Suchergebnisse

This paper maps and compares the main topics articulated by political parties in their manifestos published for the Slovak parliamentary elections in 2010 and 2012. First, the paper discusses the conceptual grounds of policy space dynamics. Next, it outlines the method used for the research, based upon quantitative content analysis of the parties' manifestos of the Comparative Manifestos Project Group. Relevance of individual issues is measured by their representation in manifestos. The paper also examines the change in parties' priorities for the 2012 election compared to the election of 2010. With the help of an additional methodology tool, the parties under review are then put along a left-right spectrum. Using this technique, the policy space during the period of both elections is examined. Simultaneously, party shifts along the left-right spectrum that emerged from the obtained data are presented. The final section of the article exposes the descriptive results to the theoretical assumptions about policy space dynamics presented in the beginning. Adapted from the source document.

The present article comments on the contemporary development of the Austrian party stage, deals with the governmental crisis of the Schüssels cabinet and the situation before the early elections to the National Council in November 2002. Analyzing the basic programme outputs and potential coalition strategies of the relevant Austrian parties, it considers all the possible configurations after the elections. The article also briefly analyses the consequences of various alternatives of post-electoral coalition for alteration of the Austrian party system that undergoes the long-term process of transformation. ; The present article comments on the contemporary development of the Austrian party stage, deals with the governmental crisis of the Schüssels cabinet and the situation before the early elections to the National Council in November 2002. Analyzing the basic programme outputs and potential coalition strategies of the relevant Austrian parties, it considers all the possible configurations after the elections. The article also briefly analyses the consequences of various alternatives of post-electoral coalition for alteration of the Austrian party system that undergoes the long-term process of transformation.

With reference to ideas presented in the theory of media malaise, the article aims to assess the role of negative campaigning in Czech elections and to analyse how it is perceived by voters, how it correlates with electoral preferences, and other important variables. The analysis is based on data from the Czech Election Survey 2010. The author draws from the causal relationship formulated in the above mentioned theory, according to which the effect of the news media and their emphasis on negative news and negativity contribute to growing political cynicism among citizens. Negative and conflicting media news, which are even more intense during election campaigns, activate the spiral of public cynicism and cause public trust in political actors to fall, as well as alignment and voter turnout (Cappella and Jamieson 1997). The author attempts to test the hypothesis: The more people watch the media and the more they are exposed to election campaign coverage, the greater is their political cynicism. Adapted from the source document.

Comparative studies of electoral institutions have marginalized or ignored a fundamental characteristic of electoral systems called malapportionment. This paper presents a brief introduction to the issue of malapportionment from the theoretical (and comparative) perspective suggested earlier by Samuels and Snyder and then applies it -- along with the issue of the value of a vote -- to the Municipal Council of the Capital City of Prague electoral system, especially in the context of the October 2010 elections and previous changes to the electoral system. The analysis of malapportionment and the value of a vote shows that the new electoral rules present some problems with respect to the "one vote, one value" principle but, on the other hand, that these rules conform with, and are comparable to electoral systems used worldwide. This conclusion supports the Czech Constitutional Court's decision not to annul the 2010 Municipal Council elections. Adapted from the source document.

The goal of the study is to research the coalition strategies of the Slovak political parties in the municipal elections. Two basic research questions are raised: 1. When do parties let themselves be part of a coalition, and when do they take part in the elections on their own?; and 2. What is the underlying logic of coalition formation?. On the basis of these questions we propose several hypotheses which are tested by use of statistical methods. In the cases of HZDS, KDH and ANO, the study argues that there are significant connections between the national and municipal levels, which are expressed in two dimensions: a.) conflicts on the national level expressed in terms of the coalition – opposition divide are carried down to the municipal level and become an important factor in coalition formation; b.) specific organizational patterns are crucial for the parties' behaviour on the municipal level. These patterns, meanwhile, depend on processes that occur on the central level.

A pre-election analysis is going to describe the role of self-candidates in the 2006 Czech parliamentary election. The article is focused on the basic characteristics of ballots. The various ballots are compared from different views -- the number of candidates, the demographic representation, the role of local political authorities, & the candidacy of former parliament members. Adapted from the source document.

The study focuses on spatial analysis of the general election results in Lower Silesia, Lodz and Lesser Poland voivodeships in a period between 2001 and 2015. Primary subjects of the analysis are political parties Law and Justice, Civic Platform, Polish People´s Party and Democratic Left Alliance, but particularly works also with the results of another parties (Self-Defence, League of Polish families, Modern). Standard electoral geography methodological methods, such as cartographic display of election results, correlation analysis and concentration of the election results measurement have been used on the local level and along with Polish and Czech literature review are included in the study. Main goal of the study was to find out if there are structural differences in terms of electoral support for the parties on both regional and voivodeship level. The analysis proved deeper context of the election results in the eastern regions along with a changing spatial structure of the Law and Justice support in the first decade of the 21st century and related deepening differences between voter bases of the Law and Justice and the Civic Platform- strongest parties in Poland. Findings of the analysis might be useful for upcoming research of the analysis of the electoral support in terms of regional differences.

