓ, ILDIKÓ
SYSTEM CHANGE AND THE NATIONAL THEME

Every time there was a major political change in Hungary in the 20th century, national issues (i.e., issues of national belonging) appeared on the public agenda; the last time they did so was after the political transformation in 1989–1990. This study seeks to answer the questions how national issues were constructed after the political transformation, what their function was in the competition among the political parties, and what role they played when creating the major political cleavages. It analyzes the reasons why national issues have become a major component in the creation of political selfdefinitions. Such reasons include the failure to solve national problems and to define the concept of the nation and the citizenry, the difficulty to find one’s way in a radically transformed political and social structure, the potential of national issues to create symbolic communities, as well as the deficiencies of a democractic civic culture.

GAJDUSCHEK, GYÖRGY
EXPERTISE AND/OR POLITICS. A LEGAL AND EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REGULATION OF THE HUNGARIAN PUBLIC SERVICE

The paper, firstly, gives an analysis of the legal framework of the Hungarian civil service system from the point of view of its professionalisation vs. politicisation. In the next section the same questions is examined in the view of empirical data. With regards to the former question the paper’s conclusion is that the Civil Service Law – although being widely conceived as a merit system law – does not set up effective barriers to politicisation. However, the subsequent analysis of – yet unpublished – statistical and survey data suggests that politicisation is definitely not present at most segments and levels of the civil service (for example, the mean number of years served in the Civil Service is 11 years; and the proportion of civil servants with university degree (52% in 2003) has been continuously increasing). According to these analyses, politicisation is characteristic mostly for the top levels of the civil service only. In the concluding, third section the paper tries to answer questions about the causes and reasons of these – quite surprising and partly contradictory – findings, as well as about generalisability of these findings to the broader spectrum of post-communist countries.

JÁSZ, KRISZTINA – SZARVÁK, TIBOR
THE JANUS FACE OF THE POLICY OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES. SMALL SETTLEMENTS, SOCIETIES, CONFLICTS

From the data processed in the research we may assume that – in spite of the spread of modernisation among the romas – social and economic inequality has remained and has become more complex. As a new element of social gap we may emphasize the effect of information society – the lack of information culture –, and the main characteristics of the settlements (accessibility, infrastructure, the administrative classification etc.). Besides unemployment the romas’ way of living, their culture and because of deep-routed stereotypes discriminations are another general sources of conflicts. In the opinion of interviewed persons these problems could be handled by delivering health-care and community development programs on local level. Beyond present troubles growing number of elderly and disabled people becomes crucial as well. Unfortunately present processes further decrease the retention potential of local settlements. The respondents have named mergering of schools as the next source of conflicts, which is a consequence of inherited disadvantages, and should be treated on central level, not on a local one. An important lesson of the research is that providing of equal opportunities can be mainly supported by social land programmes and telecottages in the case of small settlements. The main advantage of these two programmes is that personal activities contribute to the individual conflict- management, and through these activities socially excluded people will be able to re-integrate themselves into society in an easier way. The majority of respondents suppose that equal opportunity policies – through partnerships of organisations between different sectors – will be able to reduce prejudices, change the point of view and mentality of people and boost of tolerance.