CHAPTER 5
Captured by State and Church:
Civil Society
in Democratic Hungary
Ágnes Kövér
Introduction
The vibrant third sector (herein referred to as the civil sector) arising from
the political changes of 1989 raised the question of whether it would develop
toward state control or move toward developing a robust partnership
and dialogue with the state.1
Paradoxically, both these possibilities were
fulfilled in the ensuing decades, but there has more recently been an unexpected
turn in a third direction. Incontestably, civic organizations became
and remained dependent upon state or state-controlled funding (such
as EU funds), but at the same time a new kind of partnership and dialogue
with government has emerged, lately dramatically shaped and transformed
by the triumphant Fidesz party, which won the 2010 elections with a twothirds
parliamentary majority.
At the beginning of the 2000s, Western observers attributed a positive
and supportive role to the state, expecting the promotion of civic organizations
and the encouragement of citizens’ participation in them.2
This
“supportive” role and the pathologies of the relationship between the state
and the civic organizations—traced back to pretransition times—have
proved disastrous for the civil sector in Hungary.
The second failure of Western observers was to assume that the reluctance
of so many “postcommunist”3
citizens to participate in voluntary
organizations meant that antidemocratic organizations and movements
would also have problems organizing and mobilizing, and their efforts
would be hindered by the same legacy of mistrust.4
This assumption has
been dramatically refuted by the Hungarian reality, which brought about a
vital outpouring of organizations and movements on the bases of formerly
82 Ágnes Kövér
unexpressed sentiments and traditionally unspoken themes. Easily understood
buzzwords were conceptualized in nationalistic, antiglobalist, and
anti-EU frames. These themes had the power to mobilize people and to
address formerly frustrated and suppressed claims that were neither discussed
nor taken seriously by the center-left, liberal governments that
came to power in the new century. These unrecognized or unsettled national
grievances wore on much of the nation’s mind and increasingly
became a medium for abuse.
Hungary’s new democratic institutions were neither grounded on an
understanding of, nor actively supported by, the larger population. And
this salient circumstance tended to be ignored by the “armies”5
of Western
“democracy makers”6
who were marched into Central and Eastern
Europe, seeking to advance their own conceptions of democratic development
without a deep or adequate understanding of local conditions.
Western ears were insensitive to those slight nuances that aggregated in
Hungary; for example, a decade after the political transitions, a prominent
feminist leader (invited several times to visit at UCLA and supported by
the philanthropy of George Soros) transformed herself to become main
voice of the far-right Jobbik party.
The demise of the Hungarian civil sector can ultimately be traced back
not primarily to disjunctions in the relationship between the state and the
civic organizations, but more to the general weakness and vulnerability of
the whole sector. A number of junctures may be identified in which civic
organizations came into contact with other sectors and became jeopardized
by intrusion or blurred borderlines.
We can identify the obvious boundary between the state and the civil
society sector. Our observations should also explore the boundaries between
church and civic organizations; between political parties, movements
and the civil society sector; and finally between the more established
for-profit organizations and the more grassroots civic organizations.
Without claiming to exhaustively analyze the recent transformations in
the Hungarian civil sector in the above list, I hereby consider only some of
the most meaningful and decisive cases which illustrate the Hungarian
civil society sector’s “borderline disease.”
Relations and Boundaries between the State and the Civil Sector
One of the leading problems that plague Hungarian civic organizations is
the high level of resource dependency. Although the legal system of
founding, registering, and funding civic organizations is considered to be
Captured by State and Church 83
highly regulated, elements of independence and impartiality were built
into the system, e.g., the 1 percent National Civil Fund (NCA) tax. But
only a small portion of the resources sought by nonprofit organizations
(NPOs) were provided via this vehicle. Beyond this, other processes of
grant provisions (including EU grants) and adjudication practices that
were neither transparent nor unbiased flourished even before 2010. Although
civic organizations cooperated with governmental organizations
(ministries, agencies, state-founded NPOs) in developing and jointly pursuing
government policies, this advantage concomitantly undermined the
watchdog function of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and
resulted in a set of practices that took the form of visiting corridors of
power, drinking and eating out with ministerial public servants, and expecting
and hoping for personal and organizational advantages from these
positive and close relationships.
