From global migration to Roma media image – studies by the Centre for Social Sciences

9th November, 2016

The Centre for Social Studies (MTA TKI) is comprised of the Institute for Legal Studies, the Institute for Minority Studies, the Institute for Political Science and the Institute for Sociology. They deal with theoretical, empirical and comparative studies in the fields of law, minority studies, political science and sociology. The research centre sums up its findings in reports for the Parliament biannually regarding the results obtained by the MTA and about the general situation of Hungarian science.

Selection of politically relevant studies from the report presented to the Government and the Parliament

The position and role of Hungary in global migration

On the occasion of the Festival for Hungarian Science on 16–17 November 2015, an international conference was arranged with the title Global Migratory Processes and Hungary – Challenges and Answers. The almost eighty lectures sought answers concerning the demographic, social, economic and political causes and effects of migratory processes. The lectures at the conference and articles in the proceedings help in understanding current international migratory processes and the scientific foundation of social-political decisions in connection with these. A review study and ten background studies have been published by the team concerning the causes of migration and the social and economic background of migrants.

Campaign promises and government fulfilment in Hungary, 1990–2014

The long-term research project in the MTA Institute for Political Science aims at detecting how clear the campaign promises of Hungarian parties are, and to what extent these promises are kept when a government is formed. What makes a promise unambiguous? What factors determine whether a promise is executed or not? The project includes further promise-related research. A volume discussing the 2002–2006 government was published in 2013.

The Hungarian Political System – after 25 Years (ed. by András Körösényi)

Twenty-five years have passed since the democratic change of the regime in 1989–90. Are we living in the same political situation which was formed at that time? Has a stable institutional system been formed? Have stable patterns been created in political behaviour? Are the events forming a trend or is there political zigzagging and diverging processes? Did the “ballot revolution” of 2010 put an end to the change of regime, or was it the emergence of a new one? These are the questions that are answered in the volume The Hungarian Political System – after 25 Years. The authors analyse the behaviour of the most important politicians of the past 25 years and examine the work and changes of the government, the parliament, the head of state, the constitutional court, local governments and the media. The volume was published amidst fervent media publicity, and a political debate followed.

Diminishing activity, growing emigration tendencies – Hungarian students today

The pioneering research examining public activity and the political thinking of university and college students was completed in the spring of 2014. Such a systematic study concentrating on this age group, repeated every two years, has not been conducted in Hungary before. The latest data, compared to that obtained two years ago, reveal that students tend to be less active publicly and are more willing to emigrate than before. Emigration tendencies have shown a significant rise despite the fact that the indicators of general mood and satisfaction have improved. The primary motivation for the emigration of students is a financial one.

Hungarian youngsters living outside the country’s border relationship to Hungary

After a fifteen-year-long interval, a representative questionnaire survey was conducted regarding the attitudes of youth in the Carpathian Basin by the Institute for Minority Studies and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. Interviews were conducted with 2,700 young Hungarian people aged 15–29 living in Transylvania, Transcarpathia, Upper Hungary and Vojvodina. It concluded that 90 percent of minority Hungarian youngsters feel they belong to the Hungarian nation; they think favourably of dual citizenship (except for Slovakia, where it is not allowed), and half of the respondents have already applied for Hungarian citizenship. The study revealed what the youngsters think of migration: more than half of the respondents are considering moving abroad for good. Out of those intending to leave their home, people from Transcarpathia wish to live in Hungary (75%), while when it came to other regions only 30–40% of those intending to leave their motherland would choose Hungary as their home.

Family policy, born and unborn children

It is worth highlighting one of the projects of the Family Forms and Gender Research in the Institute for Sociology: The Born and Unborn Children of the regime change. The empirical study was finished in 2013, followed by data processing and publications in 2014. The most important current project of the Family Forms and Gender Research is the Family Forms and Family Policies in Europe (Families & Societies) research project financed by FP7, which is possibly the most important international family sociology project in Europe. Several leading institutes take part in the project, which examine family forms, family relations and different walks of life in Europe in the 21^st century.

New nationalism: popular culture and extreme right politics

Identity policy solutions given to social conflicts

The Identity Policy Workshop of the Institute for Minority Studies and the Incubator Program is undertaking a new research project, Changing National Discourses. It can be regarded as a follow up to the OTKA project concluded in 2010, which prepared the publication of research results and also broadened the scope of the research to include ultraright politics, anti-Roma tendencies and everyday nationalism. The results of the research were summarised in the book Nemzet a mindennapokban. Az újnacionalizmus populáris kultúrája (The Everyday Nation: Pop Culture of New Nationalism), published by L’Harmattan in 2014. The authors claim that the social need for greatness, power and even superiority legitimises the state. However, its current forms are produced by ultraright politics, by a cultural trade creating a national brand, and by radical media. The authors discuss how the Trianon cult, national rock music, Transylvanian ethno tourism and donations are connected to this process.

Program against child poverty continued – Child Chances Research Group

The Child Chances Research Group was created in 2011 when the Program against Child Poverty was reorganised. Its primary aim is to take part in the TÁMOP 5.2.1. Child Chance project, which mentors the subregional realisation of the Let the Children Benefit! national strategy program from professional and methodological points of view, and also mentors subregional projects. One of the most important tasks of the group was to create the questionnaire survey for the subregional child strategies. Local families with little children were surveyed. To fill in the questionnaires, a collaboration was set up with universities which arrange research camps. The group aided the process in all phases of the research: using its professional network, it found adequate partners for each subregion (institutes, university departments); facilitated communication between the subregion and the university in the organisation process; arranged workshops for orientation and methodology training for the participants of the research camp; compiled the questionnaire; drafted the sample for the survey; recorded the questionnaires; and processed the data in the form of a comprehensive study.