The Zsolt Semjén academic misconduct controversy refers to allegations of plagiarism and multiple submission concerning the 1991 laureatus thesis in theology (converted in 1997 to a PhD in religious studies) and the 1992 sociology diploma thesis of Deputy Prime Minister of Hungary and head of the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) Zsolt Semjén.
On 18 November 2012 Hungarian magazine Heti Világgazdaság published an article which claimed that material that amounts to 40 percent of Semjén's 122 pages long laureatus dissertation (entitled "The challenge of New Age and opportunity for evangelization"), defended in 1991 at the Pázmány Péter Roman Catholic Theological Academy, has been taken from various sources without proper citation.
On 19 November Heti Világgazdaság reported that 32–33 pages of Semjén's 46 pages long sociology diploma thesis (entitled "An attempted interpretation of New Age"), defended in 1992 at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), is overlapping with his laureatus dissertation which he already submitted and defended.
On 26 November Heti Világgazdaság revealed that the second, revised edition of Semjén's 1992 sociology diploma thesis contains 12–13 pages worth of additional material that had in 1993 appeared as an article in the journal Valóság by his thesis advisor, Attila Molnár. According to Heti Világgazdaság, Semjén did dot cite Molnár in his thesis, neither did Molnár refer to Semjén in the 1993 article.
At first Nikosz Fokasz, the head of sociology department and Katalin Tausz, the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Eötvös Loránd University were not planning an inquiry, but on 29 November she announced that a three-member committee is going to investigate the allegations. According to this investigation, concluded on 7 December, Zsolt Semjén has committed serious ethical, professional misconduct, but ELTE is not in the position to take official action. Nevertheless, twelve lecturers at ELTE consider Semjén's thesis invalid until he and Molnár clarify the situation. Heti Világgazdaság calls the investigation incomplete, and criticizes the committee for failing to address important questions such as the issues of self-plagiarism, plagiarism from authors other than Molnár, and the regulations allowing for the submission of a revised edition of a thesis
The Pázmány Péter Catholic University is not investigating the charges against Semjén, and considers the case closed.
The Prime Minister's office called the charges a "campaign of slander", and Christian Democratic politicians and pundits have referred to the allegations as a part of a coordinated attack against Catholics, and against Christianity in general.
This is the third plagiarism scandal in Hungary involving a high-profile politician in 2012, following that of Pál Schmitt (see Pál Schmitt academic misconduct controversy) – which led to Schmitt's resignation as President of Hungary –, and former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány (see Ferenc Gyurcsány plagiarism controversy), in whose case plagiarism remained unproven as his dissertation couldn't be found.
Zsolt Semjén
Zsolt Semjén (born 8 August 1962 in Budapest) is a Hungarian politician, currently minister without portfolio and Deputy Prime Minister in the second cabinet of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Semjén is the leader of the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP) since 2003, which formed a coalition and alliance with Fidesz.
He studied in theology at the Pázmány Péter Roman Catholic Theological Academy, now Pázmány Péter Catholic University. He obtained his laureatus degree in 1991. In 1992 he graduated at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest with a diploma in sociology. In 1997, based on the high quality of the work and Semjén's subsequent scientific achievements, the Pázmány Péter Catholic University converted his laureatus degree to a PhD in religious studies.
In 1989, he was among the founders of the Christian Democratic People's Party. He was a member of the executive committee and employee of the National Assembly. From 1990 to 1994 he served as district councillor. In 1994 he obtained a parliamentary seat in 1997, he was the deputy leader of KDNP. Soon he left the party, joined the faction of the Hungarian Democratic Forum. In 1998, Viktor Orbán gave him the position of secretary of state for the church. In 2002 Zsolt Semjén returned to parliament from a list of Fidesz and the Christian Democrats.
Soon, he rejoined the extra-parliamentary KDNP then, and in 2003 became chairman of this party. In both 2006 and 2010 his parliamentary mandate was renewed. In the second, Fidesz-KDNP coalition government of Viktor Orbán he became minister without portfolio and Deputy Prime Minister.
Allegations of misconduct
Plagiarism in the theology dissertation
According to the November 18 article by hvg.hu, in his 1991 laureatus dissertation,"The challenge of New Age and opportunity for evangelization" Semjén used parts of the following works without referencing them properly: Helmuth von Glasenapp: Die fünf großen Religionen (Translated to Hungarian with the title "Az öt világvallás". Budapest, Gondolat, 1975) Stefan Üblackner: Der Traum Vom „New Age”. Stadt Gottes, 1989. January, February, and March Lewis Spence: The Encyclopedia of the Occult. London, Bracken Books, 1988 (first edition: 1920)
According to hvg.hu, in some cases Semjén copied various sections word-by-word, in other cases he omitted certain words, replaced them with synonyms, or reversed the word order.
In addition to the improperly sourced material the dissertation also contains a significant amount of text (about 25%, as estimated by hvg.hu) consisting of properly referenced, verbatim quotations.
Although his opponents described parts of his thesis as "rushed, […] therefore incomplete", and "too superficial, and hard to go through", Semjén received a summa cum laude for the dissertation from the thesis committee.
