Abstracts (PSz, 2018/1., 193-203. o.)

István Kukorelli: The status of nationalities in the years of the change of regime - attempts to regulate their parliamentary representation

The study follows changes in the constitutional rights of nationalities in the years of the change of regime, up to the Fundamental Law of 2011.

The author notes that the years of the regime change produced many unusual solutions in the history of nationality law, especially for parliamentary representation of national minorities, but initially for their local governments as well.

While questions concerning political representation and institutions for the protection of minorities have largely been resolved, parliamentary representation and electoral law still pose many problems today.

The author's conclusion is that instead of the national advocate, the problem could be solved by the introduction of a second chamber.

Keywords: the concept of nationality, their constitutional rights, local governments of nationalities, parliamentary representation of nationalities, protective institutions of nationalities

István Kukorelli, professor, Eötvös Loránd University, kukorelli.istvan@ajk.elte.hu

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Zoltán Pozsár-Szentmiklósy: Supermajority in Parliamentary Systems - A Concept of Substantive Legislative Supermajority: Lessons from Hungary

The paper focuses on the theoretical grounds of supermajority, its special relevance in parliamentary systems and the related experiences from Central and Eastern Europe, especially from Hungary.

In parliamentary systems, the support of the parliamentary majority is a necessary and sufficient condition for governance - there is no need for supermajoritarian decision-making in issues of daily politics. Qualified majority has a different function: - as an internal institutional limit of the legislative power - protecting the minority interests against the unilateral decisions of the majority in the most important issues of the political community.

The Hungarian experience from the period between 2010-2015 demonstrates that in cases where the supermajority represents a one-party opinion, minorities cannot influence the decisions. Moreover, decisions of the supermajority can block future modifications of the future parliamentary majority as well. In this paper I will argue that only a substantive approach to supermajority can support its basic function.

Keywords: parliamentary systems, legislative supermajority, limits of the majoritarian power, protection of minorities, substantive approach

Zoltán Pozsár-Szentmiklósy assistant professor, Eötvös Loránd University, pozsarz@ajk.elte.hu

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Zsanett Pokornyi: Policy changes reflected in the Speeches of Prime Ministers and in the Legislation

This paper examines how the prime ministers' parliamentary speeches effect the legislative processes in Hungary. According to our hypotheses, the changes of the policy content of parliamentary speeches have significant effects on the quantity of laws and decrees as well.

In our current research, we investigate the relations between the Hungarian executive parliamentary speeches, laws and decrees. The constantly expanding frame of laws provides a great opportunity for the government to shape the regulations of the policy areas by the main executive interests.

The Hungarian political arena provides an ideal ground for our analysis. After the regime change, the strengthened role of the government has highlighted the importance of the dynamics of executive agenda. However, the investigation of parliamentary speeches is not enough to examine the efficiency of the government. In their speeches, prime ministers determine the main lines and purposes of the government work, which can be incorporated to the political arena for a long term by regulating them in laws and decrees.

We investigated our hypotheses by using three datasets of Hungarian Comparative Agendas Project, called "Executive Speeches (1990-2015)", "Decrees (1990-2015)" and "Laws (1990-2015)".

In our analysis we selected three policy issues - macroeconomics, foreign policy and government operation - to examine the relations between the policy content of parliamentary speeches, laws and decrees. According to our results, we found correlations between the tendencies of the investigated indicators. Emphasized policy issues of the speeches can generate the increase of the number of laws and decrees in the examined policy areas. The effects of parliamentary speeches are confirmed by analysing the time component as well. During the investigated period, the main changes of the policy topics have occurred first in the speeches, followed by shifts of the decrees and laws. Based on our results, the policy content of parliamentary speeches has significant effects on the number of decrees and laws in Hungary.

Keywords: parliamentary speech, legislation, diversity, government, public policy

Zsanett Pokornyi junior research fellow/PhD student, Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Political Science, Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law, pokornyi.zsanett@tk.mta.hu

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Sándor Gyula Nagy - Barnabás Szabó: The role of the Catalonian Parliament in determining Spanish political processes from medieval ages to nowadays