Hungary: Patterns of political conflict over territorial-administrative reform

Article is part of a special issue, 'Region, State and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe'.

Journal abstract:

This essay traces three forms of political elite conflict that marked the process of territorial-administrative reform in Hungary during the first post-communist decade: between government and opposition; 'decentralizers' and 'centralizers'; and supporters and detractors of different territorial tiers - the local, the county and the region. The study also discusses the way in which the notion of 'Europe' was used in these debates. It shows that, even in a territorially and ethnically homogeneous state, post-communist territorial-administrative reform in the context of the 'return to Europe' has elicited a rich set of political arguments about ways of arranging the state, driven by partisan interests and varying understandings of Hungary's pre-communist and communist pasts and post-communist experience.