Vilém Novotný, Lucie Buchtíková
On the study of advisory systems in the field of public policies of political parties: research foundations on the example of ČSSD and ODS
Czech political parties, as other parties in liberal democracies, play an important role in policy-making process. Contemporary welfare state, for example, reforms have challenged their policy-related capacities and put them under the stress because they have to mobilise relevant policy expertise to sustain their position in the policy-making. We assume that these arrangements take form of policy advice system that can be defined as a configuration of actors dealing with policy analysis (see Howlett 2009 etc.). The article aims to propose general model of party policy advisory system and to explore its applicability on selected Czech political parties. We argue that is possible to apply policy work concepts to parties but it should consider different settings and goals of these organisations. Based on our research, the model of party policy advisory system consists of intra party (party bureaucracy and internal to party organized according to three party “faces” concept (Katz and Mair) and extra party (modified Kuhne ́s resources of external political advising) arrangements. We applied this model to exploration of policy advisory systems configuration of two previous pillars of Czech party system, Social Democrats (ČSSD) and Civic Democrats (ODS) in 2013.
Michel Perottino
Expertíza v českých politických stranách: poznámky k teoretickému a praktickému rámci
Expertise in Czech political parties: remarks on the theoretical and practical framework
Expertise is becoming increasingly present, especially in political discourse, even if political parties have long been cooperating with experts. The aim of this article is to remind the general context of parties expert capacities (particularly expert commissions) and to pre- sent the current trend of using expertise in several parties, considering that its development in the last decade goes in parallel with other processes (professionalisation, outsourcing, depoliticization). If the classic party expertise was part of the search for solutions in accord- ance with the principle of representativeness, currently we can see that there is a greater emphasis on efficiency. Seemingly expertise depoliticised, while there is a process of politi- cization of expertise.
Jakub Stauber
Organizační vývoj nových politických stran v České republice pohledem teorie institucionalizace
Organisational development of new political parties in the Czech Republic from the perspective of institutionalization theory
The latest development of the Czech party system is mainly characterized by increasing electoral support of genuinely new political parties, namely Věci Veřejné in 2010 and ANO in 2013. Such initial success has far reaching consequences to the development of internal organizational structure of new political parties. The article deals with phenomenon of electoral success of those genuinely new political parties in the perspective of institutionalization theory which is capable to explain their formation and organizational development. The primary goal of the article is to analyse processes leading to stabilisation or failure of intra-party structures and organization as a whole. The electoral success of new political parties was in both cases already connected with personalised leadership of political entrepreneur and with the use of managerial approach or advanced marketing techniques.
Kateřina Merklová, Jana Vargovčíková
Politika soukromé expertízy. Získávání vlivu v tvorbě politik prostřednictvím odbornosti
The politics of private expertise. Gaining influence in policy making through expertise
Private actors are becoming increasingly involved in drafting public policy at various levels of governance, with expertise as a key resource for access. Crossing the perspectives of interest group theory and public policy analysis, the article explores under what circumstances and through what channels private expertise gets to play a role in the Czech policy-making, and how private actors as expertise providers relate to public actors in this process, in particular to political parties. The article proposes that the private actors’ influence is determined by the nature of the policy issue and the prevailing logic of the policy making process, under- stood following Claudio Radaelli as a proportion between the visibility and the uncertainty in the process. As an empirical enquiry into these assumptions, we present two dissimilar cases: the Czech pension reform and the transposition of the EU directive on the energy performance of buildings into Czech law. Although their analysis confirms much of the initial hypotheses, it brings a more nuanced view of the impact of the complexity-visibility ratio on the role of private expertise by pointing to the dissociated character of the different stages of the process, as well as to the fact that political actors’ demand for private expertise may be motivated by its other functions than as a knowledge input.
Aleksandras Patapas, Alvydas Raipa, Vainius Smalskys
Governance Modernisation: Structure and Development
At the turn of the 21st century public management gained substantial experience in mod- ernising the public sector; new theoretical paradigms, concepts and models of public gov- ernance were developed; feasible opportunities for testing their sustainability in practice occured. The most important writings of researchers of the evolution of modern public gov- ernance have revealed that the problem of modernising public institutions can be defined by the structural dimension of values characteristic of certain cyclic sequence (challenges of globalisation, the necessity of changes in government, governance reforms, modernisa- tion of public sector activity, innovative ideology and the practise of innovativeness) which are intended to make governance more efficient. The modernisation of public governance is acquiring more qualitative experiences in developing the modernisation strategies, policy programmes and projects; in improving structural and functional operation of organisa- tions; in expanding the opportunities for intersectoral integration; in combining the trends of governance centralisation and decentralisation; in implementing modern forms of per- formance management; and, in infixing the principles of the results-oriented behaviour and new forms of responsibility and control over post-bureaucratic activities.
