Social Developments in Today's Hungary

On October 23, 2012 a new series of public lectures on Eastern Europe that traditionally take place within the framework of the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Research and Studies on Eastern Europe (MIREES) has been inaugurated.  This noteworthy practice, started several years ago, consists of approximately two lectures or workshops per month held by prominent guests at Bologna University School of Political Science, Forlì campus.
Two distinguished Hungarian professors from Corvinus University of Budapest (CUB) held the first among many workshops planned for the current academic year by sharing with the audience their latest research findings on two intriguing topics.
Dr. Peter Futó, lecturer at the Institute for Sociology and Social Policy at Corvinus University, opened the debate with some insights on the evolution of co-operation patterns in Hungarian business networks defining themselves as clusters. By raising a number of stimulating issues, the speaker briefly outlined the main characteristics of industrial clusters in Hungary in the context of entrepreneurship development policy. Dr. Futó and his research team studied over 70 clusters, operating in different sectors, in terms of linkage, strength of ties, connectedness, centralization and segmentation. Through a questionnaire based expert survey, personal structural interviews, participation in professional conferences and web page analysis the team was able to identify the factors leading to cluster success. The most salient determinants of success include regional and sectoral affiliation in cluster identity, sectoral homogeneity and joint innovation efforts. Conversely, segmentation and too strong within-cluster competition was found detrimental to clusters’ effectiveness and sustainability, while centralization was not interdependent with success.
The second speaker, the vice-rector for education of Corvinus University, Dr. Zoltan Szántó, focused on the ideal types of corruption transactions in Hungary and their main features. As one of the founders of the CUB Corruption Research Center, Dr. Szántó presented some of the many researches carried out by the group. He devoted particular attention to the typical network configurations of corruption transactions like bribery, extortion, embezzlement and fraud. The Research Center came up with detailed graphs for each transaction, based on Lambsdorff’s (2007) Principal-Agent-Client triad. The principal delegates certain tasks (and to some extent, power) to the agent and offers him remuneration for accomplished tasks. Most importantly, the principal defines the formal rules under which the tasks are to be fulfilled. The agent in return has to remain loyal and responds to the client’s needs within the given framework. According to the model, corruption occurs when one of the players, in most cases the agent, breaks the rules out of self-interest.
With some concrete examples from Hungary (which are not necessarily country specific), Dr. Szántó explained the different transactions and their characteristic features.
 
The two thoughtful presentations were followed by a lively debate that involved both students and professors. 
 
Dora Komnenović
MA MIREES academic tutor