Rights Consciousness in Hungary and Some Comparative Remarks. Could an Increasing Level of Rights Consciousness Challenge the Autocratic Tradition?

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of rights consciousness in the context of the Hungarian legal culture. The paper first elaborates the theoretical and conceptual framework, then it describes the research design used for the empirical investigation. The empirical section of the article presents the findings about the Hungarian empirical analysis on rights consciousness with some comparative remarks, and then it reflects on the historically shaped socio-legal embeddedness of rights consciousness patterns in Hungary. In conclusion, the paper points out that the apparent broadening of rights consciousness as a normative pattern may counterbalance the widespread legal alienation rooted in the state Socialist past. Whether this transformation may mitigate the recent autocratic power aspirations is still an open question.