The Hungarian elections in 2002 serve as delicacy not only for political scientists, but also for all kinds of social scientists. The theory of rational choice is not enough in itself to explain the results of the two rounds. The role of emotions and symbols represented in the theory of symbolic politics seems to be unavoidable in the analysis.
There are two common features of the two-round elections all around the world: the participation is higher in the first round, and in the second one people tend to vote for the party that seems to be winning. Contrary to these tendencies in the...