This was a sort of continuation of the deeply socialized state socialist
experience about how things can be done successfully, on both the power
bearers’ and the civil actors’ sides. In a system where the main provider
remained the state and resources were available mostly through government
bodies, processes or methods of civil control were neither developed
nor improved. It is not surprising that the good old reflections were re-
vived.
The resulting gray-area practices served both sides’ interests very well,
and made everybody’s life easier. The government and its agencies
needed to be legitimized by civil society from time to time on certain
questions. And civic organizations needed this good relationship to get
extra opportunities, strategic contracts, etc. This manner of operation
structured the selection of organizations and limited the openness, transparency,
and achievement-based competitiveness of these organizations. It
resulted in a biased grant distribution process, still considered unfair.
Nonetheless, a number of different actors were not excluded, and the
transnational Hungarian organizations were highly supported.
After 2010—we can say that there has been a new chronology since
then—the system of partiality became legitimized, and grant distribution
became overtly biased as a “necessary restoration” of the national and
traditional value system, which strictly excluded a number of values, critical
voices, and watchdog views.
One example of this manner of biased allocation of money is Government
Decree 49/2011 (III.30.), which ordered the direct provision of financial
support through some of the ministries to 525 organizations, visibly
recognizable from their names as NGOs that highlight national, fam-
84 Ágnes Kövér
ily, and other traditional values and share these with the government parties.
On this list of beneficiaries were many church organizations.
In Hungary, the Fidesz government practically dismissed the civil society
organizations, replacing the formerly existing ones with a “new” set
of loyalists, rooted in and grown from deeper levels of party-created and
-controlled civic circles. The underlying efforts of these new players are
found in the historically based tradition of a strong central state, the restored
(or rather surviving) authoritarian hierarchies that successfully hindered
the emergence of civil independence and autonomy.
After decades of “confusing diversity and plurality,” which neither improved
people’s well-being nor found answers nor created an open discourse
about crucial questions such as national identity, community, etc.,
citizens became vulnerable to buzzwords and promises from the radical
right. The Fidesz party met people’s expectations on multiple levels. By the
beginning of 2000, it began to reorganize its own civil society organizations,
arranging a set of civic circles on the local community level. These
circles spread nationally through a network of local cells whose main underlying
values brought into play the concept of the enemy and promoted an
identity contrary to that of communists or, even worse, liberals, the EU, etc.
On the other hand, they provided positive actions, feelings of hope, and
clear identities and experiences of community life. These civic circles were
closely interwoven with the churches (mainly the Roman Catholic and Reformed
churches) and their local communities. At the same time, these organizations
initiated the registration of new NGOs, associations, and foundations.
And, of course, they registered themselves as NGOs.
By the 2010 elections, Fidesz had thus established its own strong mass
basis, undergirded by its far-flung network of civic organizations. This
takes us to the Peace March organization and movement mentioned below.
After the successful election of Fidesz, the new governmental forces
moved quickly to secure and financially back these organizations, thus
changing the entire NGO self-governance and decision-making system.
Existing bodies of representation and self-governance7
that had previously
made decisions independently of the government were replaced by new
ones for which the allocation of seats to representatives of government
bodies became dominant. Thus, the opportunity for making dissident civil
decisions or protest was lost. The same process occurred in the case of EU
fund distribution as well.
As a result, hundreds of formerly successful organizations disappeared,
a process which can be followed by searching the web, where the virtual
corpses of once-flourishing NGOs are scattered.
