A politikai eszmék szerepe a pártok stratégiájában – különös tekintettel a 2006-os választásokra
The role of political ideas in party strategies – with special regard to the 2006 elections

Summary/Abstract: I distinguish between three basic types of political values, ideologies, and ideas. The first one contains the well-known universal ideologies and traditions (liberalism, conservatism, etc.). The second one involves national (particular) ideologies that make sense basically within a particular political community (French, American republicanism, British toryism). But there are political problems of the day that call for moral and principled decisions, yet cannot simply be subsumed to the previous categories (e.g. whether or not the EU should be further enlarged). I apply these three types to the analysis of the party relations in Hungary since the regime change. I argue that until 1998 the universal and national types of ideologies had been dominant, but in 1998 (or a little earlier) the specifically Hungarian positions of being „pro or con” the Kadar-regime took over that role. This has not changed since then, and even the latest elections and its antecedent events (two referenda) and political debates can be most fruitfully explained in terms of that ideological and attitudinal controversy. This is not to say, of course, that ideological debates explain everything, only that in this field the third type of values and ideologies have the largest explanatory power.

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