Conversion strategies of the power and the political opposition in Hungary in the 1990s.

Abstract

The paper clarifies the specificity of the interrelationship between the power and the political opposition in Hungary in the context of the theory of conversion of public capital. Particular attention has been paid to the power reloading stage, which logically should have led to systemic changes and deepening of modernization processes.

The qualitative features, rates, and results of the modernization of Hungarian political system were mainly determined by how effectively political parties used the competitive conditions in order to accumulate and convert various forms of capital at the beginning of the transformation period. Even at the stage of the first democratic elections, they were able to quickly fill up the vacuum existing in the political field, and the chosen strategies were successful both for them and for the democratization of the political regime.

Rational motives, based on access to power resources, are at the heart of the interaction between government and political opposition in Hungary. The choice of either a confrontational or cooperative engagement strategy depended on the parties’ estimated transaction costs. Limitation of democratic rights and freedoms as a result of the political activity of the pro-government parties became a barrier to healthy competition in which the opposition was primarily interested.

The example of Hungary demonstrates that simulation modernization, democratization, and accelerated Europeanization trigger the political significance of the «gap» as a resource for the accumulation of political capital by pro-government parties and the creation of their own network of clientelist relations. Consequently, the country falls into an institutional trap which results in the crisis of democracy. The combination of parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition gives us a possibility to conceptualize the «deficit of democracy» in election programs, and to «correct» the mistakes of the previous government after coming to power. That is why the alternation of parties in power ultimately leads to the consolidation of democracy.