Banking Interests and the Hungarian „War of Independence” Against Western Finance

A project presentation at the ATLAS.ti User Conference (2015)

Miklos Sebok, Ph.D

Unhappy bankers: A power shift?

„Power has shifted globally to the political elite from the

financial elite, and the creativity of ’our autocratic creativity of ’our autocratic government’ is contributing

to this process”

Mihály Patai

ChairmanHungarian Banking Association

UniCredit Bank Hungary CEO and Hungarian Banking Association (MBSz) chairman

at a forum in Budapest (September 2013) Source: http://www.bbj.hu/economy/

patai-political-elite-have-taken-over-from-financial-elite_69019

The project

• Following presentation guidelines -» A look into the black box of research (Mac version 1.0.30)– No power user! Suggestions are very welcome

• Research question• Research question– RQ: Is there a power realignment between politics

and finance in Hungary?

• Hypothesis 1: Diminishing influence– „Yes, the influence of banking interests is diminishing in

the given period”

How to measure influence?

How to measure influence?• Dür (2008), Klüver (2013): Process tracing: unearthing the causal chain;

Attributed influence: media reports in lieu of surveys; Preference attainment: ideal point and outcome

• Friese (2011): Financial crisis experiment -» descriptive/initial coding, then build-up e.g.: “consequences of the crisis” is similar to my “policy outcomes” variable

Which policy venues to code?Which policy venues to code?• Corpus selection: legislation, press releases, interviews, media reports• I. QDA analysis of public policy : content of legislation and related HBA

opinion -» coding for positive/negative matches• Content coding: for legislation (preference attainment)

• II. QDA analysis of policy agenda: open confrontations mean diminishing influence -» BA and gov’t press releases; wire reports• Sentiment analysis: for press releases/media (attributed influence)

-» EXAMPLES OF THIS LATTER IN THIS PRESENTATION

Pilot corpus

• Hungarian Banking Association press releases in 2006-2014 (N= 43)

Document:*List*of*Documents*and*Associated*Groups

Documents Associated*Document*Groups

08ápr22.docxHBA/Press/releases

10febr3.docx10febr3.docxHBA/Press/releases

10jún26.docxHBA/Press/releases

11aug11.docxHBA/Press/releases

11szept9.docxHBA/Press/releases

11szept12.docxHBA/Press/releases

11szept21.docxHBA/Press/releases

11okt3.docx

Bag of words method

HungarianBanking AssociationNotFinancialBankBanksProfessionalBanking

Even w/ excluding stopwords -» only topic is apparent

-» -»BankingRetailLegislationBanking sectorBoardEuropeanCostumersMustGovernmentForAccording to

Criticism is more subtle, it uses synonymes

-» -»

Sentiment analysis is needed

Coding for issues and lobbying action

Codes:'Code'Book

Number'of'Codes:'58,'commented:'4

Code'Info Comment Author

Issue'3'Bank'tax ■ [no'entry] MiklosSebok

Issue'3'Banking ■ [no'entry] MiklosIssue'3'Banking"accountability"

■ [no'entry] MiklosSebok

Issue'3'Charge3free'ATMwithdrawal

■ [no'entry] MiklosSebok

Issue'3'Consumerfinance

■ [no'entry] MiklosSebok

Issue'3'Consumerprotection/informationcase

■ [no'entry] MiklosSebok

Issue'3'Delayed'FX'loansand'restructuring

■ [no'entry] MiklosSebok

Issue'3'Eviction'ban ■ [no'entry] MiklosSebok

Coding sentiment – An example

September 23rd 2014 - “Press release regarding the media campaign waged against banks”

(...) This piece of retroactive legislaton gravely violates the rule of law. The retroactive nature of the „law on accountability” was criticized by the Budapest-Capital Regional Court and European criticized by the Budapest-Capital Regional Court and European Central Bank. Furthermore, social justice is disregarded, as FX loan holders (...) will be better off than those taking out a loan in the domestic currency. The Hungarian Banking Association prostests once more the retroactive legislation that ignores market processes and also presenting the banking sector in its entirety as fraudulent.”

Multiple coding streams in ATLAS.ti

Code-document for analysis/revision

11nov18.docx 11nov23.docx 11okt3.docx 11szept9.docx 11szept12.docx

LobbyAction - By the government 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

LobbyAction - Constitutional Court 0% 0% 17% 0% 14%

LobbyAction - Courts 0% 0% 0% 0% 14%

LobbyAction - European Union 0% 0% 0% 0% 14%

LobbyAction - Formal agreement w/ gov't 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%LobbyAction - Formal agreement w/ gov't 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

LobbyAction - Gov. talks and/or proposal 0% 25% 0% 0% 14%

LobbyAction - Official letter to government 25% 0% 0% 0% 0%

LobbyAction - President of the Republic 0% 0% 17% 0% 0%

LobbyAction - Self-criticism 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

LobbyAction - Signalling trust breach 0% 25% 0% 0% 0%

LobbyAction - Social consultations 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

Extension to news agency items

Word frequency“bankszövetség” (banking association) in MTI press agency “News archives” (N = 688)

Phase 1. No news is good news (2006-2009)(2006-2009)

Phase 2. Electoral campaign in 2010

Phase 3. More new is bad news (2011-2013)

General trend: Into the light (2008-2013; N=1076)

Conclusions

• Results so far

– HBA press releases contain an overwhelmingly negative content (no control group)

– Previously arcane issues came to the fore (see first occurence) -» No news is good news for bankingoccurence) -» No news is good news for banking

• Research in progress

– Banking Association database: 2nd human coding

– For other databases: primary coding

– Linking the multiple sources (press, legislative, media) – IDEAS WELCOME

All comments are welcome

miklos.sebok@tk.mta.humiklos.sebok@tk.mta.hu