Captured by State and Church 85
Relations and Boundaries between the Church and
Civic Organizations
Another instructive story may be drawn from the relations between church
organizations and non-church NGOs and NPOs. One could ask what relevance
church and church organizations might have in the field of the non–
church-based civil sector. Beyond the simple fact that the boundaries between
these two entities are worth observing, in the case of Hungary we
find a strong history that undermines and dissolves a significant portion of
non–church-based NPOs, and NGOs in the fields of social services and
education. In both fields, one finds the increasingly monopolizing effect
of the traditional values of the repressive Catholic mindset. Programming
changes are resulting in the dissolving presence of diversity and plurality
in schools and services. Alternative schools providing opportunities to
minorities have been abolished; services formerly provided to those with
special needs wither away as the local NPOs that used to provide these
services turn to begging the church to take them over in order to survive.
The story may be traced back to the agreement signed in 1997 by the
MSZP-SZDSZ government and the Vatican. This understanding provided
a separate budgetary line of the annual government expenditure directed
to the churches of Hungary. This step ruptured the principle of separation
of church and state, with its intention to restore and remedy the losses and
grievances inflicted by state socialism. Although the agreement was criticized,
mostly by liberals from a theoretical perspective, nobody foresaw
the consequences that would descend upon civil nonprofit actors a decade
later.
Hungary’s Act III of 1993 on Social Administration and Social Services—based
on principles of subsidiarity and decentralization—stipulated
that social services at the local community level were to be provided under
the administration of local governments. This process of decentralization
gave local authorities a considerable degree of autonomy. It enabled them to
expand their activities without an increase in government support, thus
stimulating privatization and the transfer of authorities to for-profit organizations
and NPOs operating within their jurisdictions. The system was
based on contractual cooperation between the local government and the
NPOs; it encouraged and motivated small organizations to provide professional
services within the field of human and social services. This means of
service provision was highly rational, since flexible, highly professional,
small NPOs were more able to change and easily accommodate clients’
needs and changing environments than local government bodies or institu-
86 Ágnes Kövér
tions. As a result, by the end of the 1990s, many hundreds of small NPO
and NGO service providers were operating within the social field and were
paid on a contract basis, which covered the patients’ per-capita expenditures.
This did not provide a particularly high level of subsistence for the
organizations, but it did provide their members and employees with considerable
professional standing and leeway in the provision of services. Employees
were generally highly dedicated and honored to work under the
conditions of an NPO that had a different organizational culture and value
system than was prevalent in Hungary before.
I strongly disagree with the Western accusations8
that such professionalized
service provider organizations neglected their roles as promoters of
democracy. Rather, I believe that these civil-professional NPO service
providers contributed, along with other organizations (e.g., local governments,
church organizations, for-profit organizations), to a pluralistic field
of social services. This kind of community pluralism, it has been contended
from Dewey to Putnam, promotes and achieves democracy itself,
since it multiplies the available options and services and increases clients’
availability of choice.
Many critiques have been offered on the concomitant legal provisions
that make difficult the initiation and registration of these service providers,
which had to meet all the strict criteria conventionally applied to large
government institutions. There was also criticism of the slow pace at
which these processes were funded. To be sure, the continuity of these
small organizations was hindered or obstructed from time to time; variations
in budget periods and delays in financial administration sometimes
left NPOs with budget gaps that lasted for months. But these problems
and phenomena were regularly debated, and the organizations evinced
high levels of interest in cooperating and coping with these difficulties.
The first signs of malady appeared at the beginning of the 2000s, when
NPOs began to encounter new and fundamental difficulties in funding
their organizations. Core costs (administration, maintenance, etc.) had
never been covered by standard expenditures,9
but rather by independent
resources (e.g., NCA, program grants). The per-capita standard expenditure
was set annually by the government and allocated to the local government
within a budgetary term. Humanitarian and service provider
NPOs started to face significant difficulties with not being able to fund the
whole year or not being able to bridge the period when the budget was not
provided.
