„Két választás Magyarországon”.Az országgyűlési képviselők társadalmi összetétele a 20. század első éveiben
“Two Elections in Hungary”. The Social Composition of the Members of Parliament in the Early 20th Century

Summary/Abstract: The paper describes the social composition of the Hungarian parliament at the beginning of the 20th century. Research has found no discernible social differences among the various groups of the political elite the sociological character of which did not significantly differ. Taking this as a starting point we provide a statistical analysis of the members of parliament. We used national assembly data from 1901 and 1905 to carry out the comparative analysis of the members of parliament coming from different political backgrounds. We processed the database – containing nearly 600 members of parliament elected on these two occasions and 34 statistical variables for each – with the SPSS program. As a result, we could provide a statistical basis for the former findings of social historiography. According to our study, the social composition of the two parliaments of 1901 and 1905 were not significantly different, the political elite was sociologically uniform. Though the outcomes of the two elections were dominantly different, this was not discernible in the statistical indicators. The traditional political elite, the aristocracy and the former nobility were heavily represented in the parliament. The vast majority of the members of parliament had university degree, primarily from law, while intellectuals from other important fields of economy and culture were almost completely missing from the traditionally lawyer- dominated national assembly. When it came to political career, graduation in Budapest was an important factor. Two thirds of the members of parliament had spent some time in central government or local government administration before embarking on a career in politics.

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