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This study presents the results from a series of conjoint experiments evaluating how the various components of political systems affect citizens' satisfaction with democracy (SWD). Compared to earlier studies, our approach is unique in that we were able to disentangle the effects of otherwise highly collinear variables corresponding to three defining features of any political system, namely (1) access to power, (2) the policy‐making process and (3) performance. We fielded identical conjoint experiments in countries with significant variations across the key independent variables: France, Hungary and Italy. Overall, our study supports the view that citizens are more satisfied with democracy in consensus systems than in majoritarian democracies, while it also contributes to identifying the respective weight of the specific components of political systems. Respondents across all countries recognize that proportionality and party system fragmentation magnify their voices by creating a more representative political climate. With regard to output legitimacy, we find that respondents identify good economic performance and public probity as important features of a well‐performing democracy. The positive effect of the legislators' constituency orientation on SWD is a particularly noteworthy result that is currently understudied in the literature. Moreover, the state of the economy has by far the biggest impact on SWD, which indicates a highly materialistic view of democracy in all three countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines question-order effects in measuring satisfaction with democracy (SWD). Particularly, the authors are interested in whether the relative position of the question regarding satisfaction with the state of the economy (SWE) in the questionnaire affects responses to the SWD item. The authors conducted three independent split-ballot experiments in Hungary between March 2021 and May 2022. They report a significant and substantial negative priming effect that possibly leads to a systematic underestimation of SWD. Importantly, the authors find no question-order effect in the measurement of SWE. The analysis further reveals a contrast effect: when the SWD question is primed, the difference between SWE and SWD means increases. The authors' final recommendation is that researchers either put the SWD question before the SWE item to avoid question-order bias or randomize question order. These findings should assist future data collection efforts (comparative or single-country studies) in developing and integrating a battery of satisfaction items into questionnaires and help users assess data quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research reveals a relationship between various political system outputs and the citizens' satisfaction with democracy (SWD). The current study contributes to this line of inquiry and demonstrates that the perception of the district legislators' overall performance positively correlates with the citizens' democratic satisfaction. The multivariate analysis of Hungarian panel data from 2018 reveals that the effect is most salient in the case of the winners of the election, and less so for the losers. Results are robust to a variety of changes in the model. The findings indicate that the focus on individual politicians and their work has the potential to increase democratic satisfaction even if representative political institutions such as parties, governments and parliaments are not able to win the citizens' trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do the relative numbers of young people in the adult population affect their extent of participation in electoral politics? The answer to this question remains elusive in both the theoretical and empirical literature on youth political participation. In this study, we test the hypothesis that young people's cohort size has a significant effect on their electoral participation. Using individual level data from the World Values Survey and country level data from the United Nations Population Division, we ran a series of multinomial logistic regression analyses with 29 democratic countries. The findings show that youth cohort size exerts a negative effect on young people's electoral participation. The study finds this effect to be stronger for young people whose main source of information are their peers. The results of this study represent a major step towards improving our understanding of the effect of cohort size on cohort political behaviour; a topic so far neglected within the literature on youth political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Determining the position of ourselves or our assets has always been important to humans. Technology has helped us, from sextants to outdoor global positioning systems, but real-time indoor positioning has been a challenge. Among the various solutions, network-based positioning became an option with the arrival of 5G mobile networks. The new radio technologies, minimized end-to-end latency, specialized control protocols, and booming computation capacities at the network edge offered the opportunity to leverage the overall capabilities of the 5G network for positioning—indoors and outdoors. This paper provides an overview of network-based positioning, from the basics to advanced, state-of-the-art machine-learning-supported solutions. One of the main contributions is the detailed comparison of machine learning techniques used for network-based positioning. Since new requirements are already in place for 6G networks, our paper makes a leap towards positioning with 6G networks. In order to also highlight the practical side of the topic, application examples from different domains are presented with a special focus on industrial and vehicular scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is plenty of evidence that legislators think that aligning with voter preferences benefits their re-election. But whether or not legislators are constrained by demand, we have limited knowledge. This article tests whether issue representation in a generally salient field affects legislators' electoral performance. The analysis uses data from five consecutive Hungarian elections (1994–2010), and investigates the effect of agricultural interpellations on the legislators' vote shares under varying district demand. The findings indicate that congruence between district demand and legislator action matters when the issue is of great salience, and during times of anti-party sentiments within the electorate. While more interpellations are rewarded in rural districts, MPs can lose a lot of votes by asking agricultural interpellations in an urban area. At the same time, not submitting interpellations in rural constituencies does not result in similar vote loss. The results suggest that for re-election seekers taking action is the way to go only if it is calibrated to district demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy responsiveness is considered an effective tool for representing the aggregated interests of an electoral district. This article asks the question whether or not legislators in a mixed-member electoral system act on the profile of the constituency in their parliamentary work and, if yes, whether the magnitude of their actions is dependent upon mandate type and electoral security. I answer these questions by using data on Hungarian Members of Parliament (MPs)' parliamentary questions, and the agricultural profile of the constituencies between 1998 and 