I. Introduction
As the election date gets closer (06.05.2010) the major public opinion research institutes publish daily results about people’s sympathy for the different parties. There are numerous parties to select from but usually the three major parties are dealt with in the published results: the Conservative, the Labour and the Liberal Democrat party.
The results in the news and on the web describe the headline voting intentions only. But what about those yet undecided, or not willing to answer the survey questions? The ratio of these voters is substantial, ranging from 11% to 31% in the fresh data of the major public opinion research institutes. Of course the participation of these people is very important and it may influence the outcome of the elections seriously.
Our goal in this short paper is to introduce the results of a simulation method for the 2010 general election party sympathies. We do not aim to guess the number of seats obtained by the parties, but we try to estimate the ‘real’ opinion of people and – given the participation – the overall distribution of votes.
II. The simulation model
The most spectacular feature of the English polls found in the media is that the presence of people hiding their opinion is not strongly emphasized (compared to Hungarian practice). These people hide their opinions as because of some reason. This phenomenon is described by the ‘threshold models’. These models assume that people have a given threshold – a ratio of people sharing the same opinion as the given person – below which a person wouldn’t express his/her opinion.
We assume that this ‘threshold’ is also influenced by the party, for which a person feels sympathy. Also the importance of this ‘threshold’ when expressing someone’s opinion is influenced by the structure of the person’s network – namely the ratio of people with similar and different opinions.
Based on these assumptions we created a model (partially following the first steps of Krassa (1999), then extending it with our assumptions) which simulates the assumed opinion distribution based on existing public opinion data. We used the data available on the net – to be more exact we used the latest raw data from YouGov, Ipsos Mori, ICM, Populus and Opinium.
III. Simulation results
We also had to make some exact initial assumptions. First we assumed that the threshold values according to the parties have certain differences with the Labour party sympathizers having the highest threshold – meaning that they hide their opinion mostly. Then the Conservative party follows, followed by the Liberal Democrat part and the smaller parties. Also we assume that the smaller party sympathizers are the most open among the parties and that they have ‘more dense’ relationships towards each other. These assumptions given as an input parameter set to our model resulted in the following distribution:
Party Conservative Labour LibDem Other Don't know/refuse
Voter rato 0.27 0.23 0.22 0.09 0.19
Sim result 0.2494 0.1885 0.2059 0.830 0.2732
Simulation results using this data are partially in line with major results. Notice the difference between people who don’t have an opinion at this time and the sim results. The sim results include those as well who wouldn’t have expressed their opinion.
So it shows that per the simulation the supporters of the Labour party are as many as those of Liberal democrats. Also conservative voters are over-represented in some samples.
Of course our work also aims to give an overview about the general distribution of votes (not the seats!). To achieve this, we had to make assumptions about the mobilization as well. We assumed that the labour party does not have such high mobilization resources as others do. We assumed that small parties and the Libdem party are at a smaller advantage when compared to bigger parties. In our simulation we assumed three possible scenarios for mobilisation (M1-3). As per the trend of the last elections we expect a participation rate of ~67-70%. Supposing this the following general distribution was found:
Party Conservative Labour LibDem Other Participation
M1 0.7 0.5 0.75 0.85
Votes 33.59% 22.17% 30.43% 14% 67.29%
M2 0.7 0.6 0.7 0.8
Votes 32.96% 26.21% 28% 12.92% 68.41%
M3 0.7 0.6 0.75 0.8
Votes 32.29% 25.67% 29.17% 12.86% 69.80%
This table shows that the Conservative party takes lead having the LibDem behind them. The labour party is far behind these two, but above the votes given for the smaller parties. Although the Liberal Democrat Party has a smaller advantage in terms of mobilization, their support – as shown by the assumed distribution – is not enough to catch up with the conservative party. The support of other parties – assumed that their mobilization is strong – is relatively high (we did not analyze the support individual small parties).
IV. Summary
In this short paper the results of the application of a simulation model was introduced. Its purpose is to estimate the real opinion distribution in the society using data from public opinion research institutes, and also to give an estimation to the overall distribution of votes. We do not aim to give seat estimates. As the tables show, the conservatives are in a leading position and their victory is secured. If the effect of the labour party campaign really is not big enough encourage voters for the participation then the labour party will lose by a substantial margin with the LibDem party finishing second. The other parties also consume a fair amount of votes, and the participation rate may get even closer to 70%.
The configuration of the House of Commons depends mostly on the local results, so the new boundaries may also play an important role, but these external effects were not in the scope of our model.
If you have any comments or questions, please write a mail to Attila.gulyas@uni-corvinus.hu
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Thursday 6 May 2010
Thursday 30 October 2008
The uses (and abuses) of Hungarian democracy
In an aside in the post below this one I pose a provocative question:
“What use is democracy if a government is stopped by international bodies and financial markets from protecting its most vulnerable citizens from the chill winds of economic turbulence?”
Given the intellectual climate of the past decade-and-a-half, I think I ought to explain some of the assumptions and ideas that lie behind this question, for they also inform my scepticism about the strength of the political institutions in the ex-socialist member states of the EU.
When I first became a PhD student focussed on Central and Eastern Europe fifteen years ago, everyone was attempting to examine something they called “the transition”. Liberalism had triumphed, as had market economics, and democracy – by which observers meant a system based on free and fair competitive elections, regulated by a constitutional order administered by an independent judiciary, would resolve all social conflicts. The study of the “transition” it was supposed, would help states with scant traditions of democracy to become like the USA and the United Kingdom. The end – “democracy” – was never in doubt. In the same way, social scientists (joined later by some historians, who probably should have known better) began to develop elegant, grounded arguments about the conditions of “democratization”, in which History – in so far as it was addressed – was supposed to march inevitably towards “democracy”.
Indeed, most historians of Europe have known better. The reasons for the collapse of pluralist political systems in much of inter-war Europe have been (and will almost certainly continue to be) at the heart of historical debate. As historians concentrate increasingly on the period following the Second World War, the reasons for the development of liberal, pluralist political systems in most of western Europe in the late 1940s, and their spread to southern Europe in the 1970s will become important subjects of historical investigation. Historian Martin Conway in an agenda-setting article on the roots of western Europe’s post-war democratic wave has drawn our attention to the historically-specific circumstances, often socially and cultural rooted, which produced it. If “democracy” is historically contingent, this undermines the teleological assumptions which have underpinned the celebratory tone whose echoes can be heard in much of the democratization literature. Political systems fail and succeed depending on historical circumstances – there is, despite what many would have you believe, no democratic model capable of mediating all social conflicts, and therefore “democracy” is not, in any guise, an automatically exportable system (as we should know from the predictable failure of US-sponsored democracy building in Iraq).
It has not been uncommon in the last two years to find commentators in Hungary, who are prepared to talk to some extent about the crisis of their democracy. They generally attribute this crisis to short-term factors; normally the “bidding war” between the two big parties as to who could promise the most since 1998, or the notorious 2006 speech of Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, in which he admitted to lying “morning, noon and night” in order to win that year’s parliamentary election. Hungary’s democracy is certainly in crisis – but this crisis is not due to short-term factors; indeed it is a slow-burn crisis, and can be traced back to the mid-1990s.