By this time, church organizations had become quite common in the
local field of service provision, contracting under the same conditions as
Captured by State and Church 87
other NPOs. Of course, there is a significant financial difference between
NPOs and church organizations, which arises from the state support based
on the Vatican agreement and is enshrined in Act CXXVII 2007 on Value
Added Tax. This support comes on top of the regular standard expenditures
in the case of church services. Additionally, it must be remembered
that considerable wealth has been returned to the historical churches in
Hungary, and that 1 percent of taxpayers’ sums could be offered exclusively
to churches. Additionally, the missing taxpaying obligations after
church taxes and other income come from worshipper offerings. Thus, we
encounter a financially flourishing set of organizations, unlike the NPOs,
which are highly burdened by taxes, usually not do receive much from the
1 percent NCA, and struggle with funding scenarios in which organizational
overhead is not covered at all.
In this unequal competitive situation—a consequence of a variety of
unforeseen and unwittingly planned processes—humanitarian and service
provider NPOs were bled of their resources over the course of the 2000s.
They were left with the choice of being closed down, merged into to one
of the local faith-based services, or being transformed (after receiving
ecclesiastical approval) into a church organization offering their services
under the aegis of one of the strong churches.
This unintended but not reflected dismantling of the civil sector led to
a significant weakening of democracy in Hungary. The politically reckless
government elite showed little interest in the field of humanitarian and
social services or the plight of the most indigent part of society; it stood
idly by and witnessed the takeover of the sector by church organizations.
In October 2013, the Vatican agreement was renewed, Bible education
was introduced into the public schools, and the state promised further
financial support for church services, which are rapidly becoming the
exclusive provider of social services. Local governments, themselves
struggling with scarce government funding, acquiesced in the centralization
of the country’s social systems, including education, and welcomed
the fiscal relief provided by this offloading of responsibilities. Hungary’s
historical churches resumed their medieval role as the primary force in the
nation’s dependent third sector.
Conclusion
At the beginning of the 2000s, Western observers (who did a lot and
gained a lot for themselves writing books, developing theories, consulting,
etc. by conducting research in Hungary) identified three main reasons for
88 Ágnes Kövér
the low level of civic engagement in the Central and Eastern European
countries: (1) the legacy of mistrust of the “communist”10
state and formal
organizations, (2) the persistence of friendship networks, and (3) “postcommunist”
disappointment.11
Unfortunately, it was not recognized that
these features cut across the boundaries of civil society and persist with
their unrecognized but still legal, if illegitimate, claims. The later criticism
by Western supporters—that they contributed to the emergence of an elite
located mainly in big cities and centered on social-liberal values12
—may
be valid, but we must take into consideration that Western attenders and
funders had a very low capacity (and level of interest) in understanding
the lives of local people and the methods of former socialist oppression
and its consequences. Since they were not able to speak the language, they
were not able to reach communities in Hungary’s vast countryside, nor
could they communicate with people who could not express themselves
using Western means of expression. They thereby perceived a distorted
version of reality. Unfortunately, they concentrated on their own values
and intentions to deliver Western democracy to the East: from the superior
to the inferior, from the higher to the lower. It was they who established
the frames of communication. Locals who had access to these resources
and relationships used this opportunity as best they could, but sometimes
they may have been swayed by the incomplete observations of Western
visitors.
The author of this article strongly agrees with the young representatives
of European Alternatives (an organization that promotes democracy,
equality, and culture beyond the nation state) in that we have to dissolve
the very distinctions between “East” and “West,” which imply superiority
or inferiority, if we are to reclaim these relationships. Future cooperation
between us—networks of activists, scientists, scholars, and researchers—
should go beyond the traditional forms of third-sector mores and practices
as usually orchestrated from donor centers in the richer countries of the
West. It seems it is time to end the preemption of the possibility of endogenous
politics by hierarchical financial and symbolic relations.13
The unanswered question remains of whether civic organizations are
really able to promote democracy.14
The sociopolitical realities of political
systems, especially in Central and Eastern Europe (in other words, the
postsocialist countries)—clientelism, vertical institutional structures, corruption,
and pervasive inequality—pose insurmountable obstacles to the
strengthening of civil society and the fostering of democracy.15
Let me use
the analogy of Africa as made by Suleiman: the interventionist concept in
the context of African participatory governance processes acts not to chal-
Captured by State and Church 89
lenge the status quo, but often contributes to its maintenance by building
cosmetic social consensus and legitimatizing antidevelopmental politics.16
Observing the current Hungarian realities, to which this analogy is highly
applicable, I suggest we take into consideration the case of the Peace
March movement and the organizational process and structure behind it: it
was founded to support, confirm, and justify existing government decisions
and ways of governing in front of the watching world.
