‘The Opposite is True … as Well.’ : Inconsistent Values and Attitudes in Hungarian Legal Culture: Empirical Evidence from and Speculation over Hungarian Survey Data

Gajduschek, György (2017) ‘The Opposite is True … as Well.’ : Inconsistent Values and Attitudes in Hungarian Legal Culture: Empirical Evidence from and Speculation over Hungarian Survey Data. In: Central and Eastern European Socio-Political and Legal Transition Revisited. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 41-56. ISBN 9783631727614

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Abstract

Researchers working with survey data on legal culture in Hungary regularly encounter citizens’ highly inconsistent values and attitudes towards the legal system and its institutions. Three hypothetical explanations for these extreme inconsistencies are proposed below, all of which refer to history. (1) The government and the public sphere were occupied by aliens (foreign suppressors) for five centuries. This has generated an especially high level of alienation from the public sphere and a sharp distinction between formal (theirs) and informal (ours) institutions. (2) Ideological components of previous regimes are typically unconsciously inculcated into citizens’ minds (e.g. via school education), and these ideologies are highly contradictory. (3) The legal order of transition has mostly been created on the basis of legal transplants, rather than via an organic historical evolution; thus neither tradition nor the social memory of successful problem-solving legitimize these rules among citizens.

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