Remaking the Political Field in Hungary: From the Politics of Confrontation to the Politics of Competition
Remaking the Political Field in Hungary: From the Politics of Confrontation to the Politics of Competition

Author(s): László Bruszt, David Stark
Subject(s): Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation
Published by: CEEOL Digital Reproductions / Collections
Summary/Abstract: The cataclysmic dissolution of Communist regimes and the clamorous awakening of the East European peoples in 1989 prompted observers to overestimate the strength of organized democratic forces in these events. The stunning electoral victory of Solidarity in June, the public drama of Imre Nagy’s reburial in Budapest that same month, the street demonstrations in Leipzig in October, and the massive assemblies in Prague in November were all signs of popular strivings for democracy. But many observers mistook the enthusiastic expression of these aspirations as evi dence of far-reaching democratic organization and misinterpreted the first stage of transition as the already-achieved triumph of citizenship and civic values.

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