Gulyás Katalin et al. (szerk.): Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 23. (Szolnok, 2014)
A vallástudományi konferencia előadásai - Szilágyi Tamás: Keresztény világnézeti pártok Kelet-Európában a rendszerváltás után: összehasonlító elemzés
SZILÁGYI TAMÁS: KERESZTÉNY VILÁGNÉZETI PÁRTOK KELET-EURÓPÁBAN A RENDSZERVÁLTÁS UTÁN: ÖSSZEHASONLÍTÓ ELEMZÉS Tamás Szilágyi Christian ideology political parties in Eastern Europe after the change of the regime: a comparative analysis If one wants to explore the influence of religion on the political stability of societies in Middle and Eastern Europe, it is indispensable to analyse the field of politics, and especially party politics. Since the process of transition and consolidation took place in each state in a different manner, the author focused on three countries: Hungary, Poland and Romania. We could observe similar processes in all three countries. 1. Immediately after the change of the regime, Christian ideology political parties started to appear; 2. the supporting base of these parties are generally not significant, so they can only achieve political positions as part of party and election alliances; 3. their political roles became marginal by the end of the 90’s. In the process of the change of the regime and the democratic stabilisation, the values of Christianity were latently present in the ideology of the predominantly nationalistic and conservative great parties changing the regime, and they attempted to integrate the Christian ideology political parties. In case of Hungary, the Christian Democratic commitment was an important part of the nationalistic/conservative image of the first government after the change of the regime. A Hungarian characteristic of the development party politics was that soon ruptures began to appear between anachronistic political trends and the more modern, “western-style”, “transatlantic" ones, which dissipated the small parties with Christian ideology commitments in the early 90’s. In Poland, the multitude of Christian parties could not offer a common political program; the fragmentation slowly grounded the parties of the Christian right wing. Although in post-World War 2 Poland Polish nationalism and Catholicism were tightly interwoven, it did not necessarily mean commitment to parties at the same time. In Romania, it wasn’t until 1996, that a party with Christian background got into the government, which came to existence as successor of the basically royalist National Peasant Party, which had been outlawed under the Communist regime. It was their downright anti-Communist attitude, and the moral credibility of their leaders persecuted and imprisoned under the Communist era that won voters, rather than their commitment towards Christian Democratic values. Because of its unclarified political background, the party could not fulfil significant political roles in the years of transition and stabilisation. In comparison with other Eastern European countries, in the three states analysed Christian Democracy can be interpreted as an unsuccessful political experiment. 365