Michal Kubát
Giovanni Sartori: an empirical and engaged political scientist in an over-empirical and under-engaged political science
This article analyzes the work of Giovanni Sartori – in no doubt a political science legend – with regard to its distinctiveness in contrast to the mainstream of contemporary comparative politics. As this article argues, both Sartori’s life and work are full of paradoxes. A giant of political science whose work is widely acknowledged, Sartori stands somewhat outside of current methodological trends in the discipline he helped to shape. Founder of Italian political science and one of its most visible representatives and political columnists, Sartori also failed to influence the politics of Rome. Neither were his recommendations ever adopted in Italy. This article studies these paradoxes and seeks to explain them. The focus is on Sartori’s theoretical and methodological approach to politics and political science as articulated not only in his scholarly works but also in essays and commentaries.
Oldřich Krpec
Problémy současného politického systému: selhání aktérů nebo jejich racionální jednání?
Problems of the current political system: failure of actors or their rational actions?
This study is a contribution to the discussion of democratic political system functioning. Text focuses on perceived problems of contemporary democratic system in processing satisfactory outputs consistent with a democratic ideal. The study presents political economy approach to this issue. The main goal is to offer possible answer to the question if presumed problems of political system are the outcome of failures of individual actors to behave ra- tionally and predictably. Or are they rather determined by a number of discussed features of the system which to some extent shapes the logic of action of individual actors. The concepts used in the construction of simple model are costs of decision making, bounded rationality, role set, the approach of logic of collective action and for illustration of some features also the basics of game theory. The most important topics under discussion are the tensions between public and particular interests, efficiency of process and security of actors and costs of information and potential costs of rational ignoration.
Vilém Novotný
Studium policy work v perspektivě dvou hlavních přístupů
Studying policy work in the perspective of two main approaches
Policy work labels new distinct stream of scholarship in public policy that tries to capture transformations of policy analysis ́ practice. Due to shifts in meaning and ambiguity of this new umbrella term there is a question of understanding to this new stream of research. The article argues it is possible by closer examination of different complementary policy work research approaches within this stream. They influence not only perception of public policy but also discourse on their practice. Its aim is to get acquainted with the issue of policy work through two contemporary main approaches. After short contextualization in development of policy work research there are presented, in comparative perspective, short characteristics, main concepts conceptual embeddings, and relation to policy analysis of the policy work approach (Colebatch), the policy analytical capacity approach (Howlett). At the end there is clear summary of essential findings and sketched delimitation of the policy work as a stream of research.
Tomáš Renner
The Federal Republic of Germany at the turn of the millennium: Erhard's shaped society or the result of Dutschke's successful march through institutions?
The author of this paper presents two societal concepts of post-world war Federal Republic of Germany. The idea of formed society started in the intellectual circle of the federal chan- cellor Ludwig Erhard. It had its roots in the experience of economic and political downfall of the Weimar republic and the apocaliptic war that followed. The idea of the long march through institutions was formulated by leaders of the student protest movement who saw it as the only way to change the society from within after the failure of the marxist revolution in western Europe. Although both concepts lost their appeal in the course of history, they still remain an important contribution to the modernisation process of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Martina Urbanová
Malá města Středočeského kraje jako aktéři meziobecní spolupráce
Small towns of the Central Bohemian Region as actors of inter-municipal cooperation
Small towns are the natural centers of rural areas and have a role to play in rural development. Their development potential applied mainly in cooperation with other municipalities - within micro-regions and other regional bodies. This paper focuses on the Central Bohemia Region, where the consequences of the process manifested metropolisation and considerable fragmentation of the settlement structure (in comparison with other regions, the Central Bohemia Region has the highest proportion of the population living in munici- palities with up to 1999 inhabitants). Meaning metropolisation process lies in its potential impact on the ability of small towns to fulfill the role of peripheral center of rural areas. This paper will focus on ways of exploring the role of small towns in regional development. The focus of paper represents two basic questions. (1) To what extent are the same small town in the Central Region with micro-centers and other regional bodies. (2) What about the in- terrelations between representations of small towns with management the intermunicipal cooperation.
Michel Perottino
Roman Hájek
COLEMAN, Stephen: How Voters Feel
Marián Sekerák
PAJTINKA, Erik: Slovník diplomacie
Karel Höfer
DANČIŠIN, Vladimír: Metódy prerozdeľovania mandátov v pomernom volebnom systéme