This slow-burn crisis began with the announcement of the so-called Bokros package in March 1995 – a programme of economic stabilization designed to prevent the insolvency of the Hungarian state in the face of capital flight, and re-start a stalled economy, named after Finance Minister, Lajos Bokros. At its heart were deep spending cuts that focussed on a range of social welfare programmes, and the package brought about a substantial falls in real incomes – 12 percent in 1995 – the largest such fall since the peak year of the Stalinist dictatorship in 1952.
The problem with the Bokros package – or rather one problem with it; there were many – was a product of its political context. The previous May, voters, fed up with the social and economics strains of economic transformation during the early 1990s, elected the Socialist Party (MSZP), in the belief that they would curb many of the perceived social injustices of the transformation process, and pursue “competent” economic policies that would reverse the reductions in the standard-of-living of the early 1990s. The first ten months of the government the Socialists formed, a coalition between themselves and the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), were characterized by ideological disputes between those who sought greater social protection, and those who advocated further market transformation. The announcement of the Bokros package represented the victory of the latter group, supported by the financial markets, international organizations, and most western governments, but crucially not by a majority of the population. In 1994 a majority of Hungarians used the elections – by electing the MSZP – to gain a greater degree of social protection in the face of market forces. The events of 1995 were a demonstration that international financial markets would not respect the choices Hungarians made.
The political consequences were profound. In the short-term they increased the appeal of the populist far right; behind this anti-Semitic sentiment spread, as did anti-foreigner sentiment. During 1995 and 1996, the squeeze on incomes was accompanied by considerable anger. In the 1998 elections, the SZDSZ – previously a popular radical liberal party, perhaps Hungary’s first since the 1840s, capable of winning a fifth of the vote – lost two-thirds of its support, abandoned because of its enthusiastic support for pro-market policies. By the end of the decade with average living standards approaching the levels of eleven years previously, and a deep chasm between rich and poor, relative economic recovery concealed deep-seated anger and frustration. Institutions suffered from low public trust. Hungary was also polarized; a product of the divisive tactics of the right-wing government of Viktor Orbán, brought to power in 1998. Both sides in this political battle were relatively evenly matched in terms of public support. As the negative campaign run by Orbán between the two rounds of the 2002 parliamentary election demonstrated, ordinary voters were deeply suspicious of pro-market economic policies, and fearful of a revival of the policies that had been pursued by Bokros.
Faced with extreme distrust among the electorate for the market, a society polarized vertically into winners and losers, and horizontally into right and left-wing camps, the politicians used the state budget, and empty populism as a sticking plaster to conceal the legitimacy problem that first emerged in 1995. From 2002, an election year in which the victorious MSZP both promised and delivered unfunded largesse, the budget deficit and public debt exploded. This explosion of state spending is often presented as a consequence of lax budget control, and the moral failings of Hungary’s politicians. Though both these were present in abundance, this growth stemmed from two factors – one rooted in Hungary’s post-socialist political economy, which I don’t want to describe here, as it is worthy of longer explanation; the other was a symptom of the slow-burn crisis of the political system. Given their adherence to the financial markets (and the necessity thereof), Hungary’s political parties were left with a deep democratic deficit from 1995 onwards. They sought to plug this deficit through using and playing the game of political polarization, but more importantly were only able to win support through using the state budget to compensate their respective constituencies for the failures of the economy to provide them the jobs and living standards to which they aspired. All of this culminated in the 2006 elections, and their aftermath – one of horribly low public trust, deep suspicion of pro-market “reform” measures (demonstrated most clearly by the overwhelming victories for the “yes” camp in the spring 2008 referenda), considerable and growing public anger with low standards of living, and greater assertiveness by the extreme right.
Clearly, therefore, it is not only Hungary’s financial institutions which require rescuing, but its democratic institutions do too. Given the roots of the slow-burn crisis of the political system, it is rather easy to see why the IMF/EU/World Bank package risks killing (or at least wounding fatally) the democratic institutions established in 1989-90.
“What use is democracy if a government is stopped by international bodies and financial markets from protecting its most vulnerable citizens from the chill winds of economic turbulence?”
Given the intellectual climate of the past decade-and-a-half, I think I ought to explain some of the assumptions and ideas that lie behind this question, for they also inform my scepticism about the strength of the political institutions in the ex-socialist member states of the EU.
When I first became a PhD student focussed on Central and Eastern Europe fifteen years ago, everyone was attempting to examine something they called “the transition”. Liberalism had triumphed, as had market economics, and democracy – by which observers meant a system based on free and fair competitive elections, regulated by a constitutional order administered by an independent judiciary, would resolve all social conflicts. The study of the “transition” it was supposed, would help states with scant traditions of democracy to become like the USA and the United Kingdom. The end – “democracy” – was never in doubt. In the same way, social scientists (joined later by some historians, who probably should have known better) began to develop elegant, grounded arguments about the conditions of “democratization”, in which History – in so far as it was addressed – was supposed to march inevitably towards “democracy”.
Indeed, most historians of Europe have known better. The reasons for the collapse of pluralist political systems in much of inter-war Europe have been (and will almost certainly continue to be) at the heart of historical debate. As historians concentrate increasingly on the period following the Second World War, the reasons for the development of liberal, pluralist political systems in most of western Europe in the late 1940s, and their spread to southern Europe in the 1970s will become important subjects of historical investigation. Historian Martin Conway in an agenda-setting article on the roots of western Europe’s post-war democratic wave has drawn our attention to the historically-specific circumstances, often socially and cultural rooted, which produced it. If “democracy” is historically contingent, this undermines the teleological assumptions which have underpinned the celebratory tone whose echoes can be heard in much of the democratization literature. Political systems fail and succeed depending on historical circumstances – there is, despite what many would have you believe, no democratic model capable of mediating all social conflicts, and therefore “democracy” is not, in any guise, an automatically exportable system (as we should know from the predictable failure of US-sponsored democracy building in Iraq).
It has not been uncommon in the last two years to find commentators in Hungary, who are prepared to talk to some extent about the crisis of their democracy. They generally attribute this crisis to short-term factors; normally the “bidding war” between the two big parties as to who could promise the most since 1998, or the notorious 2006 speech of Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, in which he admitted to lying “morning, noon and night” in order to win that year’s parliamentary election. Hungary’s democracy is certainly in crisis – but this crisis is not due to short-term factors; indeed it is a slow-burn crisis, and can be traced back to the mid-1990s.
This slow-burn crisis began with the announcement of the so-called Bokros package in March 1995 – a programme of economic stabilization designed to prevent the insolvency of the Hungarian state in the face of capital flight, and re-start a stalled economy, named after Finance Minister, Lajos Bokros. At its heart were deep spending cuts that focussed on a range of social welfare programmes, and the package brought about a substantial falls in real incomes – 12 percent in 1995 – the largest such fall since the peak year of the Stalinist dictatorship in 1952.
The problem with the Bokros package – or rather one problem with it; there were many – was a product of its political context. The previous May, voters, fed up with the social and economics strains of economic transformation during the early 1990s, elected the Socialist Party (MSZP), in the belief that they would curb many of the perceived social injustices of the transformation process, and pursue “competent” economic policies that would reverse the reductions in the standard-of-living of the early 1990s. The first ten months of the government the Socialists formed, a coalition between themselves and the liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), were characterized by ideological disputes between those who sought greater social protection, and those who advocated further market transformation. The announcement of the Bokros package represented the victory of the latter group, supported by the financial markets, international organizations, and most western governments, but crucially not by a majority of the population. In 1994 a majority of Hungarians used the elections – by electing the MSZP – to gain a greater degree of social protection in the face of market forces. The events of 1995 were a demonstration that international financial markets would not respect the choices Hungarians made.
