Parliaments as policy-making bodies in East Central Europe: The case of Hungary

The parliaments of East Central Europe (ECE) have been the central sites of systemic change and have been widely analyzed with respect to their roles and functions. It is time, however, to deepen this analysis and to deal with ECE parliaments as policy-making bodies. The period of democratic institution-building in East Central Europe is more or less over, but modernization of new institutions has just begun. This article investigates policy-making in the First Hungarian Parliament (1990-94) and also to some extent in the Second Parliament (1994-). Major aspects of policy-making have been studied in this investigation: the effectiveness and efficiency of Hungarian legislation, and the problems of implementation. The conclusion is that policy-making in the Hungarian parliament still has a lot of problems, but that a relatively quick political learning process and professionalization can be observed.