scholarly journals Increasing the Popularity of Antisystem (Non-Traditional) Parties in the Czech Republic

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-63
Author(s):  
Tetiana Fedorchak
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The People ◽  
Lower House ◽  
The Will

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.

scholarly journals Citizens local political participation in the Czech Republic: rural-urban comparison

2008 ◽  
Vol 53 (No. 1) ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
J. Cmejrek
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Public

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.

The Institutions of Deliberative Democracy

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Current Interest ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will ◽  
Over Time

A theory of democratic institutions should provide us with a coherent combination of definition and justification. It should explain how it defines democratic institutions and also how they will or should function; but it also should explain why democracy, so understood, is desirable. We are all familiar with stories about the fiscal excesses to which democracies are prone, stories about the ignorance of voters, and stories about the venality of legislators. Some of us may also be suspicious of concepts such as “consent” or “the will of the people” associated with traditional arguments for democracy. Against this background, the current interest in deliberative democracy seems promising. This conception of democracy does not rely, for example, on the idea of rational and knowledgeable voters satisfying preferences they have independent of the political process. Nor does it rely on any notion of an independent popular will. Instead, it offers a picture of the democratic process as one in which men and women engage in constructive discussion, seeking a principled resolution of their differences and developing, over time, a conception of the terms on which they will live with one another.

scholarly journals Referenda w systemie politycznym Republiki Czeskiej

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Koźbiał
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political System ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Local Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Wind Power Plants

Republika Czeska jest jednym z tych krajów europejskich, w których bezpośrednie instrumenty demokratyczne, takie jak referenda, są rzadko stosowane na szczeblu państwowym. W Republice Czeskiej w ten sposób zdecydowano jedynie o przystąpieniu kraju do Unii Europejskiej (2003). Z drugiej strony, na poziomie lokalnym czeskie doświadczenia z referendami są bogate. W latach 2006‑2021 przeprowadzono ponad 300 referendów, średnio ponad 20 rocznie. Problematyka poruszana w tych referendach obejmowała kwestie infrastruktury, lokalizacji elektrowni wiatrowych czy składowania odpadów radioaktywnych. W przyszłości szersze niż dotychczas wykorzystanie referendów w czeskim systemie politycznym zależeć będzie m.in. od wyniku wyborów parlamentarnych, które odbędąsięjesienią2021 r. Czeska Partia Piratów, która ma duże szanse na zwycięstwo w tych wyborach, opowiada się za korzystaniem z tego typu głosowania znacznie częściej niż dotychczas. Referenda in the political system of the Czech Republic The Czech Republic is one of those European countries where direct democratic instruments, such as referendums, are rarely resorted to at the state level. Only the country’s accession to the European Union (2003) was decided in this way in the Czech Republic. On the local level, on the other hand, the Czech experience with referendums is rich. Between 2006 and 2021, more than 300 referendums were held, an average of more than 20 per year. The issues dealt with in these referendums included infrastructure issues, the location of wind power plants or the storage of radioactive waste. The future of the use of referendums more widely than before in the Czech political system will depend, among other things, on the outcome of the parliamentary elections to be held in the autumn of 2021. The Czech Pirate Party, which has a significant chance of winning this election, is in favour of using this type of voting far more often than before.

scholarly journals Sur la soumission au pouvoir. Convergences et differences entre le Discours de la servitude volontaire d’Etienne de La Boétie et la pensée politique de Paul Ricœur

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-139
Author(s):  
Pierre-Olivier Monteil
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
The People ◽  
Paul Ricœur ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Way

This study undertakes a reading of Etienne de La Boétie’s Discours de la servitude volontaire, endeavoring to bring to light the way it convergences with and diverges from the political thought of Paul Ricœur, around the central concept of the will. On the basis of the twin notions of “denaturation” and of “pathology,” a course unfolds which aims at helping establish the people, in comparison with the institution of the State, through a political process revitalised by friendship. But the two thinkers differ when it comes to the resources of the will. This is reflected in the notion of freedom, conceived as absolute in La Boetie, while Ricœur emphasizes its contingency, which leads him to thematize it in terms of capabilities.

scholarly journals Elections - An Important Political Process In The Formation Of The Supreme State Representative Body

2020 ◽  
Vol 02 (12) ◽  
pp. 91-95
Author(s):  
Oybek Turgunov ◽  
◽  
Sherzodbek Khurramovich Zulfikorov ◽  
Murod Shokirjonovich Choriev ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will

The article examines the importance of elections as an important political process in the formation of the supreme state representative body, as well as the importance of parliamentary elections as an indicator of the will of the people and their preferences.

scholarly journals Volný mandát člena parlamentu v ústavním vývoji Československa a České republiky

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-101
Author(s):  
Jan Kudrna
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Public Meetings ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Working People ◽  
The Will

This article deals with the issue of the matter of the mandate of members of parliament in the constitutional history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Namely the article is dedicated to the problem, whether and when in the years 1918–2020 the mandate of the members of parliament was free or imperative. The detailed description shows, that in Czechoslovakia strongly prevailed the imperative mandate, irrespective of character of the political regime. The pre-war Czechoslovak constitution adopted in 1920 expressly declared the mandate as a free one and members of parliament should use them regardless of any instructions or commands. Nonetheless very quickly, in 1923, through the decision of the Election Court, the first deputies were deprived of their functions as a sanction for leaving their party policy. Thus, even in the democratic regime the mandate was transformed into the imperative form. After the WWII, the political circumstances in Czechoslovakia changed and the regime turned into a totalitarian form under the hegemony of the communist party. In these circumstances the deputies should serve as servants of the voters, to follow their instructions and they could be recalled, if not fulfilling the will of the (working) people. Nonetheless the recall system based on the public meetings of the voters was not very practical and it could fulfil the estimations only when the communist party has the situation fully under its control. In some critical moments other tools for recall had to be adopted, as it happened in the year 1969, when the political situation after the Prague Spring suppression needed to be consolidated and the will of the voters was different of the will of the conservative communist leaders. The last recalls appeared after the Velvet Revolution when democracy was re-established in Czechoslovakia. Thus, the free parliamentary mandate existed hardly in 8 years from 75 years of existence of Czechoslovakia. The last 30 years of its existence in the constitution of the Czech Republic and political practice is still quite an uncommon period in the Czechoslovak constitutional tradition.

The Creation of Constitutional Consensus

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah Benezra Strote
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Christian Democratic Union ◽  
The People ◽  
Western Germany ◽  
The Will

This chapter demonstrates how, over the following decade, leaders of the old judiciary and the old labor unions attempted to find resolution to the class conflict that had pitched their forces against each other during the Weimar years, ultimately laying the foundation for the constitutional consensus of a post-Nazi, Western Germany in 1948. This constitutional consensus enabled partnership between the two largest political parties in Western-occupied Germany: the rebranded Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the new Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which together received the vast majority of votes in the elections for a constitutional convention in Bonn. Despite their bitter differences on questions of economic and cultural policy, the leaders of these two parties were in near unanimous agreement that the will of the people as represented in a democratic parliament should not be sovereign, and that an unelected, elite judiciary should be able to review and strike down legislation whenever found to be unconstitutional.

Cleavages and political pluralism in the small municipality in Czech Republic

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Sylvie Kobzev Kotaskova
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Political Pluralism ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Small Municipality ◽  
The Given

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

scholarly journals The dynamics of the party system in the Czech Republic

2021 ◽  
pp. 173-187
Author(s):  
Marcin Czyżniewski
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
Party System ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Council ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Moment

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?

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