Captured by State and Church: Concerns about Civil Society in Democratic Hungary

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes challenges and dangers that have impacted Hungary's civil society (third sector, nonprofit sector, voluntary sector) over the past decade. The cases presented illustrate the fragility of both the civil sector and its underlying democracy in Hungary. The boundaries between state and nonprofits reveal pervasive paternalistic/cliental processes stemming from the period between the two world wars and pre-1989 experience of public-private relations and issue management. On the one hand, old regime strategies have survived and been maintained by the overt and unreflected dependency of the civil sector on the state. Secondly, the boundaries between church organizations and civil nonprofits present a politically mis(non)managed process that has resulted in a fading role of non-church NGOs in the field of social service. This process can be traced back to an unequal and biased treatment of service provider organizations in an allegedly sector-neutral environment. Both cases illuminate operations that have resulted in a significant dismantling of the civil sector and a consequent deterioration of democracy in Hungary.Keywords: civil society, democratization, public policy Political and social scientists from Huntington (1991Huntington ( , 1996 to Diamond (1994), Schmitter (2011) and Havel (1988, and from Habermas (1996Habermas ( , 2001) to *Corresponding author: Agnes Kover, Department of Social Work, School of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, Pazmany Peter setany 1/A, Budapest 1117, Hungary; Sociology, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809, USA, E-mail: kovera@tatk.elte.hu 1 In this paper, the word civil society is used mostly in a relatively narrow sense and covers the formalized CSOs (associations, foundations) and non-profit sector organizations (NPOs). The theoretical contexts use the term in a wider sense (like civil society as arena by Fioramonti and Fiori (2010)) including the social movements, street protests and the public spaces for discourse (Miszlivetz 2012).

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Between East and West: Government–Nonprofit Relations in Welfare Provision in Post-Socialist Central Europe

“…113–14). In effect, “previous democratization and decentralization processes have been reversed” (Kuti, 2017, p. 61), the scope and authority of local governments have been reduced, and there has been a narrowing of “the space for local civil actions and contribution in different service provisions” (Kover, 2015, p. 194). Furthermore, the definition of public benefit status and the range of services that could be offered by NPOs have been significantly narrowed, and the board responsible for distributing public funding has been replaced by the National Cooperation Fund, which distributes fewer funds than its predecessor and is appointed centrally by the government.…”

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