Determinants of Women’s Descriptive Representation in the 2014 Czech and Slovak Local Elections

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-410
Author(s):  
Pavel Maškarinec ◽  
Daniel Klimovský
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
The Czech Republic

The main objective of this article is to analyse the determinants of women’s descriptive representation in the 2014 local elections in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It is shown that although both countries are considered democratic and in spite of two decades of multi-dimensional transition, women are underrepresented at the local level. Especially electoral results in the municipalities which are considered sub-regional centres and where almost one-half of the population of both countries is concentrated are studied. As it is pointed out, factors like local population or political and institutional factors play an important role in women’s success in local politics.

scholarly journals Providing Public Sport Facilities in Post-Socialist Times: The Case of the Czech Republic

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-199
Author(s):  
Jakub Popelka
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Sport Participation ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Organized Sport ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Sport Facilities

AbstractThe paper aims to investigate current approaches to the management of public sport facilities by local governments. In the Czech Republic, local clubs traditionally played a key role in providing sport to the public. With decreasing participation in organized sport, a significant number of clubs have been forced to transfer their facilities to local governments and the sport position of local authorities has strengthened considerably in recent years. In consequence, there have been alterations in the management of public sport facilities. The findings of statistical analysis emphasize an increasing role of specialized organizations at the expense of in-house management or external provision (facilities hired out to sport clubs). Moreover, local population and type of facility were found to be the possible reasons for different approaches. In-house management is associated with smaller municipalities whereas most of their facilities have the character of public goods. In contrast, publicly funded organizations and municipal enterprises appear in municipalities with larger populations providing sport facilities of regional importance in the form of mixed goods. Finally, clubs, as representatives of external provision, mostly provide sport facilities primarily intended for their own purposes - club goods. In the context of recent works and contemporary trends in sport participation, the research findings indicate that different forms of management may have significant effects not only on efficiency of public budgets but also on conditions for sport at local level - especially on targeting those who would participate in sport if they had access to new opportunities or leisure programs.

Independent Candidates in the Local Elections of 2014 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Analysis of Determinants of Their Successfulness

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 853-871 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Maškarinec ◽  
Daniel Klimovský
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Demographic Variables ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Adequate Explanation ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Better Than

The goal of this article is to test various factors which can potentially explain differences in independents’ representation at the local level in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As the size of a municipality was the almost single factor, whose influence was in both countries at the same direction, together with the generally rather low levels of explained variability, we suggest that for a more adequate explanation of the independents’ successfulness, we need to look for other indicators that could far better than the usual socio-demographic variables characterize the form of political competition in the specific municipalities, particularly in those which are associated with a specific political culture or other indicators of similar type, which can be difficult to abstract from aggregate data and their use would require the implementation of specific research on the local level.

scholarly journals Post-election Survey Data: Local Democracy and the 2018 Local Elections in the Czech Republic

Data in Brief ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107039
Author(s):  
Pavel Šaradín ◽  
Tomáš Lebeda ◽  
Jakub Lysek ◽  
Michal Soukop ◽  
Daniela Ostrá ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
The Czech Republic

scholarly journals Economies of Scale on the Municipal Level: Fact or Fiction in the Czech Republic?

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenka Matějová ◽  
Juraj Nemec ◽  
Milan Křápek ◽  
Daniel Klimovský
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Elementary Education ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
Government Performance ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Territorial Structure ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Municipal Level

AbstractMany countries have carried out extensive amalgamation-related territorial reforms at the level of local self-government and created relatively large municipalities. The Czech Republic is one of the few remaining European countries with a fragmented territorial structure. There is a lot of discussion in the country about the need for amalgamation, but this discussion is mainly based on political arguments rather than on empirical evidence about the feasibility of amalgamation and its potential to improve local government performance. This paper analyses economies of scale on the local level as a factor that should be reflected in debates about the pros and cons of amalgamation in the Czech Republic. To add to the existing knowledge about the reality of economies of scale on the municipal level in the Czech Republic, we processed the municipal costs of three selected areas on a representative sample of municipalities in the South Moravian Region. The analysis showed that economies of scale can be identified for collecting local fees and for pre-school and elementary education, but not for local administration. Our results suggest that the existence of too small municipalities in the Czech Republic results in inefficiencies and should be addressed.

scholarly journals Personalizace na komunální úrovni: existuje a lze ji v českém prostředí zkoumat?

