Hungary and its "System of National Cooperation"

The idea of the meeting is as old as the initiative of the second Orban government to replace a republican regime with the so-called "System of National Cooperation" (SNC). Following five years of construction and operation, SNC awaits a comprehensive assessment by social scientists in- and outside Hungary. Our conference wants to contribute to the analysis of the emerging societal system by bringing together empirical researchers and "model builders", leading representatives of various social science disciplines.

In the 1990s, Hungary was widely celebrated as one of the most successful countries of the post-communist transformation. Today, she serves as an example for an „inverse transition“ marked by new authoritarianism, state interventionism and the like, and the SNC is increasingly considered as one of the prototypes of the potential „new right“ regimes in Europe. It is not only the representatives of international politics who are surprised by a rapid decline of liberal democracy and market economy in Hungary, but also social scientists are desperately searching for explanations for the alarming changes in political, economic and socio-cultural paradigms. To put it simply, how did it become possible that an EU member state shows conspicuous similarities to Putin’s Russia? Currently, there are many more disturbing questions than reassuring answers. 

The participants of the conference will be asked to answer the following questions: 

1. Is SNC authoritarian, populist, illiberal, statist, nationalist, dictatorial, mafiotic, etc.? In search of proper adjective(s) 

2. A system or an experiment: what does empirical research tell us about the (in)coherence of SNC?

3. A cultural revolution and/or a power game: can the history of ideas help?

4. Is SNC unique? Looking for Eastern European analogies 

The conference will start with a panel discussion on the troubled relationship between the European Union and the Hungarian government. The subsequent sessions of the conference will follow the logic of the above-mentioned questions. The keynote address to the conference will be delivered by Stephen Holmes on the concept of illiberal democracy.

The participants will submit a brief position paper (max 2,000 words) by May 31, 2015. We plan both English- and Hungarian-language publications in journals (Transit, 2000), and the preparation of an edited volume in English. 

Preliminary Program

Friday, June 26

9:00 – 10:30

Morning Session 1

Hungary and the EU (panel discussion)

Kinga Göncz, Ulrike Lunacek, Jan-Werner Müller

10:30 – 11:00

Coffee Break

11:00 – 13:00

Morning Session 2

SNC: in search of a definition

Balint Magyar, Kim Lane Scheppele

13:00 – 14:00

Lunch

14:00 – 16:00

Afternoon Session 1

SNC: empirical approaches I.

Janos Köllö, Attila Melegh, Peter Mihalyi, David Stark

16:00 – 16:30

Coffee Break

16:30 – 18:30

Afternoon Session 2

SNC: empirical approaches II.

Janos Matyas Kovacs, Virag Molnar, Renata Uitz, Violetta Zentai

19:00

Keynote address

Stephen Holmes on illiberal democracy

20:30

Reception

Saturday, June 27

9:00 – 10:30

Morning Session 1

SNC: Historical analogies

Gabor Egry, Gergely Romsics, Balazs Trencsenyi,

10:30 – 11:00

Coffee Break

11:00 – 13:00

Morning Session 2

SNC: Eastern European analogies

Ivan Krastev, Radoslaw Markowski, Silvia Marton, Julia Richers

13:00

Lunch

End of conference

Participants

Hungarians

Gabor Egry, Institute of Political History, Budapest

Kinga Göncz, former minister for foreign affairs, Budapest

Janos Matyas Kovacs, IWM, Vienna, Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest

Janos Köllö, Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest

Balint Magyar, former minister of education, Budapest

Attila Melegh, Institute of Demography, Budapest

Peter Mihalyi, Institute of Economics Budapest

Virag Molnar, New School for Social Research, New York

Gergely Romsics (?), Hungarian Cultural Center, New York

Balazs Trencsenyi, Central European University, Budapest

Renata Uitz, Central European University, Budapest

Violetta Zentai (?), Central European University, Budapest

Non-Hungarians

Stephen Holmes, New York University

Ivan Krastev, IWM, Vienna, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia

Ulrike Lunacek, Austrian Greens, Brussels/Vienna

Silvia Marton (?), University of Bucharest

Radoslav Markowski, Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw

Jan-Werner Müller, Princeton University

Julia Richers: University of Bern

Kim Lane Scheppele (?): Princeton University

David Stark, Columbia University, New York