Miloš Brunclík, Michal Kubát
The Czech Parliamentary Regime After 1989: Origins, Developments and Challenges
The article discusses the major trajectories of the developments of the Czech democratic polity after 1989. It also discusses institutional traditions of the Czech parliamentary regimes dating back to the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic in the inter-war period. The article also analyses the major problems which the Czech parliamentary regime now faces. It is argued that the direct election of the president introduced in 2012–2013 was a serious blunder made by Czech political elites. Instead, the authors of the article argue, the desirable reform efforts should focus on rationalizing the regime in terms of strengthening of the prime ministers within the cabinet and the cabinet itself within the parliamentary system. The reform of the Czech democratic polity should also include putting in pace an electoral system that would facilitate making stable and ideologically coherent government majorities.
Andrew Roberts
What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know about Mass-Elite Linkages in the Czech Republic?
This paper reviews the literature on democratic quality in the Czech Republic where quality is conceptualized as the strength of links between citizens and governments. The review reveals both positive and negative signs. Some linkages – particularly electoral accountability – work reasonably well, while others – especially mandate responsiveness – do not. In some areas, like policy responsiveness, our knowledge is relatively meagre. Surprisingly, time trends are also diverse, with improvement in some areas but decline in others. Given that much of our knowledge of linkages is fragmentary, the paper thus suggests a number of areas where scholars should conduct additional research.
Lukáš Linek
Legitimacy, Political Disaffection and Discontent with (Democratic) Politics in the Czech Republic
The goal of this article is to analyse changes in public attitudes towards the political regime, political institutions, political actors and politics in general. For that purpose, four categories of attitudes are differentiated: democratic legitimacy, institutional disaffection, individual disaffection, and political discontent. The study aims at clarifying both this dimensionality of political attitudes and the development of those attitudes in each dimension since the early 1990s. During the time period examined, political discontent underwent considerable growth and the legitimacy of the democratic regime declined. There have been slightly rising levels of institutional disaffection and stable levels of individual disaffection. There is a relatively strong and stable relationship between political discontent and legitimacy at both the aggregate and individual levels. This link suggests that the legitimacy of political regimes in post-communist countries is influenced by their political and economic performance.
Tomáš Lebeda
The average cabinet durability in the Czech Republic stretches to about 21 months. The poor stability and efficiency of these governments has been traditionally attributed to the proportion-based electoral system. This was the single biggest source of argumentation in favour of an electoral reform. Three electoral reforms have been written into law since 1993. They are the focus of this article. One of the reform bids was defeated in parliament (2009); the core parts of another were cancelled by the Constitutional Court, although the reform itself had been previously passed (2000); and the third reform was embraced and led to a change of election rules (2002) and is still applicable today. The main objective of this article is to map the development of electoral reform policy in the Czech Republic. The text will present the details of a planned electoral reform, including the motivation they were based upon. We shall also examine if, and to what extent, an election reform is truly a lasting solution for chronically weak Czech governments. Many political scientists and political leaders still say that election reform is necessary. However, the roots of government crises show that disputes between partners frequently are not the reason. More often, internal tensions in the parties alone are to blame. Parties are not internally cohesive and are weaker for that. Therefore, it would be wrong to assume that a change of electoral system can pre-empt any type of government crisis.
Stanislav Balík, Vít Hloušek
The development and transformation of the Czech party system after 1989
This article aims to reflect on the multiple dimensions of the Czech party system, examine it for breaking points and, at the intersection of these points, periodize the developments in the years 1989–2014. Attention is paid to four different party system variables – party format, party type, extent of bipolarity, and formation of coalitions and coalition relations.
Vlastimil Havlík, Petr Voda
The Rise of New Political Parties and Re-Alignment of Party Politics in the Czech Republic
The party system of the Czech Republic has traditionally been considered as a case of exceptional stability in the region of East-Central Europe. It was also almost a perfect example of unidimensional competition. This persistence and stability was undermined by the results of the 2010 and especially 2013 election, which brought the unprecedented rise of new anti- establishment political parties. Using aggregate data, the article analyses the geographical patterns and socio-demographic background of electoral support of the new political parties in the Czech Republic. The main outcome of the article is that the explanatory power of the left-right dimension has been significantly weakened. Consequently, the rise of the new parties should not be seen as a “substitution” but rather as a “transformation” of Czech party politics.
Jan Wintr, Marek Antoš, Jan Kysela
Direct election of the president and its constitutional and political consequences
The introduction of direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic was motivated mainly by the bad experience associated with the last indirect election in 2008 and efforts to respond to the long-standing desire of the Czech public for election of the president by popular vote. The intention of the constitution-maker was not a transition to a semi-presidential system, but rather to maintain the existing parliamentary form of government. The key factor for the constitutional position of the president remains the provisions of the Constitution stating that the president is not accountable for the discharge of his office and that the government is accountable for the majority of the head of state’s decisions. Many specific restrictions of the presidency follow from constitutional conventions created over the course of the last 20 years of the independent existence of the Czech Republic and partially relate to rules existing in other parliamentary systems. President Miloš Zeman, vested with stronger legitimacy as a result of direct election, in some cases attempted to change these constitutional conventions and to interpret his powers in an expansive manner.
