Government-interest group relations in Hungarian politics since 1989

While discussion of the political transition in East Central Europe has tended to focus on the development of parties, presidential and parliamentary politics, and constitutional issues, attention has gradually turned during the 1990s to broader questions of the relationship between state and society. A particular aspect of this is the question of whether there has been a deepening of democratisation and a strengthening of the influence of groups in civil society on the policy-making process. In this article we focus on these issues as they have emerged in Hungary in the 1990s, examining the roles of trade unions, employers' associations and other groups that have sought to represent particular interests in society and to influence government policies and decisions. In the following sections we offer first a brief account of the situation under communist rule, followed by an overview of the changing relations between government and interest groups in Hungary during the period since the end of communist rule. We then report on some findings from surveys we have conducted of a broad range of interest groups in Hungarian society and the activities they have adopted in attempting to influence government and ensure the representation of their interests in the policy-making process. Our own findings tend to question the starkness of the judgements described above and to offer an alternative, more qualified interpretation of the evidence so far.