Whispering at the back-door: the voluntary and community sector and local policy making in Hungary

This article explores the evolution of local government – voluntary and
community sector relationships in Hungary since ‘The Change’ of 1989. It
does this in the context of a national policy framework concerned to develop
the role of the latter sector as a key provider of essential public services at the
local level. The article finds that the organic networks that enabled public
policy development and implementation in the communist era continue to
persevere in Hungary. This perseverance has meant that local voluntary and
community groups privilege network skills above service domain skills – and
that the pressure to provide public services has crowded out much of the
capacity for civil society activity by these groups. The article concludes by
considering the implications of this research for the wider group of accession
states in Eastern Europe.