Jan P. Kučera
(Ne)politická filosofie Friedricha Nietzsche
The (Un)Political Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Interpretation disputes about Nietzsche‘s philosophy is still weakening. Nietzsche‘s texts are full of poetic and extremely rich imagination and subtle psychological insight, full of expressivity, and exaggeration is ridiculous to overstatement, wonderful consistency and also frequent and quite obvious contradictions. The problem sui generis are Nietzsche‘s political views, or the area of his thinking, which could be, although only with certain reservations, call political.
Miroslav Nemčok, Bronislav Jaroš, Andrea Smolková
Za oponou volebních kalkulaček: Přehled jejich mechanických atributů a možností pro jejich nastavení
Behind the scenes of voting advice applications: an overview of their mechanical attributes and options for setting them up
Voting advice applications (VAAs) are extremely fast growing phenomenon, which has become an inherent part of political campaigning and politics. The discussion about the variability of their internal mechanical setup and its relevance for determining the quality of generated voting advices is almost completely absent. This paper fills the blank space and summarizes and systematizes current knowledge about the consequences of the different setups of particular mechanical attributes of VAAs. The article analyzes the position of the authors of VAAs during the creation of the application and eight areas in which they have to choose one of the options that is crucially determining the resulting quality of their applications: (1) amount of the statements and their proper formulation/wording, (2) the means for selection of included issues and statements, (3) selection of the included political subjects, (4) means for party positioning in political space, (5) the calculation method used for generating voting advices, (6) the answer pattern offered to users, (7) possibility of assig- ning saliency for particular policy areas, and (8) the ways of presenting the results to users. All the options within the above mentioned areas are analyzed with the aim to their possible consequences for the quality of generated voting advices.
Lukáš Novotný
Úspěchy Alternative für Deutschland ve třech zemských volbách v Německu
Alternative für Deutschland's successes in Germany's three state elections
The aim of the present study is to examine the reasons for the success of the Alternative für Deutsch- land (AfD) in the three state elections held in Germany in the second half of last year. In these elections, the Eurosceptic party was successful, winning at least 10 per cent of the vote each time. This is the first time that an explicitly Eurosceptic political entity has entered German politics even more strongly than before. The article will set out the party's achievements in the various state elections and will also present the issues that have helped the party to appeal to the electorate. Theoretically, it starts from the premise that the AfD is a niche party (Bonnie Meguid's concept). It will show that while in German elections (federal or European elections), Euroscepticism is the central theme, in state parliamentary elections this theme is more likely to be immigration and domestic politics.
Radek Gábler
Analýza volebních preferencí mexického obyvatelstva od roku 2000 do současnosti
Analysis of the electoral preferences of the Mexican population from 2000 to the present
PRI, one party regime in Mexico, ended in 2000. It had been maintaining almost 70 years. The government and the presidential post had been holding for two decades of the presidential period by party PAN. In the election in 2012 the power of PRI returned. The aim of this paper is to analyze the electoral preference of Mexican society during the years 2000- 2012. This research attempts to capture the reasons why Mexicans changed their own opinions. This work is focused on the elections in 2000, 2003, 2009 and 2012, mostly discussing the economic and security situation, the success of the previous government, and the self-change of PRI.
Stela Csachová
Konsolidácia mestských častí v meste Košice – teoretické východiská a postoje verejných aktérov
Consolidation of city districts in Košice – theoretical foundations and positions of public actors
Many European cities have undergone the inner administrative structure changes in or- der to create a functional and cost-effective administrative system. Many times, there is a political-geographical disjunction of functional regions and politically constrained local governments. This paper introduces the question of administrative reorganisation of Košice – the second largest city in Slovakia. The reason to analyse it stems from the unevenness of its population size and number of local (city and city wards) councillors what makes an impression of economic ineffectiveness of „a bloated city“. The city is administratively or- ganised at two tiers – the upper tier is a city-wide self-government and the lower tier is local self-government in city wards. It has a population of (234 thousand inhabitants (in 2015), 22 city wards, and currently 244 local councillors. Paper gives the reader a consistent set of information on administrative organisation of a city, structure and characteristics of city wards and division of competencies. There have obviously been political disputes and pro- posals for cost-saving measures in the last years. The paper presents the political maps of generalised opinions of city-ward mayors to the question of administrative reduction. It can clearly be seen from them that the mayors of inner city wards and panel housing estates claim for the integration whereas the mayors of historically autonomous municipalities call rather for the repeated autonomy. The author uses the traditional methods of qualitative research (historical method, analysis and synthesis) which are accompanied by tables and maps illustrating the spatial aspects of the presented topic.
