1st Edition
Contemporary Hungarian Society Social Changes in Hungary from Late State Socialism
This book examines social change in Hungary, commencing with the period of late-stage socialism, the country’s immediate post-communist transition, its subsequent consolidation and the emergence of authoritarian leadership since 2010. The volume seeks to employ a longitudinal and comparative perspective and provides comparison to other central and east European states that emerged from state socialism.
The Hungarian regime change of 1989-1990 led to previously unimaginable social and economic transition. In recent decades, regime change and socio-economic transition in Central and Eastern Europe has produced a library of literature, and transition studies has periodically become a discipline in its own right. The author uses an interdisciplinary approach – drawing from social history, sociology, statistics and contemporary history - in order to understand and analyse social change in all its complexity.
The book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, social scientists, historians, experts and those interested in Hungarian and Central and Eastern European history and social change.
1. Introduction 2. Approaches to the regime change, post-communism and illiberalism – concepts and interpretations 3. Demographic changes shift in Hungarian society, 1980-2020 4. The spatial distribution of Hungarian society 5. Minority groups and ethnicities, from within and beyond the borders of Hungary 6. Social stratification – mobility and social structure during the post-communist transition and in the illiberal system 7. Old, new and reviving social groups, from the post-communist transition to the illiberal system 8. Society and politics during the post-communist transition, the early 21st century, and under illiberalism 9. Collective opinion and values 10. Social relations and situations 11. Unique aspects of the transformation of Hungarian society between 1980 and 2020 – From the perspective of a Central and Eastern European comparison
Biography
Tibor Valuch is a social historian and research professor at the Center for Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science, Budapest. He is also a professor at the Institute of History, Eszterházy Károly University in Eger. His main research fields include the comtemporary Hungarian and (Central) European social and cultural history, history of everyday life and labor history. His latest publication is: Everyday life under Communism and after - Consumption an Lifestyle in Hungary, 1945-2000. (2021).
