Space and governance: Three decades of international and Hungarian trends

Abstract

While the spatial dimension has remained indispensable in governance over the past decades, it must also be acknowledged that competing models coexist, and that the once-dominant neoliberal, decentralized governance model no longer does. Hungary provides a salient example of this shift, where further profound transformations are expected. Against this backdrop, this study aims to examine the evolution of territorial governance trends in an international comparative perspective and to contrast them with Hungarian developments from 1990 to the present.

Based primarily on a literature review, the paper pays particular attention not only to reforms affecting constitutional and institutional frameworks, but also to changes in the operational mechanisms of public administration.

The structure of the study is as follows: first, it reconstructs the chronological trajectory of territorial reforms affecting both subnational and local levels; second, it identifies successive functional reform paradigms in public administration, notably New Public Management (NPM) and Post-NPM approaches; third, it classifies governance responses to the challenges of urban regions, encompassing smart urban governance approaches, multi-level governance as a framework for maintaining the sovereign state’s governing capacity, and interpretations of efficiency-oriented governance frameworks. The third chapter examines Hungarian reforms in detail, highlighting their alignment with international trends as well as their specificities, including the various manifestations of post-2010 centralization, state-building, and the expansion of public ownership.

The analysis leads to the conclusion that, as a result of reforms implemented after 2010, Hungary has shifted from the category of decentralized states into that of unitary and highly centralized systems, where local authorities are comparatively weak. It is clearly demonstrable that most elements of local autonomy have been significantly eroded. The central state does not support either horizontal cooperation or vertical coordination across levels of governance, and policy network adaptation has remained limited. The constitutional reforms were launched under the banner of building an efficient and cost-effective state; however, neither comprehensive nor partial evaluations of their outcomes have been produced by the government. The idea of the “good state” has remained largely rhetorical.

It may further be argued that Hungarian public administration has moved away from both the Weberian state model and the trajectory of Europeanisation. The findings support the theoretical proposition that the success or failure of reforms correlates with the broader social, economic, and cultural environment of a given country – in this case, with delayed development and historical traditions. At the same time, it must also be acknowledged that the Hungarian “deviation” is not merely a transient or isolated national exception.