The political consequences were profound. In the short-term they increased the appeal of the populist far right; behind this anti-Semitic sentiment spread, as did anti-foreigner sentiment. During 1995 and 1996, the squeeze on incomes was accompanied by considerable anger. In the 1998 elections, the SZDSZ – previously a popular radical liberal party, perhaps Hungary’s first since the 1840s, capable of winning a fifth of the vote – lost two-thirds of its support, abandoned because of its enthusiastic support for pro-market policies. By the end of the decade with average living standards approaching the levels of eleven years previously, and a deep chasm between rich and poor, relative economic recovery concealed deep-seated anger and frustration. Institutions suffered from low public trust. Hungary was also polarized; a product of the divisive tactics of the right-wing government of Viktor Orbán, brought to power in 1998. Both sides in this political battle were relatively evenly matched in terms of public support. As the negative campaign run by Orbán between the two rounds of the 2002 parliamentary election demonstrated, ordinary voters were deeply suspicious of pro-market economic policies, and fearful of a revival of the policies that had been pursued by Bokros.
Faced with extreme distrust among the electorate for the market, a society polarized vertically into winners and losers, and horizontally into right and left-wing camps, the politicians used the state budget, and empty populism as a sticking plaster to conceal the legitimacy problem that first emerged in 1995. From 2002, an election year in which the victorious MSZP both promised and delivered unfunded largesse, the budget deficit and public debt exploded. This explosion of state spending is often presented as a consequence of lax budget control, and the moral failings of Hungary’s politicians. Though both these were present in abundance, this growth stemmed from two factors – one rooted in Hungary’s post-socialist political economy, which I don’t want to describe here, as it is worthy of longer explanation; the other was a symptom of the slow-burn crisis of the political system. Given their adherence to the financial markets (and the necessity thereof), Hungary’s political parties were left with a deep democratic deficit from 1995 onwards. They sought to plug this deficit through using and playing the game of political polarization, but more importantly were only able to win support through using the state budget to compensate their respective constituencies for the failures of the economy to provide them the jobs and living standards to which they aspired. All of this culminated in the 2006 elections, and their aftermath – one of horribly low public trust, deep suspicion of pro-market “reform” measures (demonstrated most clearly by the overwhelming victories for the “yes” camp in the spring 2008 referenda), considerable and growing public anger with low standards of living, and greater assertiveness by the extreme right.
Clearly, therefore, it is not only Hungary’s financial institutions which require rescuing, but its democratic institutions do too. Given the roots of the slow-burn crisis of the political system, it is rather easy to see why the IMF/EU/World Bank package risks killing (or at least wounding fatally) the democratic institutions established in 1989-90.
On the verge of catastrophe .....
In 1989 Hungary helped set the trend (along with Poland) for the rest of the Central and Eastern European region. The introduction of visa-free travel for its citizens to the west in 1988, the dismantling of its physical border barrier with Austria in May 1989, and its ruling party’s attempts at pre-emptive democratization set the stage for the collapse of the GDR and other state socialist regimes around it. Unfortunately for its citizens it is the first country to be hit by the financial markets growing willingness to question the long-term viability of Central and Eastern Europe’s capitalist economies. It is the first place in which we can see the likely policy response to the unwinding of the region’s economic boom. We should therefore pay attention to what is happening in Hungary, because it offers us a glimpse of the region’s and the continent’s future. Unfortunately, it suggests to this observer that if people want to think about the most likely future of domestic politics in the region, they ought to start reading about the 1930s, because over the next few years some very uncomfortable parallels are likely to emerge.
In my last post, I expressed the hope that the Hungarian and international authorities would seek to avoid “catastrophe”. The superficially generous $25.1 billion “rescue” package for Hungary co-funded by the IMF, the EU and the World Bank seems to dash any of these hopes. Instead these bodies, supported by a Hungarian government and an economic establishment who seem to have collectively lost their minds, are intent on driving Hungary headlong towards catastrophe. Just as in the rest of the EU governments are busy part-nationalizing banks, cutting interest rates, and preparing economic stimulus packages, Hungary is being forced to cut back its state expenditures savagely, and decimate its public sector. The likely consequences for Hungary’s real economy – with which the IMF/EU/World Bank seems to be blissfully unconcerned – are spelled out by economist Edward Hugh on his Hungarian Economy Watch blog.
Given the programme most likely means that Hungarians are being expected to forego economic growth and any improvement in living standards for the foreseeable future, one wonders as to the likely consequences for domestic politics and stability. I’ve been watching Hungary’s politics now for close to two decades, have published – both in academic texts and in the Hungarian media – analyses of domestic politics, and can claim a reasonable record in correctly identifying general trends. I have to say that I do not see how Hungary’s political institutions can survive the strains and conflicts that will be thrown their way over the next few years. I’m not going to try and predict what comes next, but I am sure that the process of getting there involves a lot of political instability, violence and misery.
There has been a tendency in the media in the UK to see Hungary’s problems as a result of moral failings and a propensity of the population to live beyond their means. I could say more about this – all I would point out in response is that those who throw stones should not sit in glass houses! If the financial markets had applied the same tests to the UK that they are now applying to Hungary, the British government would be faced with bankruptcy! This kind of finger-pointing is unwise for a reason that is less polemical – as László Andor has pointed out, what is happening in Hungary has consequences that spill way beyond its borders.
Because Hungary is part of the EU, the impact of an economic crash and political tension will be instantly felt in other states, through the migration that will inevitably result. Most importantly – as I hinted above – most of the region is beginning to feel the impact of economic crisis, and Hungary is not the only EU member likely to have to seek assistance from outside. In other words, Hungary’s crisis is an early (perhaps, not a very early) warning for what is likely to engulf the whole region. In the, admittedly, worst case (but quite credible) scenario, the risk is that democracy, and the project of the eastern enlargement of the EU will fail spectacularly. While the consequences for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe are likely to be catastrophic, the effects on the security of western Europe are not inconsiderable either.
It really is high-time, therefore, that the EU and the governments of its largest countries woke up to the fact that they have little choice but to pursue policies actively that close the income gap between EU15, and those ex-socialist states that have joined since 2004, and that they are going to have to ask western European taxpayers to pay the costs of that convergence. As a first step they need to scrap the misconceived and disastrous “rescue” that has been put together for Hungary, and assemble a support package that allows the Hungarian government to protect its citizens (after all, what use is democracy if a government is stopped by international bodies and financial markets from protecting its most vulnerable citizens from the chill winds of economic turbulence?) Then, they might recognize that the project of creating a neo-liberal version of the free-market economy, and expecting sustainable transformation through encouraging speculative foreign investment has been a spectacular failure, and that they need to start again. After that, comes a more difficult, but nevertheless necessary step – western European security demands that living standards converge between the two halves of Europe, and that that is not going to happen without substantial public investment. Time to recognize then, that the EU needs a substantial budget, some direct revenue-raising powers, and greater ability to co-ordinate macro-economic policy. I’m not holding my breath – but I wonder just how many disasters will have to happen before they realize that these steps are urgent ……
In my last post, I expressed the hope that the Hungarian and international authorities would seek to avoid “catastrophe”. The superficially generous $25.1 billion “rescue” package for Hungary co-funded by the IMF, the EU and the World Bank seems to dash any of these hopes. Instead these bodies, supported by a Hungarian government and an economic establishment who seem to have collectively lost their minds, are intent on driving Hungary headlong towards catastrophe. Just as in the rest of the EU governments are busy part-nationalizing banks, cutting interest rates, and preparing economic stimulus packages, Hungary is being forced to cut back its state expenditures savagely, and decimate its public sector. The likely consequences for Hungary’s real economy – with which the IMF/EU/World Bank seems to be blissfully unconcerned – are spelled out by economist Edward Hugh on his Hungarian Economy Watch blog.
