IGEN VAGY NEM A helyi népszavazások magyarországi gyakorlata (1999–2011)
YES OR NO – THE HUNGARIAN PRACTICE OF LOCAL REFERENDA (1999–2011)

Summary/Abstract: In my essay I study local referenda between 1999 and 2011. I consider this research important, because most of the foregoing researches focused onnational referenda and there are substantially fewer analyses about local ones. Referendum is one of the most important instruments of direct democracy and of the right to local governance. This institution gives inhabitants the possibility to infl uence the changes of their direct environments and to express their opinion between two elections. The main initiators can be the citizens themselves who can mobilize the residents of various localities to make decisions about the lot of their settlement directly and personally. A referendum can be held on any kind of public affair with a few explicitly named exceptions. Studying the Hungarian practice my fi rst question is about the main users of referenda. Are inhabitants the real initiators or are the referenda additional instruments in the hands of local governments? Important factors to consider are the level of mobilization, the most preferred and frequent themes of referenda and their territorial distribution, to be assessed in terms of demography, the size of the settlements and their social-economic condition. I further present two case studies. One of them is about the referendum held on the installation of a NATO military radar in Pecs, 2007. The second is about the referendum in Szerencs (2010), where the question was a choice between more workplace versus the UNESCO world heritage classifi cation. Both initiatives came from citizens and the whole country followed events with attention.

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