Local Environmental Regulation in Post-Socialism

This text examines Hungarian local environmental regulation in practice rather than what should happen according to national legislation. This is a subject of great relevance as Hungary prepares to join the EU in 2004. The book is based on interviews with officials, regulators, firm managers and environmental groups in four localities in Hungary and on a national survey of local government officials. Numerous quotations from interviews are included. It is shown that the local social and economic context influences the behaviour of both local governments and regional environmental inspectorates. Firms' responsiveness to regulation is studied and it is shown that while some firms are ready to pay moderate environmental fines others are afraid of even symbolic fines. The findings are set within debates in the international literature on environmental regulation. It is shown that there are convergences with patterns reported in developed capitalist societies, but that certain legacies from state socialism are compatible with these patterns.