The Hungarian Economic Elite After the Political Transition

Erzsebet Szalai (Hungary). The Hungarian Economic Elite after the Political Transition. Ms. Szalai is a research fellow in the Institute of Political Sciences in Budapest and worked on this project from July 1996 to June 1998. In the period following the political changes of 1989, the leading forces of the economic elite have gained increasing superiority over the political and cultural elites, with the clear ambition of putting the latter to their service. The power relations within the economic elite were characterised by "a war of all against all". The desire to gain precedence over others became an openly declared value. The formation of estates and the intensification of competition became embodied in a multitude of lobbies which cropped up to assert short-term interests. After the state socialist period, possession of at least two of the social, economic and cultural forms of capital is necessary to join one of the three segments of the elite: political, cultural or economic. What defines the ability of the members of the three elite groups to assert their interests is their ability to convert any of the three types of capital into another. That is to say, the basis on which they can retain and extend their position is "symbolic capital" as interpreted by Bourdieu. The concept of symbolic capital is useful for describing the power relations following the collapse of state socialist systems and societies. In the state-socialist system, the political, economic and cultural spheres are tightly interwoven, and this interpenetration slackens only slowly after the system's disintegration. A close institutional relationship between the three spheres continues to make it easier for power actors to convert social, economic and cultural capital from one type to another. Symbolic capital, or the easy transfer between the three spheres, in turn reproduces the institutional relationship, or more precisely, complicates the separation of the three spheres after the fall of state socialism.

The Language of Political Conflict: A Logico-Semantic Approach

A semantic approach towards political conflict first emerged in the 1930s and provides the methodological foundations for the description of political conflicts, in particular as the correlation between the language of description and reality. Any military or political confrontation presupposes axiological, conceptual and ideological confrontation. The form of adequate description can only be comprehended if the characteristic features of its language (structure) and thesaurus are revealed. Admitting the possibility of different descriptions implies the necessity of analysing this possible ambiguity, i.e. the characteristic features of the language which enable us to form various statements, including mutually exclusive ones. The insoluble task of finding a middle ground between the viewpoints of the conflicting parties should be replaced by soluble procedures of explaining and assessing the conflicting axiologies. For the description of conflict situations, when it is essential to represent various positions within a uniform system, an apparatus of model semantics seems to be the most appropriate one both for generating alternatives and for bringing them together in a modal system of a world in which procedures of transition from one world to another (i.e. the transworld compatibility between them) are also reflected. Reality is reconstructed not as a sort of middle ground between the mutually exclusive approaches nor as their sum, but as a result of the overlapping of various worlds and the procedures of transition from one state of affairs to another. The description of a conflict is therefore seen as a system of worlds connected by modal relations, with a system of worlds emerging as a reality to be described. This approach makes it possible to describe the processes from the points of view of the participating parties and, at the same time, to reveal their basic attitudes. The main idea of this research is shown by the problems analysed: the description of conflict as methodology; language and behaviour (general problems of semiotic description), the logico-semantic analysis of the notions of "problem and conflict", "Genesis and Chronology", "the recurrent model of the (historical) explanation and interpretation of the conflict". Zolyan used data on the Karabagh conflict to demonstrate the dependence of the structure of semio-cultural codes on current political development and considered post-soviet history as a semio-cultural problem. He sought to consider and reveal the logic of manipulations with history, and proposed the logic of preferences as a possible instrument for achieving compromise.

Social and Political Issues and the Finnish Deportees from North America

An important issue in both Canadian and United States immigration history has been the control of immigration, which includes possible quotas, immigration laws as well as denying entry, and finally, the deportation of immigrants. This paper is based on information that is available on the deportations of 167 people, most of them young adult males. Many assume politics was a key motivation for deportation. However, Finnish Americans were rarely deported for political activities. The paper discusses a few interesting cases of political deportations both during the interwar years, and after the Second World War. The information is mostly based on the correspondence between the authorities in Finland and the United States and Canada, available at the Foreign Ministry Archives in Helsinki, Finland. Special attention is directed to the social and political background of those people and of special interest are the specific reasons, social or health problems, which seem to be the basis of most deportation decisions.

