ARTICLE ALERT
Like Industrious Bees: Paper Waste and Recycling in Communist Hungary, 1950–1990
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 2/2023
https://doi.org/10.1086/723787
Analyses of the Soviet Bloc’s environmental record have often characterized it as “dirty.” While it is true that the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies committed terrible ecological crimes while pursuing extensive and rapid economic growth, Eastern European states also developed and employed complex systems to repair, reuse, and recycle resources. This article traces the gradual change in the professional and political discussions of postindustrial and postconsumer paper recycling in Hungary as recycling transitioned from a technological fix for material shortages into an ideological tool intended to underscore socialism’s theoretical supremacy over capitalism, without actually delivering on that promise.
ARTICLE ALERT
Orbán’s View on Nature The State and its Environment in Modern Hungary
CBEES ANNUAL STATE OF THE REGION REPORT 2022
DOWNLOAD OPEN ACCESS: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-51241
Hungary’s current environmental policy has been substantially criticized based on worrying trends, however critics also employed politically and emotionally biased methodologies on occasions. As a result, the root cause behind Hungary’s new line of policies toward the environment, remains unclear. However, such an explanation could be beneficial to understand the underlying causes both for Orbán’s governmental environmental policies, and indirectly answer questions about the domestic popularity of Orbán’s ideas. Thus, in this paper, I take a deep look into the present and past of Hungary’s woodlands, wetlands and floodplains as well as Lake Balaton, the country’s premier tourism area, all of which have been central elements of the reorganization of state-led human-nature relations since 1800 as well as in post-2010 Hungary.
ARTICLE ALERT
Illiberal Environmentalism? The Case of Contemporary Hungary
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 4/2022
https://doi.org/10.1086/721414
The present and past of Hungarian state environmentalism suggest
that Viktor Orbán and his illiberal regime have actively adopted and
promoted ideas produced by hundreds of years of nationalist-ethnicized
discourse about nature in Hungary. This, however, has been neither
unique nor typical to Hungary, and has been pursued by a number
of authoritarian regimes.
MY BOOKS
Social and Cultural Aspects of the Circular Economy
Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary
Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary
Social and Cultural Aspects of the Circular Economy argues for a social and solidarity economy (SSE) to combine individual actions with a wider cultural shift. It will be an important read for scholars, researchers, students and policy-makers in circular economy, waste studies, consumption and other environmentally focused social sciences.
Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary
Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary
Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary
"Viktor Pál has written an important book that makes long-overdue contributions to the economic history of Eastern Europe and of socialist economic development." (Journal of Economic History, May 2021)
Environmentalism Under Authoritarian Regimes
Technology and the Environment in State-Socialist Hungary
Environmentalism Under Authoritarian Regimes
This book explores the theme of environmental politics and authoritarian regimes on both the right and the left. The authors argue that in instances when environmentalist policies offer the possibility of bolstering a country’s domestic (nationalist) appeal or its international prestige, authoritarian regimes can endorse and have endorsed environmental protective measures.