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The paper investigates the moral element of the claims-making process in the case of solidarity movements. The question is how claims are made and articulated if the claimants do not seek direct benefits but refer to moral principles. The paper answers the research question by identifying the role of morality on three levels of two Hungarian solidarity movements' praxis: goals, forms and means of mobilization; hence, the issues, the forms and frames of solidarity movements' claims making. According to the data, organizations helping refugees stand closer to voluntary organizations of political altruism than to the politically motivated solidarity movements. The data also demonstrate that established solidarity movements use a medley of policy reasoning and morally justified action. New, emerging solidarity movements can rely on morality claims when they wish to supplement their lack of expertise or resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research I explore the effect of religious denomination and belonging on political participation in former communist countries of East Central Europe after the fall of communism. In the early 1990s, mostly as a response to forced secularization during communism, authors heralded a massive religious revival in the countries formerly belonging to the Eastern Bloc. In this paper I show that the re-discovery of God and church was not equally popular in all countries. Moreover, I explore the links between religious participation and political participation and I find no uniform transnational effect of denomination. Rather, the Eurobarometer survey data from the early 1990s suggests that the ways in which religious believing and belonging influence political participation at the beginning of democratization is context driven. Indeed, one of the strengths of this paper resides in my attempt to capture the religious context in post-communist Europe shortly after its collapse. I thus contribute to a better understanding of how religious and political involvement are intertwined during early transition in East Central Europe. In the conclusion, I advocate the need for adequately taking context into consideration, especially given its dynamic and multi-faceted nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hungary became host to various business services through relocations of these activities from other, higher cost locations, especially from Western Europe and through opening up new capacities. Locational advantages determine which countries are chosen as hosts to new or relocated service centres. For the case of Hungary, the analysis is carried out on the basis of eight detailed company case studies. The majority of these is vertical FDI (close to 100% of exportlsales ratio), and two companies represent a confluential case of vertical and horizontal (domestic market oriented) FDI, where sales to the domestic market are also important, though not dominating. The paper's main aim is to make an attempt at contributing to filling some gaps in the literature, in terms of analysing locational advantages for vertical FDI in services, specifically in business services. It shows that locational advantages, taken into consideration by vertical and horizontal FDI differ from each other to a great extent. It identifies the various elements of locational advantages connected to the different elements of investment motives, in terms of cost reduction, reducing costs of disintegration of production, reducing other costs, and motives arising from the confluence of vertical and horizontal FDI, and the paper relates these elements to the specificities of the business services sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper assesses the inequalities of the production of geographical knowledge mainly against the backdrop of the East–West relations, which still dominate Hungarian practice. However, it also offers examples of Anglo-American hegemony making itself felt more acutely; or of Hungarian geographers, at the receiving end of these dimensions of hegemony, producing hegemony in a different system of relations. Investigating the political economic power relations underlying this hegemony and the social agents involved in `hegemony-producing'' helps establish potential strategies of putting an end to the inequalities of academic knowledge production. Some possibilities of these strategies are outlined. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]