Derangement or Development? Political Economy of EU Structural Funds Allocation in New Member States - Insights from the Hungarian Case

This research provides some insights on the interactions between political and economic aspects in Hungarian development policy and multi-level government financing mechanisms. By looking at the allocation of European Union Structural Funds (EU SF) in Hungary from 2004 to 2008, this project addresses if and how such development programs and financing mechanisms are influenced by political and institutional/administrative factors. The theoretical framework of the political economy of intergovernmental grants offers hypotheses that are specially relevant within the Hungarian context. This study contributes to a fairly small but emerging literature on the political economy of intergovernmental grants and development as well as to the broadening multi-level governance literature and policy research on Structural Funds allocation. Results are in line with already more researched cohesion literature on the EU-15 and add the case of a new EU member CEE country. Furthermore, this research may inspire and inform potential comparative projects on old and new EU member states in regard to evaluating policy interventions, grant allocation mechanisms or governance issues