Racism, Youth Violence and the New Right: A Comparative Study of the Political Transformation of Extremism in Hungary and Romania

This research focused on the re-emerging of national and minority identities and the concomitant hostilities emerging from them in Hungary and in Romania. In particular the findings indicate that extremist incidents against members of minority groups on the local level seem to follow patterns in publicised media events. Violent attacks by skinheads against Gypsies in Hungary are often isolated incidents but are also inadvertently supported by biased media coverage, hostile majority attitudes and stereotyped behaviour reproduced in the media. The research also indicates that extremism both in Hungary against Gypsies and in Romania against Hungarians is of three kinds: organised within the framework of extremist groups, state-supported violence (both real and symbolic), and isolated, local instances with a few perpetrators committing atrocities. However, and this is a positive development, with rising interethnic tensions and extremist attacks prevalent in Hungary and Romania, there is also a parallel emergence of a more sophisticated human and minority rights campaign to combat them.

The New Electoral Geography of Central Europe

Zarycki studied the political map of Central Europe today on the basis of results of recent parliamentary and/or presidential elections in the Czech Republic, Hungary, L8ithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. He identified first the structure of regional political cleavages, then the spatial patterns emerging in different countries. He also considered the significance and eventual regional differentiation of various possible influences on these patterns, including urbanisation, historical heritage, ethnic factors, population movements, economic differentiation, the effects of the transformation, demographic factors, education and religion. Virtually all the countries showed a cleavage between more traditional, anti (or non-) communist regions and secular areas with higher post-communist support. Except in Ukraine and the Czech Republic, the post-communist party is dominated by the direct heirs of the former communist parties transformed into moderate left parties. The second major class of cleavages was typical of the Visegrad countries, i.e. the conflict between liberal, mostly metropolitan, regions and a different periphery, usually with a strong populist or anti-liberal appeal. This usually depends on the existence of a sizeable well-educated class, usually pro-market and pro-Western, and on the resolution of the conflict between post and anti-Communists. The third type of cleavage is based on ethnic factors and is clearest in Lithuania and Slovakia, where there are large ethnic minorities. Of factors influencing political behaviour, the two major ones identified were the historical heritage and urbanisation.