Given the programme most likely means that Hungarians are being expected to forego economic growth and any improvement in living standards for the foreseeable future, one wonders as to the likely consequences for domestic politics and stability. I’ve been watching Hungary’s politics now for close to two decades, have published – both in academic texts and in the Hungarian media – analyses of domestic politics, and can claim a reasonable record in correctly identifying general trends. I have to say that I do not see how Hungary’s political institutions can survive the strains and conflicts that will be thrown their way over the next few years. I’m not going to try and predict what comes next, but I am sure that the process of getting there involves a lot of political instability, violence and misery.
There has been a tendency in the media in the UK to see Hungary’s problems as a result of moral failings and a propensity of the population to live beyond their means. I could say more about this – all I would point out in response is that those who throw stones should not sit in glass houses! If the financial markets had applied the same tests to the UK that they are now applying to Hungary, the British government would be faced with bankruptcy! This kind of finger-pointing is unwise for a reason that is less polemical – as László Andor has pointed out, what is happening in Hungary has consequences that spill way beyond its borders.
Because Hungary is part of the EU, the impact of an economic crash and political tension will be instantly felt in other states, through the migration that will inevitably result. Most importantly – as I hinted above – most of the region is beginning to feel the impact of economic crisis, and Hungary is not the only EU member likely to have to seek assistance from outside. In other words, Hungary’s crisis is an early (perhaps, not a very early) warning for what is likely to engulf the whole region. In the, admittedly, worst case (but quite credible) scenario, the risk is that democracy, and the project of the eastern enlargement of the EU will fail spectacularly. While the consequences for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe are likely to be catastrophic, the effects on the security of western Europe are not inconsiderable either.
It really is high-time, therefore, that the EU and the governments of its largest countries woke up to the fact that they have little choice but to pursue policies actively that close the income gap between EU15, and those ex-socialist states that have joined since 2004, and that they are going to have to ask western European taxpayers to pay the costs of that convergence. As a first step they need to scrap the misconceived and disastrous “rescue” that has been put together for Hungary, and assemble a support package that allows the Hungarian government to protect its citizens (after all, what use is democracy if a government is stopped by international bodies and financial markets from protecting its most vulnerable citizens from the chill winds of economic turbulence?) Then, they might recognize that the project of creating a neo-liberal version of the free-market economy, and expecting sustainable transformation through encouraging speculative foreign investment has been a spectacular failure, and that they need to start again. After that, comes a more difficult, but nevertheless necessary step – western European security demands that living standards converge between the two halves of Europe, and that that is not going to happen without substantial public investment. Time to recognize then, that the EU needs a substantial budget, some direct revenue-raising powers, and greater ability to co-ordinate macro-economic policy. I’m not holding my breath – but I wonder just how many disasters will have to happen before they realize that these steps are urgent ……
Saturday 11 October 2008
Is this the end of Hungary's post-1989 era? And if so, what comes next?
With the spectacular meltdown on global financial markets holding world attention yesterday, the especially parlous situation in Hungary has been missed. Beginning in late trading Thursday afternoon, the country’s largest bank, the OTP, and its currency, the Forint, were subject to sustained speculative attack. At the same time the market for Hungarian government bonds effectively dried up. On Friday the Hungarian National Bank – in measures familiar to those who have lived through the early phases of the UK’s past currency crises – intervened to prop up the Forint. Faced with the spectre of being unable to re-finance some of the government debt on reasonable terms, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány announced a package of emergency spending cuts (which are only likely to pass through parliament, if his Socialist minority government can secure the support of enough of the opposition).
For those aware of both Hungary’s economic fundamentals and the progress of the “credit crunch”, the budgetary and currency problems should come as no surprise, despite the bizarre insistence for most of the year by Hungary’s economists that there was nothing really to worry about! This is going to be a tense and difficult autumn in Budapest – with the rest of the region, in the words of the Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliot, looking like “an accident waiting to happen”, a sharp slowdown in western Europe affecting Hungary’s export-oriented manufacturing sector, the general impact of the global crisis on Budapest as a regional financial centre, a budgetary and a currency crisis, the economic situation ought to be a cause for anxiety. Politically, Hungary’s Socialist government lacks a parliamentary majority, it faces an opposition that has never shown any sign before of putting an overriding national interest before its own immediate short-term considerations of winning political advantage, and a far right that over the past two years has been prepared to use violent direct action on Hungary’s streets. Against this background, one of the problems Hungary faces in seeking to restore market confidence, is that it is difficult to see how the country will overcome these challenges without some major changes to its political and economic institutions.
Autumn 2008, like 1988-9, looks like it will be one of those key turning point moments. This is because it is difficult to see how Hungary will emerge from the challenges it currently faces without some major surgery to the institutions and practices that have developed in the past nineteen years. As in all such moments, it is impossible to say what direction such changes will take, though the risks are considerable. Much depends on how far the relevant actors, including bodies like the European Union as well as those within Hungary itself, are prepared to show imagination and courage in facing the demands of the moment.
Hungary’s economic performance has been weak for some years. From the beginning of the decade up to 2006 economic growth was only really sustained through accumulating state debt. Hungary’s economists have argued that the road to putting Hungary back on a growth path leads to huge cuts in state expenditures – especially social spending – so that high tax rates can be bought down in order that foreign investors will be attracted into the country. After his re-election in 2006, Gyurcsány accepted their advice. The government’s pursuit of this path has led to a state of virtual economic stagnation, and large-scale popular discontent, which has made this strategy politically unviable. Without an alternative, the government has shown every sign of not knowing what do, and since the spring has fallen back on an endless series of short-term tactical manoeuvres designed to buy time.
The neo-liberal diagnosis of Hungary’s problems was fatally flawed because it failed to address the underlying causes of the country’s budget deficit and debt-related problems. These lie in a crisis of employment and employability – in 2006 only 54.5 percent of the population of working age were active in the labour market. In large part, this problem is a legacy of the state socialist social settlement instituted after the completion of agricultural collectivization in 1961, that was based on the offer of semi-skilled industrial employment and related welfare benefits to the population. People moved into industry, yet remained in the villages – performing semi-skilled jobs. This settlement crumbled in the 1980s, but collapsed during the recession that marked the early years of the transition. Most of these jobs were never replaced, as new employment was concentrated regionally in Budapest and the north-west, while many of the new unemployed lacked the skills, or the economic means to get new jobs. As large parts of eastern Hungary fell into crisis, and huge regional and social inequalities opened up the state budget became an enormous sticking plaster covering the gaping wound of rising social tension. By the turn of the millennium this unequal social structure crystallized, and elections became increasingly competitive making it impossible for political leaders to ignore the demands of many living in depressed regions. At the same time they had to appease the demands of “winners” for tolerable tax rates.
