Polgári Szemle - Archívum - Pénzügyi kormányzás - Gazdaságpolitika

Editor-in-Chief's Special Greeting

Polgári Szemle, 20. évf. 1–3. szám, 2024, 8–10., DOI: 10.24307/psz.2024.0802

Polgári Szemle, the academic journal of intellectuals from the civil society, celebrates its 20th anniversary. The anniversary is an occasion to thank our supporters, authors and editors for their work and to outline our goals for the future.

Two decades ago, given the fragmented but generally failing economic trends and social polarisation of the time, it was not easy to start a scientific journal. The main ambition of the journal, which was launched with the support of the Foundation for a Civic Hungary, was to provide a publication outlet for intellectuals of the civil society, to enable the publication of papers in civic virtue-based economics and other social disciplines. The ideas of experts and authors organised around the Polgári Szemle have greatly contributed to the first steps and work of the civil government that took office in the summer of 2010, as valuable papers, workshop discussion papers and books were written during the years spent in opposition, inspired by the shared  thinking and value-creating atmosphere.

After 2010, the strategy of the editorial board, which functions as an academic workshop, and the writings of the authors gathered around it, will focus on the fundamentally changing economic policy and the reorganisation of the state, with a scientific systematic approach. Our authors' internationally oriented essays focus on foreign policy issues of the European Union, the struggle of the Eurozone, which is confronted with numerous problems, its Hungarian implications, the successes of our EU presidency 10 years ago, and the plans for our new presidency in 2024. The changing conditions and functioning of regional policy, regional development, public administration, public and higher education, health care, i.e. the challenges of public administration and social policy facing the civil government, are discussed through a clear and scientific presentation.

After 2020, our lives have changed fundamentally. The Covid-19 pandemic and the economic hardships and wars that followed visibly affected the Hungarian economy. What impact do negative external developments have on the foundations of our country and our society? This is a question that many researchers are concerned with. Many papers have been written on this subject. What is the resilience of our economy, the strength of our society, what structural changes are we facing? How effective are crisis management practices and do they need to be improved? What direction may our future take? Exciting and interesting papers reflect on these questions. 

And in case you need a ‘softer melody for your ears’, there are reviews from professors of literary studies on the origins of the Hugarian language, history, the valiant deeds of our ancestors, the seminal events of world history, the books of Hungarian authors and the Hungarian-related treatises of foreign scholars that also have a bearing on our everyday lives.

Our aim is to provide space in our issues for the writings of lecturers and PhD students from rural universities and colleges, as well as young researchers who are perhaps less known to the civic intellectuals. As we often publish research from Hungarian researchers from beyond the borders of Hungary and from our strategic partners with fair and friendly relations with Hungary. The primary publication requirement in our journal articles is scientific excellence. In other words, the extent to which the submitted work meets the requirements of objectivity and scientific works. The papers selected for publication are therefore not necessarily linked to the current state of affairs, whether economic or legal, or to the historical events prefacing the present state of affairs. There is a place in the Polgári Szemle for any work that is original, new, scientific, forward-looking, and of a scientific nature, which advances the development of our society and economy and expands the reader’s expertise. Our editorial board and our authors, who are recognised experts in the field of science and public administration, are committed to presenting the economic and social changes taking place around us in a professional and authentic manner.

The content of our journal is therefore interdisciplinary, covering a wide range of scientific fields, given the impossibility of effectively approaching economic and social phenomena using only legal or only economic methodologies. This kind of scientific complexity and methodological representation is the image that our journal represents. It presents economic, governance, legal, historical, and sociological writings, as well as events related to international economic-political relations. The quality of our articles and our extensive scientific profile is reflected in the fact that several committees of the Economic and Law Department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have upgraded Polgári Szemle in recognition of our achievements. The Hungarian Regional Sciences Association has upgraded it to category B, the Committee for Developmental Sciences to category C, the Economics Doctoral Committee to category D, and the for Political Science Association to category C. We are in the same category with social science journals that run back much longer than our 20 years of operation. 

An important milestone for a journal is internationalisation, i.e. the publication of issues that can also attract foreign readers. In the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 (issues 13-17), we published special, 400 page-long issues in English, printed in 4,000 copies, while in 2019, 2020 and 2021 (issues 15-17) we also published Chinese-language issues in the same volume. Our foreign-language publications are on the shelves of major university and public libraries around the world, and our published articles are listed in international catalogues. These periodicals provide a direct and tangible means of international dissemination of our scientific results. 

Our Hungarian-language publications are distributed free of charge to Hungarian libraries, institutions of higher and secondary education, national and state authorities, mayor's offices, ministries, government and district offices, foreign institutions, libraries, churches, and we participate in professional and public forums with our free copies. For example, at the Kötcse Meeting, at clubs for intellectual from the civil society, at events organised by the Foundation for a Civic Hungary, at forums of the House of Citizens, at conferences of the Hungarian Economic Association and the Reformed People's School, and at events organised by the Kölcsey Circle. The published studies are also available on the Internet. Our journal has a significant number of tens of thousands of hits on the online platforms:

www.polgariszemle.hu

https://cn.polgariszemle.hu/

https://eng.polgariszemle.hu/

https://www.facebook.com/polgariszemle

Our goals are linked to sustainability. In other words, to be able to keep the Polgári Szemle running and get published for decades to come, keep the readership’s interest up, and let the scientific and professional communities benefit from them. Based on the historical and legal subjects published in our issues, we are striving to have the journal promoted by other committees of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and thus to expand our readership of authors in an even more conscious manner. We are planning to further increase our online visibility and to publish short synopses with illustrations. In the medium term, meeting the EBSCO, WoS, Scopus international journal evaluation standards could further the visibility of the journal. This will further increase the value of scientific papers by Hungarian authors published in Polgári Szemle and the international recognition and acceptance of our research findings. As the editor-in-chief of Polgári Szemle for nearly a decade and a half, I believe that to move on from an already high standard requires increasingly consistent work, for which I ask for the persistent efforts of our supporters, authors and colleagues. I look forward to the continued dynamism of our scientific community.

It is worth checking back with Polgári Szemle in the future too!

Budapest, 20 August, 2024