Citizens and State Surveillance in Hungary and Romania

This book explores the impact of personality traits on people’s acceptance of state surveillance used for national security purposes. So far, state surveillance has been analysed in relation to institutional factors, technological infrastructures or specific contexts. This book shifts the focus from institutional and systemic characteristics to individual traits. It shows the extent to which people’s personality traits explain the acceptance of state surveillance. The book provides a comparative analysis of Hungary and Romania to outline the differences between two former communist countries. The key results illustrate that highly conscientious people, those who are active in their communities, and the well-informed persons accept state surveillance more.


Paul Tap is Research Fellow at the Department of International Studies and Contemporary History, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj. His research interests lie in direct democracy, political parties and state surveillance.