Introduction

Modern political science in Hungary – as in the whole Eastern and Central European region – could not start before the late 1980s, since the undemocratic conditions of the communist regimes as well as their tight ideological control on the academia simply did not allow genuine political science research to flourish. What has the discipline achieved in the past less than three decades? Has it been possible to catch up with other social sciences, like sociology or economics, which have a longer history, and therefore a better disciplinary organization, with more departments, researchers, journals and achievements? Or is political science still “in the making,” as Arató and Tóth (2010) argued a few years ago?

We believe that political science in Hungary has undergone a remarkable development since the late 1980s and early 1990s when the fundaments of the discipline were laid down. Note that it is not more than 25 years ago when the first handbooks were published; the first par excellence political science research programmes got started; the first university departments were founded.

The 1990s hallmark the years of early developments. On the one hand, this was the period when different research schools and paradigmatic approaches took form; and this marks an important step in the development of the discipline.