Review article

Special Status of Budapest, the Capital of Hungary

István Temesi ; Faculty of Public Administration, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

Abstract

Hungarian capital, Budapest, has always had a special legal status within the system of self-government, except between 1949 and 1990. It is organised in two-tiers: it functions a single local self-government unit (the City of Budapest); while at the same time, its 23 districts enjoy their self-government powers. The paper analyses the history of organisation of Budapest is analysed, as well as the current system of local self-government in Hungary, in order to identify historical and current institutional framework of today’s special status of Budapest. Special rules on functions, internal structure and decision-making, elections, and certain other issues are analysed to confirm the basic hypothesis about this special status. It is assessed that two-tier self-government undermines the potentially strong position of the capital city within Hungarian political system. Just as the capital city serves as potential political counterweight to the central government, city districts serve as real counterweight to the city government.

Keywords

special status of capital city – Budapest; Hungarian system of local self-government; institutional and legal analysis

Hrčak ID:

132669

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/132669

Publication date:

15.3.2012.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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