Suchergebnisse

The number of existing so called Eurofederalists groups and organizations advocating or, at least, having the Eurofederalist idea in their name, leads to a reflection about origins and sense of the existence of these groupings. It is a question if structures nominally advocating European federalism really assert in reality this idea. If the answer is yes, then it is interesting to examine which tools they use for that assertion. The article describes the way of arrangement of some of the Eurofederalist groups with focus on interest promotion description from the policy analysis methodology point of view. ; The number of existing so called Eurofederalists groups and organizations advocating or, at least, having the Eurofederalist idea in their name, leads to a reflection about origins and sense of the existence of these groupings. It is a question if structures nominally advocating European federalism really assert in reality this idea. If the answer is yes, then it is interesting to examine which tools they use for that assertion. The article describes the way of arrangement of some of the Eurofederalist groups with focus on interest promotion description from the policy analysis methodology point of view.

This article concerns the position of Magyar minority political parties in the Slovak party system. An analysis of the Magyar minority position in the Slovak society in terms of Slovak-Magyar relations development is included. The Magyars are the largest ethnic minority in several Central European countries. Almost 2.5 million Magyars live in the countries adjacent to Hungary. Their highest population share, at nearly 10 %, is in Slovakia. Unlike in adjacent countries, the Magyar minority in Slovakia has far more options for political self-fulfilment. Thanks to the Magyar share in the Slovak population, the Magyar parties regularly take one-tenth of the seats in the Slovak parliament. To characterize the role of the Magyar parties in the current Slovak party system, it is necessary to understand their behaviour in interwar Czechoslovakia. The Hungarian party sub-system is fundamentally influenced by election legislation. This forces minority parties to cooperate in coalition and integrate. Coalition or even consolidation of like-oriented minority and majority parties is out of the question in Slovakia. An electoral coalition between the Slovak and Magyar parties took place just once, in 1990. Since 1998, all relevant Magyar political parties have been integrated into the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK). The electoral gains of the party have been increasing to date. Owing to its firm electoral base, the party has profited, one of the few to do so, from decreasing participation in elections. Although three former parties representing three different political streams have been integrated into the SMK, it has always acted as a single unit. The party has a solid position in the Slovak party system and it seems apparent that it will remain the sole political representative of Slovak Magyars in the future.

Příspěvek se zabývá problematikou vývoje finančního systému zemí Evropské unie (EU) se zvláštním zaměřením na řešení stávající krize. V první řadě posuzuje smysluplnost a dosavadní postup v naplňování projektu "Eurozóny", včetně procesu postupného zavádění jednotné evropské měny. V souvislosti s tím je provedena analýza dosavadního vývoje v Evropské unii se zvláštním zaměřením na specifikaci soudobých ekonomických problémů, jež se v současnosti řeší prosazováním tzv. "záchranných" opatření. Jelikož se jedná o nestandardní politická rozhodnutí s mimořádně významnými ekonomickými a společenskými dopady, je jejich obsah analyzován v systémových souvislostech, s cílem zhodnotit jejich přínosnost, resp. rizikovost nejen s ohledem na budoucí hospodářský vývoj Evropské unie, ale též z hlediska prospěšnosti s ohledem na evropské obyvatelstvo a lidskou společnost. ; This paper deals with the development of the financial system in the European Union (EU), with a special focus on solving the current crisis. First, assess the current and meaningful progress in the implementation of the "Eurozone", including the process of the gradual introduction of the single European currency. In this context, an analysis of current developments in the European Union with a special focus on the specification of contemporary economic problems that are currently being addressed by promoting the so-called. "Emergency" measures. Since it is an unusual political decisions extremely important economic and social impacts, the content is analyzed in system contexts, to assess their usefulness, respectively. risk not only with respect to future economic development of the European Union, but also in terms of usefulness with regard to the European population and human society.

The article discusses the outcomes of elections to the European Parliament in Austria in June 2004. Attitudes of relevant Austrian parties towards the European integration project are briefly discussed and placed on the theoretical scale that ranges from "Hard Euroscepticism" and "Identity Europeanism". The presented outcomes of the elections are put into the general context of the Austrian party system and voters' preferences since the middle 1980s. Special attention is given to the phenomenon of Hans-Peter Martin's populist list that won almost 14 % of the vote. Also, relatively low voter turnout is discussed. The Austrian example is very suitable for theorizing European elections as elections of less voters´ attention that is conceptualized at the end of the article.

