This paper analyses the phenomenon of the immigration of Transylvanian refugees in contemporary Hungary. After describing the main characteristics of the Transylvanian refugees and briefly the process of their immigration, the paper explains why this immigration posed a severe policy-making challenge for Hungarian organizations and especially for the state authorities. In the following section the structure and the operation of the refugee policy networks is examined, focussing on the interorganizational networks and the role this structure played in coping with the formulation of policy for this hitherto unfamiliar political phenomenon. This policy network is hypothesized as a dualistic one consisting of a 'mainframe sector' and a 'grassroots sector' with independent, small and very active units. Finally, I analyse the main features of three ideal types of governance structures and offer an explanation of why the state chose the committee-type structure as the organizational reaction to the crisis, instead of the orthodox historical solutions of state socialism such as implementing a task force group or establishing a new bureaucracy.The units of the analysis are Hungarian organizations dealing with refugees and their inter-organizational networks. The period of analysis is 1988 and 1989. In the pilot study on the role of state and non-state organizations dealing with refugees, interviews were conducted with all the 'non-state' actors who were willing to be interviewed (churches, parties, associations, Red Cross, charity and self-help groups and foreign embassies) and with all the state authorities including the border guards, the police, the local councils, the ministries, the Co-ordinating Committees of several counties and the Interministerial Committee. © 1992 Oxford University Press.

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migration rate population change Transylvanians interview technique inter-organisational network Hungary policy response cultural geography immigration Refugees