REPRESENTATION DEFICIT IN A NEW DEMOCRACY - THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND THE HUNGARIAN CASE

In harmony with recent literature the article combines different appro aches to describe how representation has become more complex while als o more ambiguous in the process of democratic transition, First, with respect to parliament, the author argues that still a public bias prev ails towards ''direct representation'' in Hungary (i.e. people assume to realize personal or local interests with the help of their MPs), In line with this, MPs-however strongly they are tied to parties-seem to pay particular attention to constituency representation although they are reluctant to report on their connections with interest groups or other interest organizations. Second, regarding the party dimension, i t is found that although the national party scene in Hungary has remai ned unchanged in the past seven years, enormous electoral uncertaintie s and representation deficit prevail in its background and electoral l inkages are weak, Parties are not well organized externally as demonst rated by membership figures and by the number of local organizations; internally, the major intra-party events (like candidate selection or leadership election) only vaguely reveal the representative dimension. Finally, experiences in Hungary thus far prove that the responsible p arty model cannot be applied at all: party programmes do not include c lear policies and even if so, the policies often change during the ele ctoral cycle. (C) 1998 The Regents of the University of California. Pu blished by Elsevier Science Ltd.