A parallel can be drawn between Hungary and a crisis-ridden industrial regions like north-east England, where governments have sought to replace decimated industries with new greenfield investments like Nissan. While these investments have helped, such regions have remained dependent disproportionately on state expenditure and have high levels of labour market inactivity. The key difference is that the north-east of England receives transfer payments from other regions in the UK, while Hungary has to resolve its own problems, with no transfer from anywhere. No-one has solved these problems satisfactorily anywhere in Europe, and given that Hungary’s problems are not different in kind (though perhaps in extent) to those of all of Central and Eastern Europe’s ex-socialist states, coming up with a solution is now urgent. Clearly these problems require radical changes in Hungarian economic policy. It might be argued that from over-zealous implementation of the bankruptcy law during the recession of the early 1990s, through the Bokros austerity package in 1995, ill-considered increases in the minimum wage under Viktor Orbán, to the unfunded largesse of the Medgyessy years, state policies have oscillated between excessive neo-liberal dogmatism and a series of short-term political fixes that have cumulatively undermined Hungary’s long-term growth prospects. In the medium and long-term increasing employment is the only way of driving forward the economy – the policies required to do this, however, will require resources over a long period of time.
At the moment, however, the financial markets are driving the Hungarian government towards policies that are likely to lead to social, economic and quite possibly, political disaster. To avoid this it is important that the European Union help Hungary finance its debt and its deficit, and that rather than forcing it to accept frankly unrealistic budgetary targets in the interests of monetary convergence, it uses its resources to stimulate growth both in Hungary and in Central and Eastern Europe as a whole. As the post-1989, post-socialist era comes to an end, what is at stake is the nature of the institutions and politics of the next period of the history of the country and the region. As we know from previous financial crises they can result in both catastrophes and opportunities. Let’s try and avoid the catastrophes …….
For those aware of both Hungary’s economic fundamentals and the progress of the “credit crunch”, the budgetary and currency problems should come as no surprise, despite the bizarre insistence for most of the year by Hungary’s economists that there was nothing really to worry about! This is going to be a tense and difficult autumn in Budapest – with the rest of the region, in the words of the Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliot, looking like “an accident waiting to happen”, a sharp slowdown in western Europe affecting Hungary’s export-oriented manufacturing sector, the general impact of the global crisis on Budapest as a regional financial centre, a budgetary and a currency crisis, the economic situation ought to be a cause for anxiety. Politically, Hungary’s Socialist government lacks a parliamentary majority, it faces an opposition that has never shown any sign before of putting an overriding national interest before its own immediate short-term considerations of winning political advantage, and a far right that over the past two years has been prepared to use violent direct action on Hungary’s streets. Against this background, one of the problems Hungary faces in seeking to restore market confidence, is that it is difficult to see how the country will overcome these challenges without some major changes to its political and economic institutions.
Autumn 2008, like 1988-9, looks like it will be one of those key turning point moments. This is because it is difficult to see how Hungary will emerge from the challenges it currently faces without some major surgery to the institutions and practices that have developed in the past nineteen years. As in all such moments, it is impossible to say what direction such changes will take, though the risks are considerable. Much depends on how far the relevant actors, including bodies like the European Union as well as those within Hungary itself, are prepared to show imagination and courage in facing the demands of the moment.
Hungary’s economic performance has been weak for some years. From the beginning of the decade up to 2006 economic growth was only really sustained through accumulating state debt. Hungary’s economists have argued that the road to putting Hungary back on a growth path leads to huge cuts in state expenditures – especially social spending – so that high tax rates can be bought down in order that foreign investors will be attracted into the country. After his re-election in 2006, Gyurcsány accepted their advice. The government’s pursuit of this path has led to a state of virtual economic stagnation, and large-scale popular discontent, which has made this strategy politically unviable. Without an alternative, the government has shown every sign of not knowing what do, and since the spring has fallen back on an endless series of short-term tactical manoeuvres designed to buy time.
The neo-liberal diagnosis of Hungary’s problems was fatally flawed because it failed to address the underlying causes of the country’s budget deficit and debt-related problems. These lie in a crisis of employment and employability – in 2006 only 54.5 percent of the population of working age were active in the labour market. In large part, this problem is a legacy of the state socialist social settlement instituted after the completion of agricultural collectivization in 1961, that was based on the offer of semi-skilled industrial employment and related welfare benefits to the population. People moved into industry, yet remained in the villages – performing semi-skilled jobs. This settlement crumbled in the 1980s, but collapsed during the recession that marked the early years of the transition. Most of these jobs were never replaced, as new employment was concentrated regionally in Budapest and the north-west, while many of the new unemployed lacked the skills, or the economic means to get new jobs. As large parts of eastern Hungary fell into crisis, and huge regional and social inequalities opened up the state budget became an enormous sticking plaster covering the gaping wound of rising social tension. By the turn of the millennium this unequal social structure crystallized, and elections became increasingly competitive making it impossible for political leaders to ignore the demands of many living in depressed regions. At the same time they had to appease the demands of “winners” for tolerable tax rates.
A parallel can be drawn between Hungary and a crisis-ridden industrial regions like north-east England, where governments have sought to replace decimated industries with new greenfield investments like Nissan. While these investments have helped, such regions have remained dependent disproportionately on state expenditure and have high levels of labour market inactivity. The key difference is that the north-east of England receives transfer payments from other regions in the UK, while Hungary has to resolve its own problems, with no transfer from anywhere. No-one has solved these problems satisfactorily anywhere in Europe, and given that Hungary’s problems are not different in kind (though perhaps in extent) to those of all of Central and Eastern Europe’s ex-socialist states, coming up with a solution is now urgent. Clearly these problems require radical changes in Hungarian economic policy. It might be argued that from over-zealous implementation of the bankruptcy law during the recession of the early 1990s, through the Bokros austerity package in 1995, ill-considered increases in the minimum wage under Viktor Orbán, to the unfunded largesse of the Medgyessy years, state policies have oscillated between excessive neo-liberal dogmatism and a series of short-term political fixes that have cumulatively undermined Hungary’s long-term growth prospects. In the medium and long-term increasing employment is the only way of driving forward the economy – the policies required to do this, however, will require resources over a long period of time.
At the moment, however, the financial markets are driving the Hungarian government towards policies that are likely to lead to social, economic and quite possibly, political disaster. To avoid this it is important that the European Union help Hungary finance its debt and its deficit, and that rather than forcing it to accept frankly unrealistic budgetary targets in the interests of monetary convergence, it uses its resources to stimulate growth both in Hungary and in Central and Eastern Europe as a whole. As the post-1989, post-socialist era comes to an end, what is at stake is the nature of the institutions and politics of the next period of the history of the country and the region. As we know from previous financial crises they can result in both catastrophes and opportunities. Let’s try and avoid the catastrophes …….
Haider's legacy?
Austria woke up to the news this morning that Carinthia’s Governor, Jörg Haider was killed in a car accident while driving home during the early hours of this morning. With the country’s political parties attempting to form a new government in Vienna just less than two weeks after an earth-shattering election result, which left the two far right-wing parties (Haider was the leader of one of them) a major political force, the short-term political consequences are significant. In the long-term it is significant too.