This paper describes the support of non-parliamentary actors in the local elections in the Czech Republic. The article primarily analyzes the statistical data of the Czech Statistical Office. The term non-parliamentary actor is very general because of different structures of these actors, their divergent goals, & ideological foundations. These actors are not represented in the House of Deputies (lower chamber) of the Czech Parliament. Non-parliamentary actors do not represent a coherent group. The article shows their support in municipalities. They have stable support in many municipalities at the local electoral level. We can consider non-parliamentary actors as parties of a limited regional support: they have strong influence at the municipal level & nearly no influence in the Parliamentary elections. Non-parliamentary actors acquire more than 20% votes in regional centers such as Karlovy Vary, Liberec, Zlin, Olomouc, Hradec Kralove. 5 Tables, 4 Maps, 4 References. Adapted from the source document.

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.

The article deals with the latest presidential election in Belarus in March 2006. More specifically, the aim of the text is to focus on its legitimization function in the context of Lukashenka's non-democratic regime & its stability. This goal is based on an assumption that the election's role lies not only in its formal, but also in its factual confirmation of the regime legitimacy. An assessment of this presumption is made by means of an analysis of the formal setting of the election & its administration, by definition of the role of participating actors (governmental, formal & factual ones) & the Belarusian electorate, & by the final categorization of confirmed legitimacy. Adapted from the source document.

This article focuses on proving some of the earlier published hypotheses that criticized the possibility applying the electoral bonus (bonus seats) to elections to the Chamber of Deputies in the Czech Republic. The results of the Czech parliamentary elections held at the very end of May 2010 provide some empirical data for this analysis and help to prove that the mechanism of the electoral bonus is not useful in the Czech political system. The main reasons for this claim are the hypotheses that the electoral bonus should not reinforce the position of the government coalition and that it erodes the will of the people, whose votes in fact count towards the bonus seat(s) of another party (namely that party which receives the electoral bonus). Adapted from the source document.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the Public Affairs Party, which entered the Czech House of Deputies after the 2010 parliamentary elections. The aim of the paper is to cover organizational matters and certain peculiarities of the party. As the most appropriate tool of analysis, the concept of a business firm party is used. The author shows how the political and economic interests of the party's most influential member, Vit Barta, overlapped significantly and that Barta could be depicted as a kind of "political entrepreneur" misusing political activity for his business purposes. The analysis of the functioning of the Public Affairs Party and especially the distribution of power inside the party shows, in comparison to classical examples of business firm parties, that Public Affairs embodies a new way of intersecting politics and business practices: the already existing party was taken over (in a hostile way, to use the language of business) by a business company. Adapted from the source document.

The article identifies the most important controversies related to public opinion polls on electoral preferences, explains their substance, & discusses their impact on the possibility to use information obtained in the surveys. The article further focuses on the importance of surveys for representative democracy, the impact of the publication of opinion polls' results on public opinion, the possibilities of manipulating surveys, the risks related to the growth of research production (high non-response rate & the growth of survey costs, non-transparency of the market, incorrect application of advanced data analyses), the limits to election forecasting, & issues related to the relationship between research & journalism. Opinion polls contribute to shaping the environment for political competition. The nature of their impact is determined by their quality. Serious risks are associated with the possibility for intentional manipulation, poor quality of the survey process, & misinterpretation of results. Knowledge on research, publication of contextual information together with the survey data, & free competition in the market can help reduce the risks. The possibilities for quantification in social research do not remove the obligation to ensure sound theoretical grounding & qualified judgment, which are the prerequisites for the credibility of all conclusions drawn from the data. Tables, Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

The paper concentrates on attitudes to the enlargement and the future of EU held by relevant political parties in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia in 2002. With respect to the Czech Republic, three basic approaches to the issue of EU enlargement are identified, thus classifying the Czech political parties as "consistently" pro-European, pro-European "with reservations" and anti-European. It will be argued that in Slovakia the relevant political parties acted as "consistently" pro-European with the exception of the anti-European Slovak National Party (SNS) and the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). The dividing line was however rather between the parties whose representatives could be viewed by international partners as an obstacle to Slovakia's admission to EU and the parties that were "acceptable" for foreign countries, which played an important role in rallying voters to opt for "acceptable" political subjects. ; The paper concentrates on attitudes to the enlargement and the future of EU held by relevant political parties in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia in 2002. With respect to the Czech Republic, three basic approaches to the issue of EU enlargement are identified, thus classifying the Czech political parties as "consistently" pro-European, pro-European "with reservations" and anti-European. It will be argued that in Slovakia the relevant political parties acted as "consistently" pro-European with the exception of the anti-European Slovak National Party (SNS) and the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). The dividing line was however rather between the parties whose representatives could be viewed by international partners as an obstacle to Slovakia's admission to EU and the parties that were "acceptable" for foreign countries, which played an important role in rallying voters to opt for "acceptable" political subjects.