Cross-border Social Cooperation in the West-Transdanubian Region – A Preliminary Study Based on the Results of the Residential Survey

Abstract

This is a preliminary study. Substantially it does not try to find reliable explanations at this stage of the research process. Rather we will use descriptive statistics to portray the basic social aspects of the cross-border cooperation. In addition the empirical findings can help us to build up the basic and the guidelines of the more sophisticated interpretations. This is the first residential survey in this special topic in the region with a sufficient sample size (1500 person). The main consequence of the analysis is that the stability of the pillars of the social integration process in the Austrian - Hungarian border zone is not equally well-grounded. We have found significant discrepancies in the field of the real, operable, and "be-in-use" social connections, interpersonal relations, cross-border dynamics (like traveling, flow of labor). But this processes and features can be able to evaluate only in the next stage of then research, where we will use comparative and causal modell not just simple descriptive statistics to explain the background factors.