1. HUNGARIAN SOCIETY IN TRANSITION:
IS THERE A ROLE FOR ATHLETES IN SOCIAL CHANGE?
March 29-30, 2013.
Louisville, KY
Muhammad Ali Center
Emese Ivan PhD
St John’s University

2. An Overview
• What are the specific characteristics of East European
capitalism – after 20 years?
• What are the society’s expectations of sport as per now?
• What are sports’ expectations of the society in the 21st
century?
• How does the Hungarian case fit into the broader theoretical
concepts on social capital?
• Is there a role for athletes in social change – in Hungary?
• Conclusion and some hope for the future….

3. An Introduction……
"The fact that sport, after the introduction of
the socialist system, has been nationalized in a
broader sense, and was centrally planned,
directed and monitored for four decades,
made both the society and professionals
working in sport almost completely forget that
sport is originally a product of civil society.“
(Foldesi 1996; Gal 2011)

4. Characteristics of East European Capitalism
• Two major processes of social change simultaneously:
- globalization
- transition from state socialism
• Distinctive development because: economic and political
reforms have been overlapping with the transformation of
property rights and reorganization of the society (Bruszt&Stark
2004)
• Weakness of civil society: legacy of mandatory participation
under communist ruling; persistence of vibrant private
networks => aversion to public and voluntary activities. (Howard
2008)
• Repositioning of sport: obstacles to a change in paradigm
(Foldesi 2011)

5. What Does Hungarian Society Expect from Sport?

6. Trends in Society’s Expectations
• Intensification of societal problems => draw attention away
from sport and had an (negative) affect on access to sports
• Doping incidents (1988) and underachievement of athletes in
popular sports (soccer; volleyball; basketball) led to
decreased societal support of elite sports starting with 1984-
1986
• Talent management system dissolved => less athletes and
youth coaches – although excellent results – shortfall with the
social base of elite sport
• Attitude: No participation, no interest in sport (60% does not
participate in any activity; 90% never attend any
events;66.5% never watches any sports; 40% does not cheer
for Hungarian athletes!)
• Sport is NOT a public good even on consumption level:
success sports are not “commercial success stories”

7. What Does Hungarian Sport Expect from Society?

8. Trends in Sports’ Expectations
• Major actors in sport set up old and new expectations toward
society and state
- legal stability;
- autonomy vs public funding
- accomplishment of sport politics by sport policy
• “Loser of the transition” argued, communicated, and believed
• Most important changes were triggered from outside – lack
of strategy to answer adequately
The stress on continuity might have prevented sport from total collapse
and deeper crisis in short term, but the lack of more radical alternations in
both managerial behavior and structures certainly hindered sport from
true transformation in long term.

9. Trends in Sports’ Expectations (Cont’d)
• Politicization: 3 acts, 8 changes at highest levels of
governance
• Re-centralization: necessity or refusal of state intervention;
lack of financial, managerial, and moral background
Instead PPP => local-central government funding
• Paternalism: senior managers were socialized this way –
shockingly large number of young athletes/managers
proclaim the same views - Freedom has a contradictory
nature in this respect! – partially as a result of a patronizing
state

10. How Does the Hungarian Case Fit Into the Broader
Theoretical Concept of Social Capital?
• Dark side of social capital in sport:
- Social exclusion and negative effect of bonding capital (Putnam) that
reinforces “networks of insiders”
- Interconnectedness between sport practices and the spheres external to
sport
- Social capital in sport helps to maintain a normative framework that is
contradictory to idealized myths of sport being beneficial.
• Instead of “bonding” – horizontally and vertically “linking”
social capital can be noted and measured in sport
(Cote 2001; Numerato&Baglioni 2012)

11. How Does the Hungarian Case Fit Into the Broader
Theoretical Concept of Social Capital? (Cont’d)
• The Hungarian Case:
- Capacity of individuals to build strategically exclusive coalitions
- ‘Relational resources’ instead of social capital that matters
- Vertically linking social capital: connections with different positions
- Horizontally linking resources based on ties with formal institutions
- Lack of evaluation mechanism – contradictory to ethics and morals of
sport
- Lack of and misuse of societal trust
- Manipulation of transparency (documents of decision making are not
publicly available)
- Manipulation of credibility (silencing critical voices)
- Manipulation of interpretation (fixing issues)

12. Is There a Place for Athletes in Social Change?
• Huge societal problems and inequalities based on race,
gender, disability, economic situation – existing need
• Individual’s hesitation between desire for freedom and
paternalistic safety - it may lead to escaping from freedom
• Civic engagement is low in Hungary - highly individualistic
society
• Athletes and the sport community in general see themselves
as ‘losers of the transition’
• Relatively low social status of athletes in society

13. Conclusion
“The formal process of constitutional reform takes at least six
months; a general sense that things are moving up as a result
of economic reform is unlikely to spread before six years have
passed; the third condition of the road to freedom is to
provide the social foundations which transform the
constitution and the economy from fairweather institutions
which can withstand the storms generated from within and
without, and sixty years are barely enough to lay these
foundations"
(Dahrendorf, 1990