While the obituaries will focus on his notorious 1991 comments approving of National Socialist employment policies, and on the European Union’s misguided attempts to isolate Austria when his FPÖ entered the federal government in 2000, there are other aspects of his legacy that are well worth considering. In a book published earlier this year, the political scientists Anton Pelinka, Hubert Sickinger and Karin Stögner (by no means friends of Haider), have made the case for his role in transforming not only Austrian politics but its political culture. The point could be extended to Europe as a whole. Haider was a political innovator in that he pioneered many of the elements of a right-wing populist politics that learned to use the commercialized and tabloidized media to great effect. Many of the tactics he deployed during the 1990s in his initial rise – the use of campaign slogans that looked like tabloid headlines, his careful crafting of a self-image as the ally of the people against the system, the use of the rally, the petition and the referendum to underline the populist nature of his pitch – have been widely copied. Hungary’s opposition leader and former Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán has shamelessly copied many of Haider’s tactics. The parallels with Silvio Berlusconi’s construction of his appeal are similarly obvious.
As I’ve argued on this blog before, when commentators look at Austria’s radical right they are obsessed with what it reveals about the country’s relationship to its past. What they miss is the way Austria’s radical right is better seen as a warning about a possible future for politics across Europe. The populist right that Haider shaped in Austria speaks to those who engage with the tabloid media and commercial television; it positions itself as the voice of popular “common sense” against elites. Established parties have found this kind of populism difficult to deal with. Whether they are any more successful in future will determine Haider’s legacy, and possibly the future of politics across the continent as a whole.
While the obituaries will focus on his notorious 1991 comments approving of National Socialist employment policies, and on the European Union’s misguided attempts to isolate Austria when his FPÖ entered the federal government in 2000, there are other aspects of his legacy that are well worth considering. In a book published earlier this year, the political scientists Anton Pelinka, Hubert Sickinger and Karin Stögner (by no means friends of Haider), have made the case for his role in transforming not only Austrian politics but its political culture. The point could be extended to Europe as a whole. Haider was a political innovator in that he pioneered many of the elements of a right-wing populist politics that learned to use the commercialized and tabloidized media to great effect. Many of the tactics he deployed during the 1990s in his initial rise – the use of campaign slogans that looked like tabloid headlines, his careful crafting of a self-image as the ally of the people against the system, the use of the rally, the petition and the referendum to underline the populist nature of his pitch – have been widely copied. Hungary’s opposition leader and former Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán has shamelessly copied many of Haider’s tactics. The parallels with Silvio Berlusconi’s construction of his appeal are similarly obvious.
As I’ve argued on this blog before, when commentators look at Austria’s radical right they are obsessed with what it reveals about the country’s relationship to its past. What they miss is the way Austria’s radical right is better seen as a warning about a possible future for politics across Europe. The populist right that Haider shaped in Austria speaks to those who engage with the tabloid media and commercial television; it positions itself as the voice of popular “common sense” against elites. Established parties have found this kind of populism difficult to deal with. Whether they are any more successful in future will determine Haider’s legacy, and possibly the future of politics across the continent as a whole.
Monday 29 September 2008
Austria's elections, the radical-right and the lessons for Europe
In yesterday’s general elections in Austria, two radical right-wing parties, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Union for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) polled together almost 30 percent of all votes cast. Having been in Austria twice since elections became inevitable as a consequence of the breakdown of the grand coalition between the two big parties in June, this aspect of the results was no surprise – but it is nevertheless shocking. The FPÖ has adopted positions that are openly racist, while the BZÖ is effectively the political creation of the Governor of Carinthia, Jörg Haider, whose reputation as one of Europe’s leading radical right-wing politicians was established during the 1990s.
Much ink is likely to be spilled in the mainstream media across Europe and North America, seeking to argue that the roots of this election result lie in Austria’s National Socialist past and its failure to come to terms with that legacy during much of the post-war period. I am highly sceptical of these explanations. This is not to deny that political elites during the first forty-five years of the Second Republic sought to whitewash the reality of Austrian support for National Socialism, and the complicity of Austrian society in maintaining a criminal regime. Nor do I want to deny that this whitewashing and the dominance of the politics of statist consensus during the post-war period had baleful effects on the development of Austrian political culture. When Austria was subject to EU sanctions in early 2000 following the inclusion of the FPÖ in a right-wing coalition, I argued in my contribution to a discussion on the HABSBURG list that the rise of the radical right in Austria was related far more to contemporary political, social and economic pressures than a past that was then fifty-five years distant.
Not only was this true then, but it is equally true almost nine years after the FPÖ won the same kind of share of the vote that the FPÖ and BZÖ won together yesterday. While most media commentary focuses on the past, they miss the more crucial, important and worrying point – that this result points to the future of politics in Europe, rather than its past. To see why this is the case one only needs to examine the relationship between society and politics in Austria during the post-war period, and some of the parallels (and points of divergence) with other European states.
During the years of four-power occupation between 1945 and 1955, Austria’s political elites were forced to build a political system based on elite consensus. The presence of Soviet troops in the east of the country, and much of Austria bordered socialist states from the late 1940s cemented elite co-operation. The centre-right majority and socialist/social democratic minority co-operated. The left’s supporters were integrated through the development of a welfare state, that continued after Austria signed its peace treaty in 1955, and reached its apogee during the 1970s when the Socialist Party (re-named in 1991 as the Social Democrats) won a series of absolute majorities. In the early 1980s as the cold winds of new right politics blew through North America and Europe, Austria continued to enjoy full employment, and welfare-based politics based on a high degree of elite consensus.
Given the changes in the international economic environment during the 1980s this did not last, and from 1986 under a grand coalition of the two major parties, budgets were cut, full employment abandoned, and state industries were privatized – unemployment reached 7 percent by 1993, and Austria became a two-thirds, one-third society like its neighbours. During the same period, the cold war border between east and west disappeared, with a consequent pick-up in economic migration – a process exacerbated by flight from the consequences of the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. This was the environment which enabled Jörg Haider’s rise during the 1990s.
Up to five years ago, it seemed that the radical right’s incorporation into government in 2000 had led to its marginalization. The responsibility for governing and supporting some fairly unpleasant neo-Thatcherite policies undercut its ability to play the populist cards Haider used to such effect in the 1990s. The FPÖ split between Haider and his “moderates”, and the anti-immigrant, racist radicals. Aided by the stupidity of those leading a renewed grand coalition of the two parties that took power in 2007 (especially of the Social Democrats in agreeing to most of the neo-liberal agenda of the party they defeated after spending an election campaigning against it), they have returned with a vengeance.
Hitherto, Austria’s radical-right has been most effective as a vehicle of protest, but they may not stay as such (a unified radical-right party, combining the FPÖ and BZÖ, would have come within one percent of winning more votes than any other party on the basis of yesterday’s scores). Therefore the phenomena which have made them a major political force need to be grasped. The first of these is the tabloidization of the mass media. The FPÖ especially speak the language of tabloid populism effectively – looking at their posters, their layout, and language I was reminded of the front-pages of tabloid newspapers across Europe (there is a very good example of what I mean here). It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that the rise of the radical-right in Austria demonstrates the dangers of the debasement of political debate that the growing tabloidization of the media has brought in train.
The second and more serious issue is the salience of the politics of immigration. Austria seems to me to be a prime example of a state where legitimacy was built among the population through offering nationally-bounded social citizenship. During the post-war period the authority of the state was based on offering Austrian citizens full employment, relative security, and a welfare state. Ironically because of the success and the nationally-bounded nature of this bargain many of its core supporters have reacted to its erosion by believing that if it were restricted only to “true Austrians” then it would gain a renewed viability. The futility and inhumanity of such politics of restriction have not stopped many people believing in them (aside from the size of the combined vote of the FPÖ and BZÖ, one of the most depressing features of this election was the way in which all mainstream Austrian parties bought into the anti-immigration consensus).
