Publications of Violetta Zentai

Roma Marginalization and Exclusion in a Comparative Perspective

The "Faces and Causes of Roma Marginalization in Local Communities" inquiry explored the economic, political, demographic, and social forces at municipal and community level which shape practices and consequences of social exclusion and potential pathways to inclusion. Phase 2 of this research focused on a representative sample of municipalities (20–30 per country) in Hungary, Romania, and Serbia to explore basic local social services and infrastructure provisions, conditions of political participation of the Roma, and local interventions targeting Roma inclusion. This research phase relied on structured field research collecting both quantitative and qualitative data.

Faces and Causes of Roma Marginalization: Experiences from Romania

The "Faces and Causes of Roma Marginalization in Local Communities" inquiry explored the economic, political, demographic, and social forces at municipal and community level which shape practices and consequences of social exclusion and potential pathways to inclusion. Phase 2 of this research focused on a representative sample of municipalities (20–30 per country) in Hungary, Romania, and Serbia to explore basic local social services and infrastructure provisions, conditions of political participation of the Roma, and local interventions targeting Roma inclusion. This research phase relied on structured field research collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. This short country report is based on the Final Country Report on the Faces and Causes of Roma Marginalization in Romania, edited in June 2013 by Enikő Vincze, with contributions from Cătălin Dîrțu, Adrian-Nicolae Furtună, Margareta Herțanu, Iulia-Elena Hossu, Elena Mihalache, Rafaela Maria Muraru, Florina Pop, Mihaela Preda, and Daniel Tudora. The Short Country report is also co-authored by this group in the sense that these colleagues collected and processed the field data. However, overall interpretation and presentation of the data was done by Enikő Vincze (the coordinator of the Romanian research team), therefore, this report is single-authored. The text refers to "us/we" or "I" according to fieldwork knowledge or interpretation. The Romanian research team also included Ramona Făcăleț, Andrei Mihail Tudor and Elena Trifan (as a volunteer) at the level of localities, and Nicolae Arsene, Violeta Dumitru, Victor Făcăleț, Marcela Șerban and Alina Tuța at the county level.

Capitalism from Outside? Economic Cultures in Eastern Europe after 1989

Does capitalism emerging in Eastern Europe need as solid ethnic or spiritual foundations as some other “Great Transformations” in the past? Apparently, one can become an actor of the new capitalist game without belonging to the German, Jewish, or, to take a timely example, Chinese minority. Nor does one have to go to a Protestant church every Sunday, repeat Confucian truisms when falling asleep, or study Adam Smith’s teachings on the virtues of the market in a business course. He/she may just follow certain quasi-capitalist routines acquired during communism and import capitalist culture (more exactly, various capitalist cultures) in the form of down-to-earth cultural practices embedded in freshly borrowed economic and political institutions. Does capitalism come from outside? Why do then so many analysts talk about hybridization? This volume offers empirical insights into the current cultural history of the Eastern European economies in three fields: entrepreneurship, state governance and economic science. The chapters are based on large case studies prepared in the framework of an eight-country research project (funded by the European Commission, and directed jointly by the Center for Public Policy at the Central European University and the Institute for Human Sciences) on East-West cultural encounters in the ex-communist economies.

Gender Equality Policy or Gender Mainstreaming? The Case of Hungary on the Road to an Enlarged Europe

The aim of this article is to analyze some of the core conceptual and implementation issues underpinning the process of introducing gender mainstreaming strategy in Hungary. It examines the approach of Hungarian policy makers to gender mainstreaming and evaluates the political framing of some crucial aspects of gender equality. Our argument in this article is twofold. First, we observe that the concept of gender mainstreaming as a cross-sectoral and comprehensive policy tool for achieving gender equality has only been sporadically present and this has mostly been located at the rhetorical level. Hungary has no comprehensive gender equality strategy and no distinctive gender equality policy instruments currently in place. Rather, the promotion of equal opportunity on all grounds has become a powerful policy approach in the last two to three years, often neglecting the specific requirements of gender equality. Secondly, we argue that the influence of the European Union (EU) accession process has had two stages, as far as gender equality policy is concerned in Hungary. The first stage, has referred primarily to the de jure harmonization of Hungarian legislation with relevant EU directives, but has brought very little harmonization at the policy level, and brought limited de facto realization of the rights imposed by the directives. The second stage, identified from mid-2003, is coterminous with Hungary joining the different EU level policy processes. This second stage signaled a shift from legislative harmonization to a more focused policy approach. This stage may be characterized as a direct process of EU-isation on Hungarian policy concepts and tools, such as gender mainstreaming. However, it is too early to judge the practical implications of this development.