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Branding for business? Hungary and the sustainable development goals

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Abstract

Negotiations leading to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) have dominated the diplomacy of global development in the past years. The paper looks at the actions and motivations of a relatively new development actor, Hungary, which co-chaired the United Nations General Assembly’s Open Working Group on SDGs, and thus had a highly visible position during the talks. Hungary had a key priority of having a SDG on water-related issues, driven mainly by its perceived comparative advantage in the sector. Using the insights of the literature on small state influence in multilateral negotiations, the paper argues that Hungarian diplomats used alliance building as well as reputational and framing strategies to counter the structural disadvantages of the country’s small state status, and were successful in shaping the final outcome. However, the Hungarian government did not act out of a strong commitment to sustainable global development, but rather used the forum to brand itself as an expert on water issues, with the hope of future business benefits.

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Notes

  1. For an overview of the OWG process, see Bhattacharya et al. (2014) and Dodds et al. (2017).

  2. For research on the strong similarities (and also differences) between emerging European donors, see Szent-Iványi and Lightfoot (2015).

  3. Unless otherwise noted, interviews were conducted in person. To ensure that interviewees were not influenced by their superiors or colleagues, questions were not made available beforehand. In order to cross-check statements of government officials, a number of representatives from civil society organisations were also interviewed. For reasons of confidentiality, all interviewees remain anonymous.

  4. These numbers refer only to the MFA’s foreign assistance budget. Due to the increase in compulsory multilateral commitments, the total decrease in Hungary’s official development assistance figures was much less drastic (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014, p. 38).

  5. Other groups which Hungary joined included the Sustainable Energy for All Group, the Accessible and Sustainable Financing for Everyone Group and the Culture in Sustainable Development Group.

  6. ‘Water-related risk management—the impact of human intervention on water’ in February 2012, and ‘Water in MDG’s’ in April 2012.

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List of interviews

  • INT#01: Senior official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1, May 2014, Budapest.

  • INT#02: Senior official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2, November 2014, Budapest.

  • INT#03: Hungarian diplomat 1, July 2015, Budapest.

  • INT#04: Hungarian diplomat 2, July 2015, Budapest.

  • INT#05: Hungarian diplomat 3, July 2015, Brussels, via phone.

  • INT#06: Hungarian diplomat 4, October 2015, Budapest.

  • INT#07: Civil society representative 1, July 2014, Budapest.

  • INT#08: Civil society representative 2, July 2015, Budapest.

  • INT#09: Civil society representative 3, October 2015, Budapest, via email.

  • INT#10: Civil society representative 4, September 2015, Berlin.

Participant observation

  • OBS#1: ‘Post-2015 Development Agenda. Societal Consultation’, 10 September, 2013, event jointly organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Hungarian UN Society.

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Acknowledgements

Early versions of this paper were presented at the ‘Global Governance and the Politics of Aid’ symposium, University of Bradford, 2015, and at the UACES Conference in Bilbao, 2015. We are grateful to the participants for their feedback. We would also like to thank Mark Furness, Niels Keijzer, and three anonymous referees for their helpful and instructive comments on earlier drafts. All errors remain our own.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aston Centre for Europe, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK

    Balázs Szent-Iványi

  2. Institute of World Economy, Corvinus University of Budapest, Fővám tér 8, Budapest, 1093, Hungary

    Balázs Szent-Iványi

  3. Chair of Comparative Politics, European University Viadrina, Große Scharrnstrasse 59, 15230, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

    Zsuzsanna Végh

  4. POLIS, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Simon Lightfoot

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  1. Balázs Szent-Iványi
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  2. Zsuzsanna Végh
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Correspondence to Balázs Szent-Iványi.

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Szent-Iványi, B., Végh, Z. & Lightfoot, S. Branding for business? Hungary and the sustainable development goals. J Int Relat Dev 23, 190–209 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-017-0127-8

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