2010. It is found that a larger share of the agricultural population correlates with a greater frequency of agriculture questions. Furthermore, as expected, single-member district MPs are more vigilant to the share of the agricultural population than list MPs. Interestingly, MPs remain indifferent to the fierceness of competition: they ask just as any many questions in the case of a safe seat as in the case of stiff competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Fogorvosi Szemle is the property of Hungarian Dental Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Members of Parliament are often thought to attract funding into their constituencies to increase their local support, and eventually, secure re-election. Nevertheless, there is only limited research focusing on the question whether or not government funding indeed affects the MPs' electoral performances. I focus on pork barrel politics in a single country, namely Hungary, and use town-level European Union Structural Funds data between 2007 and 2010 to explain the electoral performance of single-member district MPs at the 2010 general elections. I find that increasing funding improves government MPs' electoral performances and that the size of the effect is conditional upon the mayors' party affiliations. In towns with government mayors, government MPs perform significantly better than in towns with opposition mayors. The results have consequences in the fields of the distribution of Structural Funds, the electoral connection between legislators and voters and the European Union's contribution to regime legitimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covering the largest sample of countries to date, this study examines the effect of three country-specific factors on the tone of electoral campaigns across Europe: electoral system disproportionality, party system fragmentation, and the polarization of the electorate. We use an original dataset of statements made by political actors during eighteen electoral campaigns in nine European countries. Our multinomial logit model suggests that increasing disproportionality slightly increases negativity, while thanks to parties competing on the same market, less polarized electorates invite more negative political campaigns. Finally, we find a U-shaped relationship between party system fragmentation and negativity: Increasing the number of parties, negativity decreases first, only to start increasing again once the party system becomes very fragmented. We explain this with parties altering their coalition strategies with the changing number of parties: Less fragmentation makes it more likely to having to step into coalition with the competitors, thus decreasing negativity, while in very fragmented systems, parties not needed to any potential coalitions become easy targets to negative campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates whether or not the amount of work legislators carry out in parliament affects their chances of re-selection in a mixed-member electoral system. A unique dataset collecting Hungarian Members of Parliaments' (MPs) publicly available electoral, socio-demographic and parliamentary activity data between 1998 and 2010 is analysed. The study concludes that activity in parliament positively influences re-selection chances when selectors decide on party list nominations. Additionally, MPs whose parties do not count on as future Single Member District (SMD) candidates benefit from parliamentary work to a greater extent than prospective SMD candidates. At the same time, extra work in parliament does not bring MPs closer to SMD nominations. Results confirm that selectors evaluate MPs along how well they carry out the tasks dedicated to their groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parliamentarians greatly differ with regard to the amount and quality of their work in parliament. Students of legislator behaviour mostly view Members of Parliament (MPs) as 'single-minded seekers of re-election', which is often argued to be the motivation for carrying out various activities. However, less attention has been paid to what extent MPs' efforts pay off at the next elections. The special section introduced here addresses the question if the type and volume of parliamentary activities carried out by legislators have any effect on their electoral prospects. In other words, do parties and voters take MPs' activity record into account when deciding on the re-election and the re-selection of an incumbent? To shed some light on this topic, we bring together students of legislative and electoral behaviour from all parts of Europe. Our general aim is to disentangle the necessary conditions for personal accountability to work in representative democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Campaigns, especially the level of personalisation is often perceived as a common tool for gathering extra votes. It may carry the promise of the representatives' tendency to deviate from the party line and focus on more particularistic activities such as constituency service. The main question of this article is whether we can expect MPs who personalise their campaigns to behave differently when elected than those following the party line during election time. I combine the Hungarian data from the Comparative Candidates Survey from 2010 with legislative data from the 2010–2014 parliament to test if more personalised campaigns culminate in a greater willingness to desert the party line at roll-call and a larger likelihood of representing constituency interests in parliament. Multivariate models indicate that personalisation has only a moderate effect on legislator attitudes and behaviour: campaigns are indicative only to how legislators perceive their jobs, and not how they actually carry out their tasks. Results suggest that even if voters had perfect information, they would not be able to infer how elected candidates are likely to behave when elected to office, which greatly challenges their ability to elect 'good' representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most empirical studies of the effect of incumbency conclude that being a defender of the seat is an advantage and that newcomers and challengers alike have increasingly lower probabilities of winning. Yet, the majority of these studies in Eastern Europe have been based on tumultuous political environments in which electoral rules change frequently. A test of the theory of how candidate traits such as legislative and local political experience increase incumbents' electoral performance has not been done in an environment in which the electoral rules are stable. Furthermore, these studies are based in proportional representation (PR) systems, which amplify the role of the party leadership in determining candidate fate through candidate rankings. I examine Hungary's mixed-member system using candidate-level panel data that covers Hungarian national elections from 1994 to 2010, and contains basic information on all candidates running in SMDs. I find that Hungarian SMD incumbents perform worse at the elections than their challengers. However, in the long run, legislative experience in SMDs neutralizes this effect. Additionally, local politicians, such as mayors, manage to increase their vote share at national elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at capturing how the recent changes in Hungary’s mixed-member electoral system altered the candidates’ personal vote-seeking strategies. Based on the literature, one might expect that strengthening the role of the