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This article tries to analyze the evolution of the Norwegian political and party systems which are considered to be exponents of the so-called Nordic model of political system. Besides describing attributes and trends of the political and party systems in Norway, the author deals with the election to the Stortinget held in September 2005. This electoral contest has brought new elements into the Norwegian political system, e. g. a new form of government composition and possibly new patterns of party competition (restructuring competing party-blocs, reinforcing cooperation between left-wing political parties). Adapted from the source document.

Denmark is considered to be one of the most Euroskeptical member states of the European Union (e.g. it rejected the Treaty of the European Union in 1992 & refused to adopt the euro in 2000). This article analyzes the attitudes of relevant Danish political parties towards European integration. The author of this article utilizes Nicolo Conti's typology of political parties' attitudes towards the European Union based on their spatial position on the political spectrum. Conti supposes that the Euroskeptical attitude (the so-called hard Euroskepticism) is mostly represented by the right- & left-wing parties, while a pro-European attitude is typical of the center & governing political parties. First, the author of this article categorizes the relevant Danish political parties on the basis of Conti's typology. Second, the author compares their real attitudes to European integration to the assumed ones. 2 Tables, 1 Diagram, 36 References. Adapted from the source document.

The 2010 parliamentary election resulted in the unprecedented electoral success of the Public Affairs, the first electorally successful exclusively populist political party in the history of the Czech Republic. The article examines the history, ideological profile and the internal organization of the party and concludes that the success of the party was facilitated by the growing dissatisfaction with the political situation. The VV result also indicates (together with the success of TOP 09 and the drop in electoral support for ODS) that the dynamics of the party system are changing, and that the right-wing/centre part of the political spectrum in the Czech Republic is undergoing restructuring. When assessing the organizational structure of the party, VV can be labelled as an excellent example of business-firm party. Adapted from the source document.

The paper analyses the system of public funding of political parties in the Czech Republic in the framework of the cartelization theory. After a theoretical introduction, the paper presents an overview of the laws governing political party funding in a wider socioeconomic context. The second part of the paper contains empirical analyses of party funding, focusing primarily on the role that state funding plays in the overall political party income structure. Specific attention is paid to the differences between parliamentary and non-parliamentary political parties. The overall findings suggest that the system of state financing in the Czech Republic strengthens the status quo, rather than promoting higher inclusivity of the party system. State funding is the most important source of income for most parties included in the analysis. It is also disproportionally higher for parliamentary than for non-parliamentary parties and in the period under observation state funding did not help - with only one possible exception - non-parliamentary parties enter the parliament. Adapted from the source document.

This article represents a contribution to the debate over the Europeanization of political parties, one of the hot topics in contemporary political science. It explores the extent of Europeanization in political parties represented in the lower chamber of the Parliament of the Czech Republic by means of an analysis of party election manifestoes. The extent of Europeanization in these documents is analyzed using a bi-dimensional conceptualization. The first we call the quantitative dimension, assesses the space taken by the topic of European integration in each manifesto. The second one we call the qualitative dimension. This, using the analysis of content, measures the degree to which the European integration issue is elaborated in the programs. Using this conceptualization, we analyze the election manifestoes of five Czech political parties in the period 1996-2006. [Copyright 2008 The Regents of the University of California; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

This article focuses on the classification of the cabinets in power during the era of the independent Czech Republic. The question we ask is whether we can generally identify any prevailing type of cabinet. Our conclusion is that there were mostly minimal winning coalitions based on the cooperation of ideologically distant political parties or minority cabinets. None of these versions provided government stability. Another aim of the text is to analyze the influence of party & electoral systems on governance. In this respect we tried to answer the question, what would contribute to the smoother formation of Czech governments & their increased stability? The crucial negative factor we identified in the sphere of the party system is the existence of a radical party with minimal coalition potential -- the Communist Party of Bohemia & Moravia. In our opinion, however, this fact can be changed by regular coalition cooperation with the Czech Social Democratic Party. We believe that as far as electoral system modifications are concerned, a positive factor could be represented by a reform that would introduce the mandate premium awarded to the winning coalition or party & at the same time a single electoral district. This would strengthen the position of the election winner & ensure greater homogeneity of governments. It would also eliminate the disproportion between the real electoral support of small parties & their significantly lower number of mandates won. Adapted from the source document.

The President of the Czech Republic has few opportunities to actively intervene in the legislative process and express his opinion on the current situation, except for one: the power to veto laws. It is one of the most important powers belonging to the Czech Republic's head of state, through which the president is able to influence the results of the legislative process. According to the Czech constitution, the veto must be accompanied by a written explanation, which gives the president an extraordinary opportunity to express his own view of not only the particular law being vetoed but the general political situation and direction of the country. The importance of the reasoning is greater if the state is headed by a strong figure with a clear vision of how society should function. The first Czech president, Vaclav Havel, was undoubtedly such a figure. This study will bring a qualitative analysis of Vaclav Havel's veto reasonings, and point out how he systematically based his argumentation on three principles: rule of law, political plurality, and a just (humane) society. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright the American Council of Learned Societies.]