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-221
Author(s):  
Andrea Smolkova ◽  
Stanislav Balík
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Electoral Behaviour

Against the background of current research and literature, the article discusses local level-personalization in the Czech Republic as well as the ways it can be studied. Emphasising topics such as personalization of the electoral behaviour, electoral system, and political elites’ strategy, the authors present a novel research design aimed at identifying and better understanding the phenomenon of personalization on the local level. The research design develops some original identifiers such as popularity of the candidate, while also employing traditional criteria such as preferential voting or incumbency effect.

Monument to Marshal Konev as a victim of Czech contradictions on Russia

2021 ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Vadim V. Trukhachev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Local Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Army Soldiers ◽  
Political Disputes

The authorities of the Prague 6 district took down the monument to Marshal Konev, who liberated the Czech capital in May 1945. Russia could not prevent this, because the monument was not subject to an intergovernmental agreement. The laws of the Czech Republic allow municipal authorities to decide the fate of monuments standing on their territory. The actions of Czech politicians on a regional level appeared to demonstrate profound ingratitude in the eyes of many people - some condemned the politicians in the sharpest possible terms, but others supported and praised the decision. Representatives of the majority of political parties represented in the Czech Parliament, as well as the country's President Miloš Zeman, spoke on the topic. The “bronze Marshal” became a victim of Czech internal political disputes over relations with Russia. There is no state-level “war” against monuments to Red Army soldiers in the Czech Republic. However, decisions to remove them have been taken several times at local level.

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.

Opportunities for and Barriers to Cooperation between Employers and Employment Offices in the Czech Republic: Employers’ Perspective

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenka Klimplová
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Public Private Partnership ◽  
The Other ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Public Employment ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Mutual Awareness

The aim of this paper is to present and analyze opportunities for and barriers to cooperation between private employers and public employment offices in the Czech Republic, from the employers’ perspective. Based on research results, opportunities for cooperation can be seen in attitudes of employment officers towards employers, individualization and differentiation of approaches, better mutual awareness etc., but also in successive changes of some legislative and institutional factors. The barriers to cooperation, on the other hand, can be seen in hardly removable structural factors, such as the structure and characteristics of jobseekers, divergence of goals and lack of mutual interdependence. Keywords: • cooperation • public-private partnership • opportunities • barriers • employment office • employers • Czech Republic

scholarly journals Che ne pensi, elettore? Un sondaggio all’uscita dai seggi nelle elezioni comunali del 2012 in un borgo toscano

2014 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Mattia Forni
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Political Values ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Village

This article provides a deep description about local politics in Rignano sull’Arno, a small village near Florence, focusing on the features of “red” territorial political subculture that have ceased to exist, as well as those that still remain a part of voters’ behaviour. To begin with, I will draw attention to the political and electoral history of the village since 1946; going on to describe the main traits of local electors, with reference to a survey that accounted for 1220 voters, carried out during the 2012 administrative elections. I will concentrate on social and demographic characteristics, searching for a link between these qualities and the electoral results. From here I will examine the voting patterns of the local population and the motives behind such voting behaviour. I will consider the main role played by candidate’s personal characteristics in infl uencing the voters, to the detriment of party identifi cation, political values and ideology, which are becoming less and less relevant. Further topics I will illustrate in this paper are the types of sources that people gathered their information from during the election campaign and the time at which they decided how to vote. Finally, electoral instability and the changes in voter’s behaviour between the last two local elections will be analysed.

scholarly journals Social Economy and Responsibility

2012 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Abramuszkinová Pavlíková
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Social Economy ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Social Entrepreneur ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Handicapped People ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities ◽  
Physically Handicapped

Given the importance of entrepreneurial activities as an engine of economic growth and poverty alleviation, the issue of business development and entrepreneurial activities, has received increasing attention from a number of interested parties worldwide and also in the Czech Republic. The focus of this paper is on a social economy, a social responsibility and social enterprises. The development of the social economy framework will be introduced in the European context and specifically in the Czech Republic. A case study of a Czech social entrepreneur will be introduced based on qualitative research, namely the biographical narrative method.Social enterprises can support activities of various target groups, such as economic activities of mentally and physically handicapped people, which often operate in economically and socially marginalized situations, including stereotyped images. They give them a chance to become active members of society. In this way they can help to reduce the poverty on a local level. The aim of this paper is to introduce a social entrepreneurship as important part of social economy development in the Czech Republic.

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