Assessing the Impact of Hungarian Kin-State Funding in Southern Slovakia

This paper explores the impact of unilateral Hungarian kin-state funding and its impact on the material well-being, regional development, as well as ethnic identities of the Hungarian population in southern Slovakia. Approaching the subject through the lens of local government framework, it utilizes multiple methods to formulate hypotheses on how the findings relate to the scholarship on Hungarian external nationalism and post-socialist foreign policy. In the introductory parts, the paper theoretically situates the practices of kin-funding, claiming it to have an indirect ethnic connotation. Whilst the survey findings (n=204) suggest that there is limited evidence connecting nuances of minority self-identification and intensity of kin-state funding, the interviews (n=19) demonstrate increasing resemblances of particularistic funding distribution practices that fit in with the most important features of the pork-barrel politics conceptual framework. The paper concludes by claiming that the range of Hungarian kin-funding channels do not systematically address the shortcomings of minority accommodation of the home-state, as they are effectively used by non-Hungarian population creating a new semi-formal layer of economic activity.