Single-Member District (SMD) tier increases the incentives for personalisation. By utilizing the data from two consecutive waves of the Comparative Candidate Survey, we show that contrary to these expectations the average level of campaign personalisation decreased from 2010 to 2014. Semi-structured interviews with nine campaign staff members confirm that the political constraints were more important in determining campaign strategies than the institutional setting. Our findings challenge the dominating effect of electoral rules on personal vote-seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often suggested in the case of mixed-member electoral systems that legislators with close ties to the single member districts (SMDs) are more constituency oriented than those with weaker ties. This article investigates the effect of three career-related variables (mandate type, tier of candidacy and the number of formerly held SMD mandates) on the constituency orientation of national representatives. The analysis relies on a comprehensive database containing MP-level career information and the number of locally relevant written questions submitted between 2010 and 2013 in the Hungarian parliament. Contrary to expectations, the results suggest that SMD candidates who were elected on party lists tend to ask a larger number of questions with local relevance than SMD MPs. Furthermore, MPs with considerable SMD experience are found to be more constituency oriented only among those who gained their mandates in an SMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to uncover the micro-factors structuring campaign personalization in the case of Hungarian Members of Parliament. It is presumed that in a party-centred environment, the effects of the various independent characteristics are filtered by the parties. Thus, due to the electoral rules, personalization cannot contradict party centeredness. Representatives do not wish to distance themselves from their parties. Personalization is more of the result of the positions they hold or wish to fill in than the desire to defy party lines out of individualistic motivations. Based on the data from the 2010 MP-survey of the Hungarian Election Study, the article unveils the circumstances under which campaign personalization prevails. The international scholarly literature sets several hypotheses with regards to the factors influencing three dimensions of campaign personalization (norms, means and agenda), out of which several will be tested in this article. The analysis concludes that even under party-centred circumstances, the role of individual motivations and habits cannot be overlooked in defining the degree of personalization, nevertheless the interpretation of such effects requires caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main argument of this article is that parliament–citizen connections in Hungary have been conditioned by broad political systemic features between 1990 and 2010. After a brief review of the institutional choices that lead to the current parliamentary set-up, the connections between representatives and the represented are mapped out by examining the level of trust in the legislature, the focus of representation, types of MP–voter contact and diverse constituency-related activities. Further, direct democracy opportunities and the role of new communication techniques are investigated before and during the 2010 election campaign. The findings confirm some paradoxes: although MPs' activity towards citizens has increased, citizens do not connect with MPs to any greater degree; or when direct democracy instruments reach out towards parliament, parties can be found in the background. All in all, parliament's role has diminished with vague representation and accountability patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tourism in the former socialist countries can be best characterised as a rollercoaster ride since the regime change around 1989-1990. After the changes they lost their appeal for the 'Western' tourists and also a large share of visitors from the socialist countries as it became possible to travel to countries beyond the 'friendly' countries. The social tourism schemes operating in these countries have been abandoned or changed. The EU accession has helped to revive tourism and roughly at the same time the introduction of low cost airlines opened new markets for the former socialist countries. The introduction of the Euro has impacted on the tourism of some of these countries as they have temporarily become cheaper or more expensive than other (neighbouring) countries. This paper will focus on the factors that have had an impact on the competitiveness of Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our hypothesis is that network analysis can be used to identify a tourist destination. To test it we carry out a pilot research to enable us to map the connections among the actors in a chosen destination. Our main objective is to elaborate an effective research method for establishing emergent Destination Management Organisation (DMO) and thereby to enhance their success. In a successful destination service providers recognize the importance of partnerships therefore they are not just existing but actively co-operating in order to provide a more unique and unforgettable experience and to better satisfy the tourists' needs. We investigate a whole network, in a small region of 5 settlements in the northern part of the Lake Balaton. We propose that this study will support the creation of a tool which can be used by the DMOs without academic knowledge and thanks to the exploration the bottom-up linkages enables the users to: describe the boundaries of the destination and define the boundaries by product; apply a new, measurable component towards increasing the competitiveness of the destination; develop a more efficient DMO-system by finding out further key actors in the destination, who are important to join the DMO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades the innovation, technology-transfer, research and development became increasingly dominant in the economic life. In this article we would like to present the position of spin-offs in Hungary, comparing spin-offs located in Debrecen and Budapest. Our research methods are literature review and a questionnaire survey made in 2012. We have studied the business results of companies and the conditions of establishment, we have taken into account their innovations, analysed their business connections, the obstacles they were confronted with and their main markets. In the present article we focus on the use of different support schemes, the business awareness, the human resources and the contacts with the parent company of the spin-off companies. We have found that the business environment and the background support system are still immature for spin-off companies in Hungary. Through the comparative analysis we concluded that there are huge differences between spin-offs located in Budapest and Debrecen, as the main spin-off activities are concentrated around Budapest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multinational data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 ( N  = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution-individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar results were found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, and collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-neglible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of National Academy of Sciences.)