ON THE DIGITAL-POLITICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF MUSIC

The persuasive power of music is often relegated to the dimension of pathos: that which moves us emotionally. Yet, the music commodity is now situated in and around the liminal spaces of digitality. To think about how music functions, how it argues across media, and how it moves us, we must examine its material and immaterial realities as they present themselves to us and as we so create them. This dissertation rethinks the relationship between rhetoric and music by examining the creation, performance, and distribution of music in its material and immaterial forms to demonstrate its persuasive power. While both Plato and Aristotle understood music as a means to move men toward virtue, Aristotle tells us in his Laws, through the Athenian Stranger, that the very best kinds of music can help guide us to truth. From this starting point, I assess the historical problem of understanding the rhetorical potential of music as merely that which directs or imitates the emotions: that which “Soothes the savage breast,” as William Congreve writes. By furthering work by Vickers and Farnsworth, who suggest that the Baroque fascination with applying rhetorical figures to musical figures is an insufficient framework for assessing the rhetorical potential of music, I demonstrate the gravity of musical persuasion in its political weight, in its violence—the subjective violence of musical torture at Guantanamo and the objective, ideological violence of music—and in what Jacques Attali calls the prophetic nature of music. I argue that music has a significant function, and as a non-discursive form of argumentation, works on us beyond affect. Moreover, with the emergence of digital music distribution and domestic digital recording technologies, the digital music commodity in its material and immaterial forms allows for ruptures in the former methods of musical composition, production, and distribution and in the political potential of music which Jacques Attali describes as being able to foresee new political realities. I thus suggest a new theoretical framework for thinking about rhetoric and music by expanding on Lloyd Bitzer’s rhetorical situation, by offering the idea of “openings” to the existing exigence, audience, and constraints. The prophetic and rhetorical power of music in the aleatoric moment can help provide openings from which new exigencies can be conceived. We must, therefore, reconsider the role of rhetorical-musical composition for the citizen, not merely as a tool for entertainment or emotional persuasion, but as an arena for engaging with the political.

Governor Forrest Anderson’s Leadership & Political Acumen -- Alec Hansen “In the Crucible of Change”

Montana Governor Forrest Anderson was perhaps the most experienced and qualified person ever to be elected as Governor of Montana. Having previously served as a county attorney, a member of the legislature, a Supreme Court Justice, and twelve years as Attorney General, Anderson roared to a large victory in 1968 over the Incumbent GOP Governor Tim Babcock. Though the progressive change period in Montana began a few years earlier, Anderson’s 1968 win catapulted progressive policy-making into the mainstream of Montana political and governmental affairs. He used his unique skills and leadership to craftily architect the reorganization of the executive branch which had been kept weak since statehood so that the peoples’ government would not be able to challenge corporations who so dominated Montana. Anderson, whose “Pay More, What For?” campaign slogan strongly separated him from Tim Babcock and the GOP on the sales tax issue, not only beat back the regressive sales tax in the 1968 election, but oversaw its demise at the polls in 1971, shaping politics in Montana for decades to come. Anderson also was a strong proponent of the concept of a new Montana Constitution and contributed strategically to its calling and passage. Anderson served only one term as Governor for health reasons, but made those four years a launch pad for progressive politics and government in Montana. In this film, Alec Hansen, Special Assistant to Governor Anderson, provides an insider’s perspective as he reflects on the unique way in which Governor Anderson got things done at this critical period “In the Crucible of Change.” Alec Hansen is best known in Montana political and governmental circles as the long-time chief of the Montana League of Cities and Towns, but he cut his teeth in public service with Governor Forrest Anderson. Alec was born in Butte in 1941, attended local schools graduating from Butte High in 1959. After several years working as a miner and warehouseman for the Anaconda Company in Butte, he attended UM and graduated in History and Political Science in 1966. He joined the U.S. Navy and served with amphibious forces in Vietnam. After discharge from the Navy in 1968, he worked as a news and sports reporter for The Montana Standard in Butte until in September of 1969 he joined Governor Anderson as a Special Assistant focused on press, communications and speech-writing. Alec has noted that drafts were turned into pure Forrest Anderson remarks by the man himself. He learned at the knee of “The Fox” for the rest of Anderson’s term and continued with Governor Tom Judge for two years before returning to Butte to work for the Anaconda Company as the Director of Communications for Montana operations. In 1978, after Anaconda was acquired by the Atlantic Richfield Company, Alec went to work in February for U.S. Senator Paul Hatfield in Washington D.C., leaving after Hatfield’s primary election loss in June 1978. He went back to work for Gov. Judge, remaining until the end of 1980. In 1981 Alec worked as a contract lobbyist and news and sports reporter for the Associated Press in Helena. In 1982, the Montana League of Cities and Towns hired him as Executive Director, a position he held until retirement in 2014. Alec and his wife Colleen, are the parents of two grown children, with one grandson.

Political Debates Strengthen Our Democracy

A Montana Public Radio Commentary by Evan Barrett. Published newspaper columns written by Evan Barrett on this topic, which vary somewhat in content from this commentary, appeared in the following publications: Billings Gazette, September 3, 2014 Montana Standard, September 5, 2014 Missoulian, September 5, 2014 Independent Record, September 7, 2014