I think the description I have given is good reason to ignore smug analyses that suggest this election result was rooted in Austria’s Nazi past. I recognize many of the phenomena behind the large vote for radical-right parties in Austria in most western European states, including my native Britain. Given the state of the Schengen border regime in Europe one can imagine ever more futile and barbaric anti-immigration measures being pursued, accompanied by neo-nationalist politics of restriction and exclusion on lines of citizenship within Europe’s nation-states. While I find such a future profoundly abhorrent, there seems to be little debate (and even less political will) about when it comes to developing an alternative based upon principles of non-racism and greater social justice (both locally and globally).
Much ink is likely to be spilled in the mainstream media across Europe and North America, seeking to argue that the roots of this election result lie in Austria’s National Socialist past and its failure to come to terms with that legacy during much of the post-war period. I am highly sceptical of these explanations. This is not to deny that political elites during the first forty-five years of the Second Republic sought to whitewash the reality of Austrian support for National Socialism, and the complicity of Austrian society in maintaining a criminal regime. Nor do I want to deny that this whitewashing and the dominance of the politics of statist consensus during the post-war period had baleful effects on the development of Austrian political culture. When Austria was subject to EU sanctions in early 2000 following the inclusion of the FPÖ in a right-wing coalition, I argued in my contribution to a discussion on the HABSBURG list that the rise of the radical right in Austria was related far more to contemporary political, social and economic pressures than a past that was then fifty-five years distant.
Not only was this true then, but it is equally true almost nine years after the FPÖ won the same kind of share of the vote that the FPÖ and BZÖ won together yesterday. While most media commentary focuses on the past, they miss the more crucial, important and worrying point – that this result points to the future of politics in Europe, rather than its past. To see why this is the case one only needs to examine the relationship between society and politics in Austria during the post-war period, and some of the parallels (and points of divergence) with other European states.
During the years of four-power occupation between 1945 and 1955, Austria’s political elites were forced to build a political system based on elite consensus. The presence of Soviet troops in the east of the country, and much of Austria bordered socialist states from the late 1940s cemented elite co-operation. The centre-right majority and socialist/social democratic minority co-operated. The left’s supporters were integrated through the development of a welfare state, that continued after Austria signed its peace treaty in 1955, and reached its apogee during the 1970s when the Socialist Party (re-named in 1991 as the Social Democrats) won a series of absolute majorities. In the early 1980s as the cold winds of new right politics blew through North America and Europe, Austria continued to enjoy full employment, and welfare-based politics based on a high degree of elite consensus.
Given the changes in the international economic environment during the 1980s this did not last, and from 1986 under a grand coalition of the two major parties, budgets were cut, full employment abandoned, and state industries were privatized – unemployment reached 7 percent by 1993, and Austria became a two-thirds, one-third society like its neighbours. During the same period, the cold war border between east and west disappeared, with a consequent pick-up in economic migration – a process exacerbated by flight from the consequences of the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. This was the environment which enabled Jörg Haider’s rise during the 1990s.
Up to five years ago, it seemed that the radical right’s incorporation into government in 2000 had led to its marginalization. The responsibility for governing and supporting some fairly unpleasant neo-Thatcherite policies undercut its ability to play the populist cards Haider used to such effect in the 1990s. The FPÖ split between Haider and his “moderates”, and the anti-immigrant, racist radicals. Aided by the stupidity of those leading a renewed grand coalition of the two parties that took power in 2007 (especially of the Social Democrats in agreeing to most of the neo-liberal agenda of the party they defeated after spending an election campaigning against it), they have returned with a vengeance.
Hitherto, Austria’s radical-right has been most effective as a vehicle of protest, but they may not stay as such (a unified radical-right party, combining the FPÖ and BZÖ, would have come within one percent of winning more votes than any other party on the basis of yesterday’s scores). Therefore the phenomena which have made them a major political force need to be grasped. The first of these is the tabloidization of the mass media. The FPÖ especially speak the language of tabloid populism effectively – looking at their posters, their layout, and language I was reminded of the front-pages of tabloid newspapers across Europe (there is a very good example of what I mean here). It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that the rise of the radical-right in Austria demonstrates the dangers of the debasement of political debate that the growing tabloidization of the media has brought in train.
The second and more serious issue is the salience of the politics of immigration. Austria seems to me to be a prime example of a state where legitimacy was built among the population through offering nationally-bounded social citizenship. During the post-war period the authority of the state was based on offering Austrian citizens full employment, relative security, and a welfare state. Ironically because of the success and the nationally-bounded nature of this bargain many of its core supporters have reacted to its erosion by believing that if it were restricted only to “true Austrians” then it would gain a renewed viability. The futility and inhumanity of such politics of restriction have not stopped many people believing in them (aside from the size of the combined vote of the FPÖ and BZÖ, one of the most depressing features of this election was the way in which all mainstream Austrian parties bought into the anti-immigration consensus).
I think the description I have given is good reason to ignore smug analyses that suggest this election result was rooted in Austria’s Nazi past. I recognize many of the phenomena behind the large vote for radical-right parties in Austria in most western European states, including my native Britain. Given the state of the Schengen border regime in Europe one can imagine ever more futile and barbaric anti-immigration measures being pursued, accompanied by neo-nationalist politics of restriction and exclusion on lines of citizenship within Europe’s nation-states. While I find such a future profoundly abhorrent, there seems to be little debate (and even less political will) about when it comes to developing an alternative based upon principles of non-racism and greater social justice (both locally and globally).
Sunday 21 September 2008
Borders and Border Regimes - Part Two
What do I mean by a “border regime”? I’m using the concept in order to capture the way in which the government of a given international border is not just best captured by the legal regulations that govern it in theory, but the range of social and political relations within which these regulations operate and interact. “Border regimes” shift, depending not only on their political context, but also as a consequence of the changes in the ways in which borderland societies interact with the reality of their border, and each other.
In recent years the history of borders has become a topic that has attracted considerable interest. Most of this literature is a history of how the linear borders of modern territorial states came into being – at least in so far as they examine borders within Europe. This strong point of this literature is that it demonstrates that the linear, well-defined border between states has never been a natural state of affairs, but became hegemonic across the continent at the end of the nineteenth century. It has also underlined the way in which this was the product of historical forces and of events. Its weak point stems from the fact that most of the work done hitherto regards the formation of the territorial state as the end of the story. It fails to examine a reality of border-making as an incomplete and profoundly contested project.
Since 2004, I have been researching the history of a stretch of the Austrian-Hungarian border between 1938 and 1960. This border had been defined as a linear border between two states, regulated by international law as the product of a process of a contestation between 1918 and 1921. The borderland had before been a multi-lingual, culturally-shared region. The border certainly re-shaped this reality, but did not lead automatically to a separation of the territories that lay on either side. Throughout the inter-war years the Austrian-Hungarian border was a region that was contested politically, while remaining a culturally-shared space. In 1938, with Austria’s incorporation into Germany the nature of the border regime shifted. Strangely, the designs of some of those who supported the new National Socialist regime on territories within Hungary populated by German speakers, and Hungarian reactions to those designs preserved the culturally-shared nature of the borderland. As I have argued in a recent article, it was the end of the Second World War and its consequences, with the expulsion of German speakers and the related growth of mutual suspicion across the border that initiated a dynamic of separation which divided the region. This process of separation complemented the broader international dynamic, which marked the beginning of the Cold War in Europe, and reinforced many of its effects. The cold war border – with its watch-towers, barbed wire and minefields – reduced cross-border traffic sharply, but was seen as deeply illegitimate by populations on both sides of the border, though for different reasons. While the Austrian population saw the presence of the Cold War border as actively threatening, for many Hungarians it symbolized a lack of political freedom. Thus, when the regime attempted de-Stalinization in summer 1956, one of its early steps was to remove the barbed wire and minefields (only to replace them after the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution later that year). It played a central, and relatively little-known role in the events of 1989.
