A kormányzás háttérintézményei .Amerikai és európai példák – I. rész
Background Institutions: American And European Examples – Part I.

Summary/Abstract: The study examines the Prime Minister’s Office, an institution of central importance in the Hungarian political system, from comparative and analytical aspects. The first part of the study, published in the current issue, includes a general introduction and an international comparative chapter. The main Western models of the background institution of the head of the executive branch have all evolved into powerful centers of policy-making during the past decades or centuries. The German Chancellor’s office, the Federal Chancellery, has become the main tool for strengthening the power of the Chancellor within the cabinet as well as within the whole political system since 1949. The British Prime Ministers, as a result of gradual centralization in the past two centuries, have turned not only the Prime Minister’s Office but even the Cabinet Office into the PM’s own bureaus of the „core executive”, an allpowerful center of national decision-making and public administration. Both the German and the British model offices have by the millennium evolved into a kind of executive office, a type of institution whose sample is to be found in the United States. The American President’s Executive Office, including its core, the White House Staff, has itself undergone significant centralization and growth in power and numbers. Its huge size in terms of staff, its direct access to the President and its tremendous influence on policy-making have made the Executive Office a model for governmental centralization in other Western democracies, many of which are experiencing a process of presidentialization according to many analysts today. The Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office shows many similarities to the Western models not only within the institution but also in its evolving central nature within the whole political system. The details of the Hungarian office and its development are coming up in the next issue. The author is a Political Scientist and an expert of American Studies.

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