Abstract
The first part of the chapter is a review about the history, culture and political framework of strategic planning in post-socialist countries, with a focus of Hungary. The second part presents the findings of an empirical research study based on the answers of 294 municipalities. In this study, strategic planning was centralized along with all other attributes of public administration in post-communist countries. During their history of administrative and fiscal decentralization after the 1990s, independent municipalities in the area started to develop plans to adapt to the fast-changing economic environment and while they became fiscally independent, their accountability toward their inhabitants grew. With the fast spreading of private-public partnerships and in general the increasing cooperation between local governments, private, civic and non-governmental actors after 1990, these stakeholders also became involved in the planning process.
The research among Hungarian local governments shows that after 2010, the government started to re-centralize the public administration and service provision. Parallel with the central government gaining power, strategic planning lost its importance, before it could fully develop. Today, 90% of Hungarian municipalities do not feel that they are in control of their own revenues and thus planning today in Hungary focuses on how to manage the day-to-day operations of the municipality. The result of this practice is that municipalities in Hungary often perform financial planning instead of strategic planning.
Plans are useless, but planning is everything.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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- 1.
This is needed as the GDP of these countries is 1.5 times more volatile than in developed economies (…), so, swings in the interest rates change the sovereign debt values (Greece). Natural disasters have larger effects as well since the economy is dependent on a single resource or product.
- 2.
We talk about radical innovations when new services are developed. Systemic or transformative innovations require fundamental changes in organizational, social and cultural arrangements. Incremental innovation takes place in small, incremental steps.
- 3.
YMCA: Young Men’s Christian Association.
- 4.
The setup of the county regional development councils illustrates that regional development is not only the responsibility of the state but requires the coordination of several actors. Members of the county regional development council include: the chairman of the county government assembly; the mayors of the cities with delegated county rights; representative of the Minister of Environment; representatives of chambers of commerce from the county; representatives of the municipal regional development associations from the county (one for each statistical micro region in the county); representatives of the labor council from the county (one for the employer and one for the employee side).
- 5.
Based on an interview with Peter Szegvari, Chief Advisor to the Mayor of Budapest.
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Barati-Stec, I. (2019). Strategic Planning in Post-Communist Settings: The Example of Hungary. In: Hințea, C., Profiroiu, M., Țiclău, T. (eds) Strategic Planning in Local Communities. Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03436-8_3
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