Suchergebnisse

Participation of the local community in Katowice in the elections to municipal authorities and the councils of facultative units. An analysis of a phenomenon on the basis of chosen factorsThe article presents the analysis of two factors connected with the local elections to municipal authorities in Katowice and to the councils of facultative units. The chosen factors: turnout and the number of invalid votes serve as a comparative tool of the attitudes of the local electorate in Katowice. The local turnout and the number of invalid votes in Katowice are primarily compared with the same factors connected with presidential, parliamentary and European Parliament elections, then the article touches upon the issue of elections to local municipal authorities and to the councils of facultative units in Katowice.

The article presents the basic determinants of Hungarian foreign policy in reference to the region of Central and Eastern Europe over the last quarter of a century. The author discusses the country's relations with its neighbouring countries, as well as the two largest political entities in the region, namely Russia and Germany. The political analysis is supplemented with an overview of economic and commercial exchange carried out by Hungary with other countries in the region. Hungary's activities on the international scene are also presented in relation to group cooperation: the Visegrad Group, Central European Initiative, EU policy on the Eastern Partnership. Moreover, the author analyses independent steps Hungary has taken in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of its relations with the Balkan countries. The article ends with a presentation of the Hungarian position regarding the sphere of security policy as an expression of the country's focus on securing their own interests, which may cause conflict with the interests of regional organizations that have Hungary among their members.

Czech and Hungarian Right: ODS and Fidesz in the party systems. An attempt of qualitative and quantitative analysis The analysis of article touches the strength and position that characterize the dominant rightist parties in the Czech Republic (ODS) and Hungary (Fidesz). There are three parts in the narrative structure of the article. The first one is connected with qualitative side of the proces of birth, development and contemporary situation of ODS and Fidesz. The second one refers the two parties to their native systems of parties. The third one takes quantitative analysis of the two parties' influence on public life: index of party participation in governments, index of governmental responsibility of a party and index of electoral support measured during parliamentary elections (takes into account a position of a party inside a family of conservative and Christian‑democratic parties as well). The role of ODS and Fidesz in the party systems of the Czech Republic and Hungary comes from the party strategic behaviour and programs and from the surrounding environment (other parties, institutions etc.). These factors are complementary and influence high position of Fidesz and low of ODS nowadays.

The article presents Polish and Hungarian main left‑wing parties in the period of political transformation. There are a few sections in the article that develop the research problem: the genesis and development of the parties from 1989 to 2014, a comparative analysis of the two parties based on quantitative indices. One can say there are some similarities between SLD and MSzP. The parties were transformed from communist hegemon formations, then participated in free parliamentary elections with some successes, created several governments and both have recently faced considerable loss of support. SLD and MSzP belong to the parties that influenced Polish and Hungarian transformation greatly.

AbstractPublic consultation, as one of direct democracy form, is the subject of the article. This problem is presented regarding theoretical, law and practical basis. As theory, I underlined the most important direct democracy qualities and then linked this form of democracy with local government. This is how I tried to understand public consultation as one of direct democracy form. As law, I analysed Polish municipal law and then local Katowice law regarding public consultation. As praxis, public consultation was presented as a tool used by the local authorities to communicate local society and the level of local society interest in taking part in public consultation

The article presents the process of development of political parties in selected countriesof Central Europe and their relation to the category of party families. The analysis includesthe groupings, which gained the status of relevant parliamentary parties after 1989. It isdivided into three time periods: the year 1989; first and second parliamentary elections;finally, the year 2004 and the last decade. In the first period, parties were only starting toshape their structures, and their family adherence was often only conventional. The secondperiod sees a greater level of party institutionalization, as well as the increase of the leveland scope of their affiliation with basic party families. During the last decade, we canobserve a full representation of basic party families on domestic political scenes of CzechRepublic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, varying only by the level of public support

The article presents Hungarian electorate's preferences in the time of transition and democratic consolidation beginning in 1990. The preferences are confrontated with results of parliamentary elections held in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010. Author tries to show how the left and right preference division developed on the basis of socioeconomic cleavages. The evolution of Hungarian electorate preferences has moved toward bidimensional "left – right" structure since the elections in 1998, yet first symptoms appeared in 1994 when post-socialis party MSzP won the elections. Since then only this party and rightist Fidesz were able to succeed and create Hungarian governments.

Artykuł dotyczy rozwoju węgierskiej partii Fidesz w kontekście trzech dekad jej istnienia (1988–2018). Autorzy skupili się na przeprowadzeniu analizy ostatnich ośmiu lat jej działalności, ponieważ w tym okresie partia nieprzerwanie wygrywała kolejne wybory parlamentarne. Ukazano fenomen Fideszu, który z ugrupowania o proweniencji liberalnej i młodzieżowej przekształcił się w silną organizację konsolidującą środowiska prawicowe. Ponadto wyjaśniono mechanizmy oraz przybliżono efekty działań podjętych przez partię Viktora Orbána w celu utrzymania władzy na Węgrzech.

The book is an attempt to systematize the understanding of processes, which have been occurring in the past decades in four Central European states – Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. The monograph has been divided into four chapters, encompassing selected issues related to the functioning of political systems of Visegrad Group states from the onset of political, economical and social transformations, which transpired after 1989. Chapter one examines theoretical, historical, and methodological problems related to circumstances of transformation processes in the selected Central European states and their further evolution. It also indicates at common and distinctive characteristics of Central European states, taking into account political-scientific and historical perspectives. The second chapter is devoted to the issue of the functioning of government entities within governmental systems of selected states. The political analysis has been divided into periods of functioning as socialist and democratic states. The next chapter indicates the changes that occurred on political scenes of the designated states in the period from before the democratic transformation until the present day. The analysis is conducted through the prism of maturing of political parties and their influence on public affairs. The fourth chapter analyzes the issues of foreign policy of Central European states, describing the creation of the Visegrad Triangle (and later – the Visegrad Group) as a forum of political and economical cooperation of three (and later – four) states in the context of integration with NATO and European Communities (and later – European Union). This publication exhibits Central Europe in terms of political science, regime, and history. The comparative property of the book, resulting from such perspective, can constitute a source for a general European analysis, as well as a more detailed case study of each of the four states described herein.

In 2017 we observed the deterioration trends of the liberal democracy in the Czech Republic which had been present there for some time. The two highest-ranking politicians responsible for that decline are: Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and President Miloš Zeman. Their policies border on the deformation of liberal democracy, which can lead towards illiberal democracy in the future. The aim of the article is to analyze how their attitudes influence democracy in the Czech Republic. In contrast, the strong rule of checks and balances makes it impossible for the authorities to destroy liberal democracy. The methods used during the process of research are as follows: synthesis and analysis, the institutional approach. The article-specific bibliography includes Czech, English, and Polish source materials.