Cleavages and political pluralism in the small municipality in Czech Republic

Author(s):  
Sylvie Kobzev Kotaskova

This paper deals with the issue of the existence cleavages in rural communities in the Czech Republic. The paper is focused on an analysis of the party system in small municipality Kamenna and the pluralism and the political environment in the municipality of Kamenna. This paper aims to clarify the formation of cleavage in the given municipality. A partial aim is to analyse the voting behaviour in the municipality, as well as a subsequent evaluation of the political participation of the residents of the Kamenna municipality. In the analysis of voting behaviour, the paper focuses on analysing the dispersion of electoral votes and subsequent evaluation of how voters vote. Keywords: Pluralism, Municipality, Cleavages, Political Process, Municipal Elections

2008 ◽  
Vol 53 (No. 1) ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
J. Cmejrek

The Velvet Revolution in November 1989 in the former Czechoslovakia opened the way to the renewal of the democratic political system. One of the most visible aspects of the Czech political development consisted in the renewal of the essential functions of elections and political parties. On the local level, however, the political process - as well as in other post-communist countries - continued to be for a long time influenced by the remains of the former centralized system wherein the local administration used to be subjected to the central state power. Municipal elections took hold in these countries, however, the local government remained in the embryonic state and a certain absence of real political and economic decision-making mechanism on the local level continued to show. The public administration in the Czech Republic had to deal with the changes in the administrative division of the state, the split of the Czechoslovak federation as well as the fragmentation of municipalities whose number increased by 50 percent. Decision making mechanisms on the local and regional level were suffering from the incomplete territorial hierarchy of public administration and from the unclear division of power between the state administration and local administration bodies. Only at the end of the 1990s, the public administration in the Czech Republic started to get a more integrated and specific shape. Citizens participation in the political process represents one of the key issues of representative democracy. The contemporary democracy has to face the decrease in voter turnout and the low interest of citizens to assume responsibility within the political process. The spread of democratising process following the fall of the iron curtain should not overshadow the risk of internal weakness of democracy. The solution should be looked for in more responsible citizenship and citizens’ political participation. The degree of political participation is considered (together with political pluralism) to be the key element of representative democracy in general terms, as well as of democratic process on the local and regional level. The objective of this paper is to describe the specifics of citizens local political participation in the Czech Republic and to show the differences between rural and urban areas. The paper concentrates on voting and voter turnout but deals also with other forms of citizens political participation.


Author(s):  
Т. P. Fedorchak

The article examines the development of the political process in the Czech Republic following the results of the last regular elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament, which took place on October 21-22, 2017 under the proportional electoral system. The results of the elections revealed a number of new trends in the development of the parties and the party system of the Czech Republic, which at the same time have many similarities with the ideas of populists and Euro skeptics spread in the CEE region. The analysis of the specific “differentiated electoral barrier” and the Czech electoral legislation is made. The path to victory in the elections of the ANO and the ODS parties, the new in the Czech politics third party-winner – the Pirate party, members of which advocated the maximum protection of individual freedoms and the uncontrolled Internet. It is noted that the traditional and leading parties of the Czech Republic – KDU-CSL, TOP 9, KSCM, CSSD did not achieve the expected success in the Parliament elections. The regularities that emerged during the elections to the Chamber of Deputies were revealed: a steady demand of voters for new leaders, new political forces, the weakening of the positions and authority of political parties that have occupied leading positions for a long period, the change in the current political agenda. Confirmed pan-European trends: the growth of populist sentiment and a significant increase in skepticism towards the leaders of the European Union, which are manifested in many CEE countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 860-877
Author(s):  
David Jágr

The pandemic crisis occurred while illiberal populist leaders governed in Central and East­ern Europe . The Czech Republic was faced with a simultaneous crisis of political parties and the transformation of its party system . The onset of these trends was triggered by the global financial crisis during which the established parties were weakened and the way to parliaments and governments was opened for populists parties . The fight against the pandemic brought changes to the functioning of parliaments and the need for parliamentary adaptations . The Czech case is the least likely of government dominance in a pandemic . Due to the weakness of the minority cabinet and the unprecedented fragmented Chamber of Deputies, the cabinet had to opt for temporary ad hoc alliances with different parties . Over the course of the pandemic, the political actors changed their political approach from cooperation to conflict, leading to government instability and the failure to effectively con­trol the spread of the pandemic, with the Czech Republic becoming one of the worst affect­ed countries in the world .


2021 ◽  
pp. 173-187
Author(s):  
Marcin Czyżniewski

The article examines the changes that took place in the Czech party system from the moment of the political transformation of 1989/1990 to the last parliamentary elections in 2017. It is based on a survey of data on the results of the elections to the Czech National Council and the Chamber of Deputies. The interpretation of the data allows answering several research questions: is the Czech party system stable, and if so, is it possible to determine it model? Are the inevitable model changes sudden or evolutionary as a consequence of an observable trend? Is it possible to distinguish and define the stages of functioning of the Czech party system? To what extent does the party system of the Czech Republic have roots in the party system of Czechoslovakia and did the disintegration of the federal republic significantly affect its change?


