Századok – 2016
2016 / 5. szám - KÖZIGAZGATÁS-TÖRTÉNETI MŰHELYTANULMÁNYOK - Miru György: A dualizmus kori közigazgatás politikai kontextusai, Kossuth az autokratikus hatalom ellen
1272 MIRU GYÖRGY THE POLITICAL CONTEXTS OF ADMINISTRATION IN POST-1867 HUNGARY KOSSUTH AGAINST AUTOCRATIC POWER by György Miru Summary The administration of post-1867 Hungary has been frequently assessed from both professional and political perspectives. In the present paper, I approached the working of the administration, and contemporary expectations and plans connected to it, from the viewpoint of the global poltical structure of the country, and drew attention to one of its salient features, namely the overweight of the executive, and the consequent domination of autocratic models. The analysis focusses on the critiques that Lajos Kossuth formulated with regard to the political and parliamentary conditions of contemporary Hungary. Kossuth approached the question from a political standpoint, and voiced a number of prejudices and unfulfilled expectations. Yet he clearly saw even from the emigration how the establishment of the new institutional structure and the implementation of administrative reforms involved restrictions put on self-government and liberty rights, and the reinforcement of mechanisms that secured central power and facilitated its workings. His views about the administration were debated by several persons, among them Béla Grünwald, a pro-Compromise MP, who rejected Kossuth’s idealizing approach to county administration. Even Grünwald, however, urged for guarantees for the protection of citizens against official abuses, and demanded the introduction of administrative justice. Other politicians and publicists belonging to his side, such as Gusztáv Beksics or Gyula Schvarcz, also shared his views on the necessity of protecting the rights of citizens, the establishment of a constitutional state, and the creation of administrative justice.
