OT but the numbers for Belgium are interesting, given that the country’s Catholic culture. But maybe it is the quality of public services (any services, actually) which drive the Belgians over the brink?

well, so it goes in theory. One major ingredient is that there would be a party that is willing to pursue enough of the interests of the general population. If neither party is interested in this, the electorate cannot do much. It all amounts to the quality of the people in the political class. Thank you for the basic lesson in how a democracy works. You have just confirmed that people in developed contries have no clue how eratic the system can become when it is confronted with very weak and young institutions and a rotten political class (which cannot be changed at will, unfortunately).
I have never assumed the government will pursue my interests as an individual, but you would like to believe that they should try to pursue enough of the interests of the general population, at least for the sake of re-election. And I have seen them failing to show at least the good-will of trying to do so.
Now, this does not mean that I will “give up democracy”, as you put it, but that I sympathise with the Hungarians that feel disappointed by the government. Not with the Hungarian opposition or the people burning cars.
Also, that i find more hope in a disfunctional country that is appaled when their politicians misbehave, than in a disfunctional country where everybody accepts that politicians lie and cheat and nobody gives a damn.

It’s called ‘guillotine’.

Just because there’s no mechanism to hold parties to their promises doesn’t mean that there’s no mechanism to hold parties accountable. Whoever you vote has an incentive to pursue enough of the interests of the general population to win the next election. (This may not include pursuing your interests however).

Parties can manage to stuff up in all sorts of ways, including ways that don’t have much to do with whether they kept or broke their campaign promises. After all, Governments often have to deal with situations that no one anticipated during the election campaign. And a Government could conceivably keep all its pre-election promises and yet still be massively incompetent as a Government when it comes to day-to-day running.

For example, I don’t recall any political party in the NZ 1999 election laying out what its response would be to a major terrorist attack on the USA, yet that’s what the NZ Government faced from 12 September 2001 onwards. And responses to new situations, not just security threats, but evolving information about climate change, etc, can lead a Government to shift its priorities and policies as it governs, in a way that could lead to it being a bad idea to implement pre-election promises.

On the other side, voters can hold governments responsible for things the government can’t do anything about. I’ve never seen the data, but people keep saying that when the All Blacks play badly the NZ Government’s ratings fall – if that’s true it’s an example of a Government being held accountable for something it really can’t control. Another, clearer one, is that Governments are often held accountable for short-term fluctuations in the economy which probably has nothing to do with them.

So don’t give up on democracy yet. The accountability thing is rather vaguely connected to what Governments actually do, but there is more of a connection than under other forms of large-scale Government humanity has tried.

And there are mechanisms around for reducing the lying politicians can do. For example, political independence of the statistics department.

Speaking of names and completely off-topic: I have always found it slightly amusing that one of my cousins is in fact married Lakatos. Mr. Lakatos has no interest in the philosophy of science that I am aware of, though. One the other hand, my cousin is half-Finnish.

The proportion of people experiencing improvement over the course of the last five
years in their personal situation has been increasingly steadily in Hungary. Although
the proportion of people saying their situation has worsened is decreasing, their
number still surpasses the number of people experiencing improvement.

Similarly to the results of the previous surveys, Hungarians are the least satisfied in
the European Union with the life they lead in general. In the EU, 81% of citizens said
they are satisfied with their lives but only half of the people asked in Hungary
expressed similar feelings.

And since politics and economic development could be linked, one should expect a high degree of dissatisfaction with the political system, but:

In the spring of 2006, when parliamentary elections were held in Hungary,
spectacular growth in Hungarians’ trust in the national political system was seen.
Almost half of those surveyed said they trust in the government and almost the same
proportion expressed trust in the parliament. Even trust in political parties, which was
very low in previous periods, has doubled and nearly one-third of people taking part
in the survey said they trust in political parties. This proportion is extremely high in
comparison with other EU member countries.

A lot of things could be said about the EB and the way its findings are reported but this seems a bit strange. On the other hand the severity of the protests could perhaps be explained as the reaction to the earlier (temporary?) increase in political and institutional trust.

Eurobarometer 65, Executive summary of the national report for Hungary (pdf-archive). The quotes are from pages 2 and 3.

As Pepe noted, Mariska Hargitay IS the daughter of those two people. She’s a great actress. L&O SVU, in general, does quite a few things one might not expect.

Hargittai: someone from Hargita (originally).

Not quite right. “Hargitai” is someone from the Hargita region. The extra t suggests that the relation may be less direct. My family has nothing to do with that region, for example, since my uncle and then father picked up this name (sort of out of nowhere) so we have absolutely no history with it.

There are four variants of it:
Hargitai and Hargitay are more “authentic” given that the area in Transylvania is spelled as such. Hargittai and Hargittay are less authentic. You’ll definitely find a few dozen such names in the phone book, less of the 2 ts variety.

The fact that dictatorship is based on coercion and (parliamentary/liberal) democracy is based on consent. Er, at least in theory.

I thought Hungary had gone down a Keynesian-ish route of deficit spending, which despite early signs of success resulted in the huge deficit, thus ‘necessitating’ the Structural Adjustment style austerity that Gyurcsány is trying to bring in. Is there an expert here who can clarify this?

On the Hungarian passport issue, I don’t want to stoke things up, but it was my understanding that the EU and most of the international community were very glad that the dual passport referendum failed, as it would have created tensions with Romania and Slovakia.