Urbs - Magyar várostörténeti évkönyv 5. (Budapest, 2010)
Recenziók
Abstracts 523 with the people”, such as the political factory gatherings in workers’ districts and Mayday celebrations on the grassy spaces of Budapest. The study focuses throughout on the relationship between space and political will, and the fabric of authority established by the socio-political space. JÁNOS BALÁZS KOCSIS Decision-making mechanism in Budapest in the 1960s and 1970s The socialist regime fundamentally changed the structure and decision-making mechanism of local government. Officially, local authorities persisted in the form of tanácsok (councils), but were utterly stripped of their former autonomy in terms of personnel, organisation and finance. Built up alongside this, and assigned considerably greater importance, was a Party hierarchy that reflected the decision-making levels of the state hierarchy. It was used by the Party, through a variety of control mechanisms, to direct the operation of state bodies and keep them in check. In addition, the real hierarchy of power often radically differed from its formal composition. The complex system of dependence and feedback mechanism of the Party and state hierarchy created an organisation - the party state - which was completely opaque from outside and difficult to understand even from the inside. Decisions were prepared, taken and executed under collective responsibility, and are difficult to dissect. This paper examines the party-state decision-making in Budapest, attempting to describe its mechanisms and identify the main decision-making centres.