Based on the perceived high quality of the work and Semjén's subsequent scientific achievements, the Pázmány Péter Catholic University converted his laureatus degree in theology to a PhD in religious studies in 1997.
Multiple submission
On 19 November hvg.hu published an article claiming that 32–33 pages of Semjén's 46 pages long sociology diploma thesis (entitled "An attempted interpretation of New Age"), defended in 1992 at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), is overlapping with his laureatus dissertation which he already submitted and defended in 1991.
Hvg.hu reported that the overlapping material is in part taken word-by-word from the theology dissertation, in other cases the text is slightly reformulated, simplified or abbreviated. Semjén also took material from the theology dissertation that was already taken from an external source.
In some cases, material that had been cited properly in the 1991 dissertation is present in the 1992 thesis, but without quotation marks and any indication of origin.
According to hvg.hu, Semjén did not indicate, either the text or in the bibliography, that he had already written and defended a thesis on the same subject.
On 20 November hvg.hu reported that at the time of its submission, Semjén's sociology diploma thesis sparked controversy among its reviewers. One of the reviewers gave Semjén the best possible grade (5 out of 5), the other reviewer gave him a failing grade (1 out of 5), on the basis that it was a theological, rather than a sociological work. Issues regarding the general quality of the work have also been raised.
Mihály Csákó, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology and Social Policy at ELTE at the time of Semjén's defence, told hvg.hu that the problem with Semjén's dissertation was that it did not fit into the profile of the department, did not draw conclusions relevant to sociology, mainly contained a review of the literature, and it "contained few original thoughts". The controversy was resolved by inviting a third reviewer, who gave Semjén a 4 (out of 5) grade.
Allegations of plagiarism in the second, revised edition
On 26 November hvg.hu revealed that the second, revised edition of Semjén's 1992 sociology diploma thesis contains 12–13 pages worth of additional material that had in 1993 appeared as an article in the journal Valóság by his thesis advisor, Attila Molnár. Hvg.hu believes that the revision was necessitated by the failing grade given by one of the reviewers, contains the missing sociological content the reviewer felt was missing, and had been compiled in two and a half weeks. According to hvg.hu, Semjén did not cite Molnár in his thesis, neither did Molnár refer to Semjén in the 1993 article.
Below is an excerpt from Semjén's revised dissertation, the corresponding section from Molnár's 1993 Valóság article (both reproduced from the hvg.hu article), and an English translation of Semjén's text. The differences between Semjén's and Molnár's works are highlighted in blue.
Semjén, 1992Molnár, 1993English translation (Semjén, 1992) A mai közgondolkodásban erősen tartja magát az a képzet, hogy a modern társadalom szekularizálódott. A világ varázstalanítása, vagy a vallás és intézményeinek háttérbe szorulását hirdető elméletek a mai napig szerfölött népszerűek. Pedig már többen kimutatták a szekularizációs elméletek logikai problémáit , és a szekularizációs elmélet inkább ideológiai, mint tudományos jellegét. elérkeztünk oda, hogy a vallásszociológusok között sokkal kevésbé ez az elmélet, mint a többi és értelmiségi között. a szekularizáció elmélet kritikái mellett megjelentek , amelyek a vallás valamilyen . A szent visszatértéről szóló elméletek elsősorban nem statisztikákra támaszkodnak, hanem a vallás új formáinak megjelenésére vagy a régiek elevenedésére. Az előbbihez tartoznak az új vallások, míg az utóbbira példa a fundamentalizmus felerősödése A mai közgondolkodásban erősen tartja magát az a képzet, hogy a modern társadalom szekulariz A világ varázstalanítás vagy a vallás és intézményeinek háttérbe szorulását hirdető elméletek a mai napig szerfölött népszerűek. Pedig már többen kimutatták a szekularizációs elméletek logikai problémáit, és a szekularizációs elmélet inkább ideológiai, mint tudományos jellegét. a vallásszociológusok között sokkal kevésbé ez az elmélet, mint a többi és értelmiségi között. A szekularizáció elmélet kritikái mellett megjelentek az elmúlt évtizedben a vallás valamilyen . a szent visszatértéről szóló elméletek elsősorban nem statisztikákra támaszkodnak, hanem a vallás új formáinak megjelenésére vagy a régi elevenedésére. Az előbbihez tartoznak az új vallások, míg az utóbbira példa a fundamentalizmus felerősödése. In today's public opinion in social science the idea strongly holds that modern society is secularized. The removal of magic from the world, or the theories that proclaim the necessity of moving religion and its institutions into the background are still exceedingly popular. But the logical problems of theories of secularization have already been highlighted by many (Shiner, Dobbelaere, Martin, Wilson), and that the secularization theories are more ideological than scientific in nature. As of today, this theory is much less common among sociologists of religion than among other professional sociologists and intellectuals. In the last decades, besides the criticism of secularization theory, writings that speak of some form of revival of religion also appeared (Beckford, Bell). The theories that speak of the return of the sacred are not primarily based on statistics, but on the emergence of new forms of religion or the revitalization of the old. New churches and religions belong to the former, while an example of latter is the intensification of religious fundamentalism in the Islamic and in the Christian world.