The short and sad story of the Hungarian civil sector told in this chapter
concludes, at least for the present, with a highly manipulated, monopolized,
and authority-based system, one where citizens confront few alternatives
beyond settings that are controlled and dominated by the central
party. Older democracies had centuries to develop their at least quasiindependent
sectors, established with some distance from their central
governments, filling gaps in services or advocacy through the actions and
involvement of civic organizations and civic consciousness. Unfortunately,
Hungary remains entangled with the fossils of its historical past,
having not yet been given the time and space to achieve the necessary
learning and appreciate the opportunities presented by democratic ideas
and structures.
Notes and references
1 Éva Kuti, “Different Eastern European Countries at Different Crossroads,” Voluntas 10,
no. 1 (1999): 51–60.
2 Marc Morjé Howard, “The Weakness of Postcommunist Civil Society,” Journal of Democracy
13, no. 1 (2002): 157–69.
3 Even the use of word communist or postcommunist was a failure to understand the main
features of the system. However, indigenous actors were ready and eager to take over
this label from the Western vocabulary framing their former social experience, in hopes
of higher acceptance and support.
4 Howard, “Postcommunist Civil Society,” 164.
5 Frances Elisabeth Olsen, “Feminism in Central and Eastern Europe: Risks and Possibilities
of American Engagement,” Yale Law Journal 106, no. 7 (1997): 2215–57.
6 Ágnes Gagyi and Mariya Ivancheva, “The Rise and Fall of Civil Society in East-Central
Europe,” in Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe: What’s Left of It?, ed. Sara
Saleri and Alessandro Valera (London: European Alternatives, n.d.), www.euroalter.
com (accessed September 24, 2013).
7 Such as the NCA.
8 Erle Rikmann and Liisi Keedus, “Civic Sectors in Transformation and Beyond: Preliminaries
for a Comparison of Six Central and Eastern European Societies,” Voluntas 24
(2013): 149–66.
9 This is the client funding per capita.
90 Ágnes Kövér
10 Quotation marks mine.
11 Howard, “Postcommunist Civil Society,” 161. Quotation marks mine.
12 Joseph Coelho, “Vehicles for Transformation, or Tools for the Status Quo? Civil Society
and International Statebuilding in Kosovo,” Western Balkans Policy Review 2, no. 2
(2012): 1–26, http://www.kppcenter.org/WBPReview2012-2-2-Coelho.pdf (accessed
September 22, 2013).
13 Gagyi and Ivancheva, “Rise and Fall.”
14 Lina Suleiman, “The NGOs and the Grand Illusions of Development and Democracy,”
Voluntas 24 (2013): 241–61.
15 V. Finn Heinrich and Lorenzo Fioramonti, eds., CIVICUS Global Survey of the State of
Civil Society, Vol. 2: Comparative Perspectives (Boulder, CO: Kumarian Press Books,
2007); Dietlind Stolle and Marc Hooghe, “The Roots of Social Capital: Attitudinal and
Network Mechanisms in the Relation between Youth and Adult Indicators of Social
Capital,” Acta Politica 39 (2004): 422–41.
16 Julie Hearn, “The ‘Uses and Abuses’ of Civil Society in Africa,” Review of African
Political Economy 28, no. 87 (2001): 43–53; David Lewis, “Civil Society in African
Contexts: Reflections on the Usefulness of a Concept,” Development and Change 33,
no. 4 (2002): 569–86; Suleiman, “NGOs,” 248.