This Article argues that, as far as Hungary and Poland are concerned, the use of term “illiberal constitutionalism” is justified. It also claims that, without denying that other states could also be considered illiberal democracies, Hungary and Poland display unique and distinctive features. These features include populist politics, which lead to the relativization of the rule of law and democracy principles, and human rights protection, which captured the constitution and constitutionalism by constitutionalizing populist nationalism, constitutional identity, and created new patrionalism and clientelism. All these features are supported by the ideological indoctrination of political constitutionalism. In the course of this process, formal and informal constitutional amendments are used, and a formal sense of constitutional democracy is maintained. Overturning these illiberal democracies by constitutional and legal means, at this time, seems doubtful, if not impossible.

This article argues that discourses of constitutional pluralism contain a strong normative core which is made up of a series of largely unacknowledged implicit claims about legitimacy and community. This argument is illustrated by reference to various constitutional pluralist responses to the Hungarian Constitutional Court's ruling concerning the protection of constitutional identity in the context of EU asylum and refugee protection law and policy, demonstrating that whether this decision falls ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ constitutional pluralist tolerance depends on how the observer defines the minimum amount of shared substantive or procedural content that is fundamental to the EU order.

This article explains why autocrats love constitutional pluralism and constitutional identity. Though these concepts were developed by scholars and jurists with the best of intentions in mind, we explain why they are also attractive to and inherently prone to abuse by autocrats. We then describe how the regimes in Hungary and Poland have made use of these concepts in their drive to consolidate autocracy. We conclude that given the dangers inherent in constitutional pluralism and its susceptibility to abuse, it should be replaced with a more traditional understanding of the primacy of EU law.

Significant variation in the institutions and efficiency of public bureaucracies across countries and regions are observed. These differences could be partially responsible for divergence in the effectiveness of policy implementation, corruption levels, and economic development. Do imperial legacies contribute to the observed variation in the organization of public administrations? Historical foreign rule and colonization have been shown to have lasting effects on legal systems, political institutions, and trade in former controlled territories. Imperial legacies could also explain variations in the performance of public administrations. The author uses the case of Poland to investigate the long-term effects of foreign rule on bureaucratic systems. Historically, Poland was split between three imperial powers with very different public administrations: Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Statistical analyses of original data collected through a survey of more than 650 Polish public administrations suggest that some present-day differences in the organization and efficiency of bureaucracies are due to imperial legacies.

Verification of a groundwater flow model by radiocarbon (14C) data are presented taking into consideration the paleo-hydrogeological changes. Northeastern area of the Great Hungarian Plain was a deep-lying flat area, and its central part (Nyírség) has been uplifted in the last 15,000 years. These geological events have drastically changed the hydrogeological conditions of Nyírség. The groundwater flow system is composed of the Quaternary-Pliocene-Upper Pannonian clastic sediments. Groundwater flow modeling has been performed to define the main lateral and vertical flow directions and velocities controlling the propagation of the environmental radioactive tracer 14C. Solute-transport modeling was used to calculate the 14C activity. The recent steady-state groundwater flow velocity was reduced to a reasonable value characterizing the average flow velocity over the 15 ka simulation period using “trial and error” method. The best fit between the simulated and measured 14C data was achieved by assuming 0.4 flow velocity reduction factor. Results indicate that the present steady-state flow model with this flow velocity reduction factor is capable of reproducing the observed 14C data taking into account the effect of the significant uplift of the part of the land surface in the last 15 ka in NE Hungary.

Radiocarbon dating is paramount for chronologically defining the rise of polities in the Middle Bronze Age Carpathian Basin. This article presents a suite of new radiocarbon dates obtained from sites associated with the Early and Middle Bronze Age Maros Group, and its Late Bronze Age successors in the Tisza-Maros region of south-east Hungary, western Romania and northern Serbia. The results indicate tight chronological synchronisation of Middle Bronze Age settlements and cemeteries in the Maros region, while confirming the accuracy of ceramic-based relative chronology for the Szőreg cemetery.

