Question Marks: The Hungarian Government

Fülszöveg

In the spring of 1994, the volume titled Balance: The Hungarian Government 1990-1994 was published. In this, the authors attempted a summary analysis of the outgoing government. After the publication of this first analysis, a socialist-liberal centre-left government was established in the wake of the élections, as opposed to the previous centre-right conservative government. We set a dual objective. On the one hand, we wanted to refine our perspective and calibrate the aspects of analysis so that they would be applicable in the analysis of any government. On the other hand, we had to form an opinion on the activity of a beginner government, beginner at least as far as the time spent in office so far. Though to differing extent, these two objectives are conspicuous in all the chapters of this book. The writ-ings published in this volume include papers, essays, chronicles and participants' reports. But genre is not the only différence between the papers. The authors very often... Tovább

Fülszöveg

In the spring of 1994, the volume titled Balance: The Hungarian Government 1990-1994 was published. In this, the authors attempted a summary analysis of the outgoing government. After the publication of this first analysis, a socialist-liberal centre-left government was established in the wake of the élections, as opposed to the previous centre-right conservative government. We set a dual objective. On the one hand, we wanted to refine our perspective and calibrate the aspects of analysis so that they would be applicable in the analysis of any government. On the other hand, we had to form an opinion on the activity of a beginner government, beginner at least as far as the time spent in office so far. Though to differing extent, these two objectives are conspicuous in all the chapters of this book. The writ-ings published in this volume include papers, essays, chronicles and participants' reports. But genre is not the only différence between the papers. The authors very often represent different theoretical positions and practical conclusions. Writing this volume has been a joint effort in the course of which we have learnt a lot from one another without trying to change one an-other's viewpoint. It is often said that the politician lives his life in the world of half truths. After all, as a resuit of natural and inevitable party affiliations, he is in the position of spelling out "party" truth, which is bits of partial truth. On the contrary, the objective and task of professional intellectual work is to provide, preferably in an interesting way, as complete a picture as possible, based on understanding the bits of partial truth, but stepping beyond them. Such was our attempt. Let the Reader be our judge. Vissza