A common initiative of the European Parliament and the European Commission resulted in the unification of the rules governing lobbyists at EU level in June 2011. The aim of this paper is to fill the gap in the literature as regards evaluation of the new system of the EU Transparency Register using the CPI methodology and to generate a numerical value for the scheme for further comparative purposes. Detailed analysis of relevant documents indicates that the current EU scheme's index is 26, which mirrors its supposed low level of stringency. Thorough comparison with past regulatory schemes of the Parliament and Commission reveals that, surprisingly, it is the European Parliament which has made greater steps in lobby regulation, especially towards enhancing transparency in lobbying. Although the new scheme represents a compromise between both institutional approaches, regarding its individual elements, there is a clear dominance of the Commission's approach, which can be regarded as the true leader of reform. ; A common initiative of the European Parliament and the European Commission resulted in the unification of the rules governing lobbyists at EU level in June 2011. The aim of this paper is to fill the gap in the literature as regards evaluation of the new system of the EU Transparency Register using the CPI methodology and to generate a numerical value for the scheme for further comparative purposes. Detailed analysis of relevant documents indicates that the current EU scheme's index is 26, which mirrors its supposed low level of stringency. Thorough comparison with past regulatory schemes of the Parliament and Commission reveals that, surprisingly, it is the European Parliament which has made greater steps in lobby regulation, especially towards enhancing transparency in lobbying. Although the new scheme represents a compromise between both institutional approaches, regarding its individual elements, there is a clear dominance of the Commission's approach, which can be regarded as the true leader of reform.

The article examines the positions of the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak social democratic political parties on the introduction of the permanent European Stability Mechanism as a means of addressing the economic and debt crisis in the EU. Using the categories of frames used by political parties in relation to the EU (utilitarian and cultural) introduced by Helbling et al., the political parties' representatives' speeches and written statements are analyzed. The analysis showed that all three of the parties use similar arguments and they tend to frame their opinions in both utilitarian and cultural terms with the category of "political efficiency" being the most frequent. While the most extensive debate about the issue was in Slovakia as the only Eurozone member of all three given countries, the Hungarian MSzP was able to conceive the topic in a broader context. The similarity of the positions of all three examined parties may indicate an ability of national political parties to constitute one of the key pillars in developing a supranational political system in the EU. ; The article examines the positions of the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak social democratic political parties on the introduction of the permanent European Stability Mechanism as a means of addressing the economic and debt crisis in the EU. Using the categories of frames used by political parties in relation to the EU (utilitarian and cultural) introduced by Helbling et al., the political parties' representatives' speeches and written statements are analyzed. The analysis showed that all three of the parties use similar arguments and they tend to frame their opinions in both utilitarian and cultural terms with the category of "political efficiency" being the most frequent. While the most extensive debate about the issue was in Slovakia as the only Eurozone member of all three given countries, the Hungarian MSzP was able to conceive the topic in a broader context. The similarity of the positions of all three examined parties may indicate an ability of ...

The paper analyses the Europeanisation of election manifestos of major relevant political parties in the Slovak Republic between 1994 and 2010. The changes are examined by means of the two-dimensional concept distinguishing the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of Europeanization; and Europeanisation in manifestos is interpreted as a result of European integration. The authors conclude that the process of the Europeanisation of political parties began a little later in Slovakia in comparison to some of the countries which became democratized slightly earlier (e.g. the Czech Republic). A different pace of democratization, experience with Mečiar's hybrid regime, and the multi-dimensional party system seem to be the main reasons for the "backwardness" of Slovak political parties' manifestoes.

In connection to the process of the public administration reforms which take place in most of the European countries and also in connection to the "European administrative space", the issues of studying and mutually comparing administrative systems of various European countries, especially EU member countries, become more and more topical. They focus not only on purposeful and effective mutual use of experience in administrative systems improvements, but also on improving orientation in the already mentioned "European administrative space". There is nodue attention devoted so far to the systematic study of administrative systems of (other) European countries. Most of the publications which focus on this issue (mostly study books, study materials, or occassional articles) describe it only on a "descriptive" (mostly simplified) level. The cause of this lies in (apart from time and financial demands) significant complexity of the given issue, in terminological complications and in difficulties of getting adequate (essentially necessary) factography and in practically non-existing adequate methodology. Legal comparative jurisprudence and comparative studies of political systems might inspire onewhen developing the methodology. Even under the current situation, it would be efficient to pay more attention to the comparative studies of the structure of administrative systems, or to some selected areas of the public administration, for example to personnel systems in the public administration, financing public administration or administration of the public property. A thorough "stock -taking" of all the materials which have ever been published about this matter (even in different contexts) in our country orabroad might serve as a basis of these fragmented studies.