The broader conclusion I draw from this is that international borders and border regimes have shifted constantly throughout the century. Both historians and commentators more generally should play close attention to the attitudes and mentalities of those who seek to cross them, and who live either side of them. Attempts to control these borders through the policies of restriction are likely to prove ineffective.
As an historian I am bound to say that the first lesson of this analysis is that more research needs to be done on the different border regimes, raising the issue of how borderland populations interacted with them on an everyday level throughout the twentieth century. Starting from specialized local studies we should aim to use comparison in order to examine why border regimes have shifted during the period. From this kind of work, we would gain, I think, a much greater appreciation of how Europe is changing than we have now.
Although there is much we do not know, I think the following comments might be made about the state of border regimes, and about migration-related controversy in contemporary Europe. The first point I would make is the one I would make above is about the futility of a policy of restriction. For the past thirty years western European governments have introduced ever more restrictive policies in an attempt to shut migrants from the South out. The human costs of this policy in terms of the real human suffering of those attempting to reach the EU illegally are deeply worrying. Furthermore, they have contributed to a huge shadow workforce of illegal immigrants in many European states who live in conditions of deep insecurity and misery, while the bargaining power of certain sections of the documented workforce is undermined profoundly. Secondly, much discussion of globalization has highlighted its cultural and economic dimensions, and has neglected the pull of globalization on the world’s workforce through mass migration. Certainly, mass migration in search of greater economic opportunity is nothing new, as the social history of territories such as the United States shows. However, larger numbers of people are increasingly prepared to move across well controlled international borders in search of economic opportunity. Behind this lays one of the largest social justice issues of our time; that of the yawning economic chasm between different states and regions within the world economy, and its very real and disturbing human consequences. Thirdly and lastly, the politics of migration and border control have helped drive the growing saliency of radical right-wing politics across much of western Europe. While plain racism and xenophobia is a substantial part of the explanation for this development it is also the product of another process. During the twentieth century notions of citizenship were re-defined by the process of both war, and the making of welfare settlements as national social citizenship. States have been expected to provide jobs and basic material welfare to their citizens. Over the past twenty-five years the ability of states to meet these aspirations have been eroded by the hegemony of neo-liberal politics. Protest – as projects such as the pan-European SIREN project have shown – has become displaced onto migrants.
All of these developments suggest that the dynamic history of “border regimes” in contemporary Europe is far from over ………
In recent years the history of borders has become a topic that has attracted considerable interest. Most of this literature is a history of how the linear borders of modern territorial states came into being – at least in so far as they examine borders within Europe. This strong point of this literature is that it demonstrates that the linear, well-defined border between states has never been a natural state of affairs, but became hegemonic across the continent at the end of the nineteenth century. It has also underlined the way in which this was the product of historical forces and of events. Its weak point stems from the fact that most of the work done hitherto regards the formation of the territorial state as the end of the story. It fails to examine a reality of border-making as an incomplete and profoundly contested project.
Since 2004, I have been researching the history of a stretch of the Austrian-Hungarian border between 1938 and 1960. This border had been defined as a linear border between two states, regulated by international law as the product of a process of a contestation between 1918 and 1921. The borderland had before been a multi-lingual, culturally-shared region. The border certainly re-shaped this reality, but did not lead automatically to a separation of the territories that lay on either side. Throughout the inter-war years the Austrian-Hungarian border was a region that was contested politically, while remaining a culturally-shared space. In 1938, with Austria’s incorporation into Germany the nature of the border regime shifted. Strangely, the designs of some of those who supported the new National Socialist regime on territories within Hungary populated by German speakers, and Hungarian reactions to those designs preserved the culturally-shared nature of the borderland. As I have argued in a recent article, it was the end of the Second World War and its consequences, with the expulsion of German speakers and the related growth of mutual suspicion across the border that initiated a dynamic of separation which divided the region. This process of separation complemented the broader international dynamic, which marked the beginning of the Cold War in Europe, and reinforced many of its effects. The cold war border – with its watch-towers, barbed wire and minefields – reduced cross-border traffic sharply, but was seen as deeply illegitimate by populations on both sides of the border, though for different reasons. While the Austrian population saw the presence of the Cold War border as actively threatening, for many Hungarians it symbolized a lack of political freedom. Thus, when the regime attempted de-Stalinization in summer 1956, one of its early steps was to remove the barbed wire and minefields (only to replace them after the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution later that year). It played a central, and relatively little-known role in the events of 1989.
The broader conclusion I draw from this is that international borders and border regimes have shifted constantly throughout the century. Both historians and commentators more generally should play close attention to the attitudes and mentalities of those who seek to cross them, and who live either side of them. Attempts to control these borders through the policies of restriction are likely to prove ineffective.
As an historian I am bound to say that the first lesson of this analysis is that more research needs to be done on the different border regimes, raising the issue of how borderland populations interacted with them on an everyday level throughout the twentieth century. Starting from specialized local studies we should aim to use comparison in order to examine why border regimes have shifted during the period. From this kind of work, we would gain, I think, a much greater appreciation of how Europe is changing than we have now.
Although there is much we do not know, I think the following comments might be made about the state of border regimes, and about migration-related controversy in contemporary Europe. The first point I would make is the one I would make above is about the futility of a policy of restriction. For the past thirty years western European governments have introduced ever more restrictive policies in an attempt to shut migrants from the South out. The human costs of this policy in terms of the real human suffering of those attempting to reach the EU illegally are deeply worrying. Furthermore, they have contributed to a huge shadow workforce of illegal immigrants in many European states who live in conditions of deep insecurity and misery, while the bargaining power of certain sections of the documented workforce is undermined profoundly. Secondly, much discussion of globalization has highlighted its cultural and economic dimensions, and has neglected the pull of globalization on the world’s workforce through mass migration. Certainly, mass migration in search of greater economic opportunity is nothing new, as the social history of territories such as the United States shows. However, larger numbers of people are increasingly prepared to move across well controlled international borders in search of economic opportunity. Behind this lays one of the largest social justice issues of our time; that of the yawning economic chasm between different states and regions within the world economy, and its very real and disturbing human consequences. Thirdly and lastly, the politics of migration and border control have helped drive the growing saliency of radical right-wing politics across much of western Europe. While plain racism and xenophobia is a substantial part of the explanation for this development it is also the product of another process. During the twentieth century notions of citizenship were re-defined by the process of both war, and the making of welfare settlements as national social citizenship. States have been expected to provide jobs and basic material welfare to their citizens. Over the past twenty-five years the ability of states to meet these aspirations have been eroded by the hegemony of neo-liberal politics. Protest – as projects such as the pan-European SIREN project have shown – has become displaced onto migrants.
All of these developments suggest that the dynamic history of “border regimes” in contemporary Europe is far from over ………
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