Maria Csanadi

Uncertainty in the Transition: Post-communism in Hungary

Often the feeling prevails that everything is falling apart. In a way, this is true. The former centralist, bureaucratic, and dysfunctional system of support for order cannot be self-supporting and is collapsing. The new system, in all its aspects, is being born, prepared, thought through. But it is not yet up and working. Václav Havel

The diary of decline: A case‐study of the disintegration of the party in one district in Hungary

THE PARTY-STATE SYSTEM in Hungary has collapsed. The disintegration process itself was not short. It began in 1978 or 1979, but its first stages were hidden, as the process took place behind closed doors, that is, within the channels of a politically monopolised structure. Only the last two years, and especially the last one, were spectacular, producing an avalanche-like disintegration: all the interlinking dependency threads between party and state were broken, the dependencies within the party hierarchy vanished, and all the hidden tensions and former distortions came to the surface. The avalanche-like disintegration swept away 90% of the party apparatus and almost 70% of the party members and spread them among several political parties. The former all-encompassing power disappeared. Indeed, the representatives of the communist party (MSzMP) formed from the conservative wing of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party could not obtain a single mandate in the new Parliament in March-April 1990. Even the reformist wing of the former party (MSzP) is represented by a small parliamentary opposition. This period was so turbulent and full of conflict, both within and outside the party elite, and also so short, that there was no time to keep the formal rhythm and repertoire of party congresses. This means that the few statistical data usually available about the number and structure of party members are not available for this period. Regular reports about the number, structure and turnover of the apparatus were always secret, kept in the local party organisations and collected by one of the departments of the Central Commitee apparatus; now they are buried somewhere in the party archives, and are inaccessible to researchers, if not vanished. The data on the given district were mostly acquired during the interviews.

Varieties of communist system transformation and their common systemic grounds: a comparative study of China and East European countries

Abstract This paper analyzes the similarities and differences in the structure and dynamics of party–state systems and their different metamorphosis from a comparative perspective. This approach allows interpretation of the Chinese system specifics and its transformation within this framework. Theoretical findings are based on empirical research carried out in Hungary, Romania, and China by the author between 1975 and 2014. Empirical research revealed a politically monopolized interactive and intertwined network of dependency and interest promotion among actors in the party, the state, and the economy during decision-making. This network possesses similar elements and connecting and operating principles whatever the time, the space, and the level of its aggregation. It renders the structural background of power distribution and that of the politically rational behavior of economic actors in the selective distribution of resources and in the overall drive for growth, resulting in frequent investment overheating and overcapacity. The comparative framework also defines the structural varieties of power distribution in the network that are responsible for the differences in the operation and the sequence, speed, and conditions of system transformation.

Systemic background of local indebtedness and investment overheating during the global crisis in China

This paper focuses on the immediate economic and systemic reasons of steadily increasing local government indebtedness and investment overheating in China despite central efforts to contain them. These two phenomena emerged between 2008 and 2011 as a direct consequence of an external shock caused by the global crisis and the subsequent internal reaction in the form of intensified stimulating state intervention. New opportunities for resource distribution and investments through state intervention mobilized distribution priorities and politically rational economic behavior of actors, which are characteristic of party-state systems. Locations of mobilization were defined by the decentralized Chinese system specifics along the intertwined party-state structure. Systemic characteristics and the Chinese specifics together resulted in investment overheating on a national and local level, causing a steady growth of local indebtedness through large and state-owned enterprises and local governments. This process was further amplified by the characteristics of the transforming economy in China, as actors in the private sphere were mobilized by the increased input demands of those privileged by the systemic priorities of state intervention.