“the Great Budapest Rat Massacre”: The Politics of Urban Public Health

The paper is a case study of a massive rat control campaign the city of Budapest undertook in 1971-72. It examines the interaction between the large-scale political structures of state socialism, local urban politics, and public health science. During the 1970s the infestation rate of Budapest’s buildings plummeted from 33% to 0.5% falling even further in subsequent years while remaining well under 0.1% ever since. With this figure Budapest is among the very few proud rat-free cities of the world. There is extensive industrial research into rodent control, but there are no comprehensive sociological and historical studies that use urban rodent control programs as a lens into understanding broader institutional and political structures such as public health institutions, waste management policies, privatization of public utilities, or unique historical events. I apply this more holistic perspective to the Budapest case to explore 1) why some cities are able to find a long-term solution to this urban public health challenge while others fail and 2) in what ways state socialist political structures influenced the process and the outcome. I argue that this case study sheds light on how seemingly technical and strictly scientific urban policies are embedded in larger political economies (e.g., socialism). Simultaneously, it also carries lessons for similar large-scale urban interventions including disaster management, containment of epidemics, or adaptation to climate change. The single-city case study of Budapest provides the basis for a larger study comparing rodent control in select cities from Europe and North America.