Do Hungarian Parties Give Hungarian Slovaks the Laws They Want?: A Quantitative Analysis of National Council Legislation from 1993 to 2024

• In Event: Where Slovakia is and Where it Came From: Contentious Post-Communist Politics

Abstract

As one of the largest minorities in Slovakia, ethnic Hungarians complain of employment discrimination, anti-Hungarian hate crimes, political gerrymandering, and linguistic and citizenship restrictions. One response has been to form Hungarian-oriented political parties such as Szövetség–Aliancia and Most–Híd to compete in National Council elections and, presumably, help pass pro-Hungarian statutes. This paper examines how successful this strategy has been by classifying all relevant laws in Slov-Lex.sk as either pro-Hungarian or not and then sorting these statutes by policy areas and whether they were passed when a Hungarian-oriented party was in the governing coalition. Preliminary results suggest that the National Council was particularly likely to produce pro-Hungarian legislation on language policy but less apt to do so in the cultural, welfare, political autonomy, or especially, infrastructure or citizenship areas. Ironically, government coalitions that excluded Hungarian-linked parties were much more likely to yield favorable legislation than were governments that included these groups. However, the probability of friendly laws does seem to increase with the number of parliamentary seats that these parties hold. These results suggest that ethnic Hungarians should try above all to maximize the number of seats they win in the National Council but not be so concerned about being part of the Prime Minister's coalition. However, the positioning of that Hungarian Delegation is impacted by the weaponization of historical memory of Hungarian hegemonic practices in earlier regimes.

Author

• Joel Fetzer, Pepperdine U