The substantive representation of women has attracted limited attention in cases in which women are present in politics in small numbers over an extended period of time. This article aims to fill this gap by focusing on two policy episodes in a postcommunist state where female descriptive representation has remained low and static and the regime's democratic backlash can also be observed. The two analytical questions refer to the agency and regime aspects of women's substantive representation under unfavorable conditions. Who is representing women under these conditions, and where and how is their representation taking place? How do the regime's characteristics explain the evolving representation patterns? The article will first argue that the same descriptive representation levels can imply different substantive representation patterns in terms of both actors and space. Second, by reconnecting descriptive representation and substantive representation, the article demonstrates that the decline of a regime's democratic credentials is detrimental to female substantive representation.

Prehistoric population decline is often associated with social collapse, migration and environmental change. Many scholars have assumed that the abandonment of the fortified tell sites of the Great Hungarian Plain c. 1500–1450 BC led to significant regional depopulation. The authors investigate the veracity of this assumption by dating graves from Békés 103—a recently excavated Bronze Age cemetery in eastern Hungary. Using decorative motifs and radiocarbon dates to measure changing ceramic styles over more than 1300 years, they consider the implications for non-tell sites known only through surface survey. The results suggest that, even though people abandoned tell sites, regional populations were maintained.

The article investigates the dynamics of budgeting and its explanatory factors in Hungary based on a new database. Previous work for the period between 1991 and 2013 demonstrated that year-on-year changes in budgetary allocations by policy topics show a leptokurtic distribution. This distribution of policy changes is generally associated with the notion of punctuated equilibrium. We extend this analysis to cover over 155 years of Hungarian budgetary history. Our investigation of a database of 2580 spending category observations (covering the period between 1868 and 2013) lends support for the theory of punctuated equilibrium. We also analysed the impact of political regimes on budgetary dynamics. Here we provided empirical evidence for the validity of the informational advantage hypothesis which states that democracies will show lower level of kurtosis than other political regimes. This finding is also in line with the results of available comparative studies.

An assemblage of alunite-supergroup minerals (ASM), rhabdophane-group minerals (RGM), goethite and associated clay minerals occurs in Permian A-type porphyritic microgranite in the eastern part of the Velence Hills, Hungary. The secondary sulfates/phosphates include jarosite, Pb-rich jarosite and alunite, corkite, hinsdalite and rhabdophane-(Ce), -(La) and -(Nd). Detailed electron probe microanalysis and Raman spectroscopy reveal a wide miscibility among RGM end-members and show a rhabdophane–tristramite–brockite solid solution with extensive compositional variation. Moreover, ASM show heterogeneous composition and complex substitution mechanisms within the alunite, beudantite and plumbogummite groups. The formation of this rare mineral assemblage reveals extensive remobilization of rare-earth elements (REE), Th, U, P, S, Fe and Pb under supergene conditions. Compositional variations and substitution trends of the RGM investigated indicate that Th, U, Ca and Pb are incorporated into the rhabdophane structure by a (Ca, Pb)2+ + (Th, U)4+ ↔ 2REE3+ substitution mechanism. Consequently, we suggest the following end-member formulae for RGM containing divalent and tetravalent cations: (Ca0.5Th0.5)PO4·H2O for brockite, (Pb0.5Th0.5)PO4·H2O for grayite and (Ca0.5U0.5)PO4·2H2O for tristramite. The ASM and RGM originated from total leaching of the primary magmatic REE, Th, U and P minerals in the microgranite [most probably allanite-(Ce), fluorapatite and possibly also xenotime-(Y)], together with input of Pb and S in low-temperature, acid sulfate solutions, connected with an adjacent Palaeogene andesite–diorite intrusion and the accompanying hydrothermal sulfide mineralization.

The relationship between morality and economy has been muddied in the course of disciplinary specialization. While dominant paradigms in economics abstract from the moral dimension, recent approaches to morality and ethics in anthropology neglect the material economy. E. P. Thompson’s “moral economy” has been an influential bridging concept in recent decades, but recent inflationary usage has highlighted shortcomings. Following an overview of the disciplinary debates, the moral dimension of economic life is illustrated in this paper with reference to work as a value between the late 19th and early 21st centuries in Hungary. Contemporary workfare is explored with local examples. It is shown how discourses of work and fairness are being extended into new ethical registers to justify negative attitudes towards a new category of migrants.