Author(s):  
Tetiana Fedorchak

The article examines the course of the elections to the lower house of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, their role and place in the political process of the country. The author argues that pluralism of opinion and multiparty system in the Czech Republic practically confirm their real strength, as evidenced by the participation of many parties in parliamentary elections and the fact, that that nine of them managed to overcome the 5% barrier and to obtain a certain number of deputy mandates. The programs of parliamentary parties are analyzed, their main election slogans and the results they achieved in the elections. Much attention in the article is paid to the winner of this election – the centrist political force – movement "Action of dissatisfied citizens", whose leader was appointed Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Emphasis is placed on new trends in the political process, which were confirmed during the will of the people. Among them, the author highlights the growing popularity of anti-system (non-traditional) parties. In their election statements, these parties set out to protest the change in the political system of society. Along with this process, the crisis of traditional parties deepened, who were previously members of the governing bodies of the state, but they failed to demonstrate their compliance with voter inquiries, who sought solutions to pressing issues. This is confirmed by the results of traditional Czech parties – Communist Party of the Czech Republic and Moravia, which managed to get only 7.76% of the vote of the voters and the leader of the previous elections – the Czech Social Democratic Party, which won the support of only 7.27% of voters, having lost almost 13% of the vote in four years.


Author(s):  
Tetiana Fedorchak

The author investigates political radicalism in the Czech Republic, a rather heterogeneous current considering the structure of participants: from political parties to the extremist organizations. The peculiarity of the Czech party system is the existence, along with typical radical parties, of other non-radical parties whose representatives support xenophobic, nationalist and anti-Islamic statements. This is primarily the Civil Democratic Party, known for its critical attitude towards European integration, and the Communist party of the Czech Republic and Moravia, which opposes Czech membership in NATO and the EU. Among the Czech politicians, who are close to radical views, analysts include the well-known for its anti-Islamic position of the Czech President M. Zeman and the leader of the movement ANO, billionaire A. Babich. Voters vote for them not because their economic or social programs are particularly attractive to the electorate, but because of dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the state. Almost all right populist parties oppose European integration, interpreting it as an anti-national project run by an elite distorted by a deficit of democracy and corruption. Keywords: Czech Republic, right-wing radical political parties, European integration, nationalism.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-70
Author(s):  
Petr Kopečný

This paper concentrates on the area of special educational support provided to individuals living in homes for people with disabilities in the Czech Republic and presents partial research results illustrating the state of the provision of speech therapy to users of social services facilities falling under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. The subject of the research is an analysis of support for the development of the communication skills of pupils living in social services facilities. The partial results of the research outline the approaches employed by the managerial staff of the given facilities in implementing special educational procedures, describe forms of speech therapy provision in homes for people with disabilities, and compare the attitudes of teachers and social services staff to the development of communication with the importance attributed to it by speech therapists and demonstrated by the case studies performed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212096737
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Baldini ◽  
Edoardo Bressanelli ◽  
Emanuele Massetti

This article investigates the impact of Brexit on the British political system. By critically engaging with the conceptualisation of the Westminster model proposed by Arend Lijphart, it analyses the strains of Brexit on three dimensions developed from from Lijphart’s framework: elections and the party system, executive– legislative dynamics and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Supplementing quantitative indicators with an in-depth qualitative analysis, the article shows that the process of Brexit has ultimately reaffirmed, with some important caveats, key features of the Westminster model: the resilience of the two-party system, executive dominance over Parliament and the unitary character of the political system. Inheriting a context marked by the progressive weakening of key majoritarian features of the political system, the Brexit process has brought back some of the traditional executive power-hoarding dynamics. Yet, this prevailing trend has created strains and resistances that keep the political process open to different developments.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filip Černoch ◽  
Lukáš Lehotský ◽  
Petr Ocelík ◽  
Jan Osička

This book summarizes a three-year research project on local opposition to coal mining in the Northwestern part of the Czech Republic. The research focused on the relational dimensions of the opposition movement and the political context in which the movement operates.


Author(s):  
Klára Margarisová ◽  
Lucie Vokáčová ◽  
Kateřina Kuralová ◽  
Tomáš Hlavsa

This article focuses on the experience of Czech customers with the purchase of products labelled by the Association of Regional Brands and Bohemian Paradise Association. The aim of this paper is to evaluate selected indicators associated with purchasing certified regional products. The studied characteristics focus on the knowledge and perception of several chosen microregional brands and on the purchase of a certified product itself. The article presents the results of research conducted through a questionnaire survey, whose 1390 respondents are residents as well as visitors of eight different micro‑regions in the Czech Republic. Awareness of regional brands within the sample surveyed is around 46 %. The relationship between awareness of regional brand and respondents’ age, education and status towards the region has been identified. The perception of consumers considered, a brand is most often associated with tangible products, namely food and agricultural produce. Consumers view brands chiefly as a guarantee of production in the given region and a certain tradition. Most often, the respondents take notice of brands on the packaging of a particular certified product.


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