The new political and budgetary standards for Hungarian local governments, introduced as early as 1990 in accordance with the criteria of the European integration, aimed at promoting local democracy and reinforced the autonomy of local governments. Furthermore, they were supposed to stimulate development on the short term, so that local societies would show initiative through co-operation and a fair territorial competition. The results of this policy seem nevertheless to remain beyond expectations, at least in rural areas of the Hungarian Great Plain. Rural poverty, together with an unfavourable settlement structure, are often seen as the main causes of this miscarriage. But a somewhat grudging local budgetary policy and, which is more, a strong stability of local representatives inherited from a conservative social hierarchy make Hungarian local societies quite unable to run efficiently endogenous development policies. Thus the legacy of the socialist era does not seem to be the perpetuation of the values of the former system, but rather the reinforcement of a long-lasting paternalistic social structure of the countryside.