Parties are essential components of a political system, since they provide access to the decision-making process for the citizens. In democratic society they have to execute some basic functions (e.g. interest aggregation, articulation and representation). For this they need material and financial resources. In the recent year funding of the parties must deal with growing expensiveness on the one hand, and on the other with bribery and corruption (which can seriously damage citizens' confidence in the democratic system). Even the most democratic countries have from time to time problem with this unacceptable social phenomena. And it is more important to avoid it in transition countries and in so-called "new democracies" – as central and east European countries, where the democracy is not stabile enough. In this article we focus on the case of Slovakia. We try to outline party finances system and analyse financial resources structure. There are two main models of parties financing, one based on private finances and second based on public resources. Apart from serious defects in laws (still present in Slovak legislation), the main problem of parties financing in Slovakia is growing rate of public party subvention (what can negatively affect parties' independence on the state) and reducing number of party subjects, which participate on it.

Since the beginning of the second Chechen war, Russia has experienced several shifts in domestic policy. From the very start of his presidency, Vladimir Putin pursued a policy of consolidating power while facing both the external and internal enemy represented by Chechen rebels. As a side effect, this has brought about an outburst of xenophobia and racism that has turned against all Caucasians. The antiterrorist campaign has had broad consequences, even outside the security field. The campaign, which was based on economic arguments, began with attacks on the media tycoons Vladimir Gusinskii and Boris Beresovskii, and was later widened to other selected oligarchs. Another set of changes brought about reforms to almost every aspect of state organization, including everything from the parliamentary electoral system to the local representative elections. Although it had been planned for a long time, the core of the reforms was enacted after the tragedy in Beslan in September 2004.

The article analyses the evolution of the Slovak political party "Smer" (Direction) and its position in the party system of Slovak Republic. The article focuses on the shift of the party program from the "Centrist Populism" towards "Social Democracy." According to the first program documents the Party of "Smer" (Direction) was designed as pragmatic, non-ideological party. In the persistent conflict between authoritarianism vs. democracy "Smer" identified itself as the pro-democratic and pro-market force. Party policy before 2002 contained only few social democratic components; it was closer to the conservative or right-wing populist parties. After the parliamentary election 2002 and the failure of non-communist left "Smer" decided to become a member of the Socialist International (SI) and Party of European Socialists (PES). The process of the institutional approach to the international Social Democratic Party structures was accompanied by the substantial changes in the social and economic program of the party. The process was completed on the institutional level in May 2005, when Smer joined both SI and PES, and on the level of political program on the Party Congress in December 2005. In the process of so called "socialdemocratisation" of "Smer" the international factor played crucial role, especially the need to have an international partner in the European Parliament. "Smer" met the standards of the Social Democratic identity only in the social and economic affairs. The other five dimensions - environmental policy, participative democracy, cultural and human-rights dimension, supra-national dimension and the dimension of equality and freedom "Smer" met only partially or not at all, so these process remains unfinished. According to some political declarations "Smer" remains the populist party and the uncompromising critic of the right-wing government of Mikuláš Dzurinda, on the other side the official documents of the party anticipate only the moderate corrections of the economical and social reforms, ...

Socialism was born out of the belief in the bright future of mankind. Thus, the utopian vision of classless society occupied the minds of the early communist avant-garde. Yet, such hopes did not survive the initial revolutionary enthusiasm. As the social organization of the 'real socialism' turned out to be a rigid bureaucratic system, the visions of the 'bright future' were replaced by the 'picture of the golden age', namely the image of the revolution itself. Accordingly, rituals commemorating the 'founding fathers of socialism' substituted the ritualized commitments to building the 'ideal society of equals'. The ideological content of socialism vanished. Past memories occupied the present. With the breakdown of communism the present could for a moment release itself from the iron grip of the past. The "envelope of the unhistorical" seemed to be open for the deeds of new reformers. Yet, the present could not escape too far. It was almost immediately caught again either by the past or by the future. In the first case, post-communist nationalisms (Brubaker 1996) monopolized the political field; in the second case, the "scientists of the not yet" (Stark and Bruszt 1998: 1-11) disseminated their neoliberal visions of free-market economy. As a result, the present was defined either in terms of national myths going far back to history or by visions to be realized by imitation of the Western model of capitalism. The focus of this paper is the different paths taken by different countries in the region after the collapse of socialism. The paper distinguishes between the 'nationalizing alternative' as one basic direction, and the 'catching up option' as another one. The paper further argues that this dichotomy itself forms around two clusters of several potential stances which could have been taken in the process of transformations. The goal of the paper is to propose a general framework, with the help of which the interactions 'behind' the political decisions taken by political elites in the post-socialist countries ...