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.”
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