Suchergebnisse

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.

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.

The text focuses on one specific aspect of Lukashenko´s nondemocratic regime – the position and function of political parties. These variables are analysed, among others, by the application of classical terms such as competition, competitiveness, and party system. On the one hand, political parties (including anti-system ones) officially exist and, as such, can participate in elections. On the other hand, there is only a minimal chance for (opposition) political parties to win a mandate by means of participating in elections or to gain a share of real political power. The text tries to find the answers to several interrelated questions: What are the consequences of the above mentioned facts in the Belarusian context, in terms of a theory of political parties? Why does the regime tolerate the existence of political parties? Why do political parties themselves participate in this system? Seeking answers to these questions, the article focuses mainly on the period from1995 to 2008, during which four parliamentary elections took place. However previous and current developments are also taken into account.

The status of minorities is in the modern world generally considered to be one of the measures of consolidation of democracy. This text analyzes position of members of Italian and Hungarian minorities in Slovene political system and the rate of their political participation in the decision-making process. The first part of this study is based on the analysis of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and other fundamental laws that determinate the position of autochthonous minorities in Slovenia. The second part subsequently deals with the real possibilities of minorities' representatives to influence political decisions and their ability to enforce their rights and claims both on the local and state level.

This article focuses on a comparative analysis of the organization of contemporary Czech parliamentary parties. It emphasizes the structural and functional differences between the new parties—ANO (meaning "yes" in Czech) and Dawn of Direct Democracy—and older parties. The theoretical section presents the basic organizational types – in particular, the concept of the business-firm party. The following organizational aspects of parties are then compared: membership, form of funding, the role played by ground organizations, the position and composition of top party bodies, the role played by the party leader, and media resources. This analysis reveals that ANO and Dawn have a more exclusive membership than older parties and have centralized more power into the hands of the party leader, who is supported both by formal statutes and by informal structures. In the case of ANO, the central leadership dominates over lower-level ground organizations; Dawn forgoes them altogether. Its missing institutional base accelerated Dawn's implosion in 2015. ANO is characterised by a high degree of professionalism and control over key media, both of which were missing in the case of Dawn. ; This article focuses on a comparative analysis of the organization of contemporary Czech parliamentary parties. It emphasizes the structural and functional differences between the new parties—ANO (meaning "yes" in Czech) and Dawn of Direct Democracy—and older parties. The theoretical section presents the basic organizational types – in particular, the concept of the business-firm party. The following organizational aspects of parties are then compared: membership, form of funding, the role played by ground organizations, the position and composition of top party bodies, the role played by the party leader, and media resources. This analysis reveals that ANO and Dawn have a more exclusive membership than older parties and have centralized more power into the hands of the party leader, who is supported both by formal statutes and by informal ...

The legitimacy of political regimes does not lie only in the manner in which these regimes use their power. A key role is played by the way these regimes are perceived by their populations. Following this insight, the paper defends and elaborates one necessary condition of legitimacy of every political regime: the justification of power provided by the regime must "make sense"to the citizens. This "making sense"can be best understood as a correspondence between the proposed justification of political authority and the citizens' understanding of themselves. In other words, a political regime "makes sense"to its population only if it resonates with their conception of themselves and their role in the society. The paper then analyses the possible correspondence between the Rawlsian conception of liberal self-understanding, where citizens view themselves as "self-authenticating sources of valid moral claims", and the legitimacy of contemporary democratic societies. This perspective reveals the sources of deep egalitarian assumptions behind the legitimation frameworks of contemporary societies, as well as the necessary limitations of power of contemporary states. The correspondence between our self-understanding and the legitimacy of the present-day states also reveals the fundamental importance of the human rights framework in current political life.

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, ...

"Bringing space back" into comparative politics is a difficult task, perhaps inevitably accompanied by various substantive and methodological problems. This paper introduces the concepts of "territorial homogeneity" (of D. Caramani) and "party nationalization" (of M. Jones and S. Mainwaring), both of them dealing with political parties as actors and territorial space as an environment in which they operate. Our aim is to identify some of the typical issues/ matters (selection of cases, elaboration of relationships among variables) any researcher who would try to conceptualize the relationships between political parties and territorial units has to cope with. In respect of issues in question the solutions offered by Caramani and Jones&Mainwaring often seem neither intercompatible nor fully satisfactory. This may raise the question about inevitably ethnocentristic nature of the "homogeneity concepts". We further extend our methodological note, limiting -rather than delineating- the areas of possible use of the homogeneity concept for the post-communist countries, arguing that sensible comparisons would require much better control for intervening institutional variables- a task which is almost impossible to achieve with such a heterogeneous sample. ; "Bringing space back" into comparative politics is a difficult task, perhaps inevitably accompanied by various substantive and methodological problems. This paper introduces the concepts of "territorial homogeneity" (of D. Caramani) and "party nationalization" (of M. Jones and S. Mainwaring), both of them dealing with political parties as actors and territorial space as an environment in which they operate. Our aim is to identify some of the typical issues/ matters (selection of cases, elaboration of relationships among variables) any researcher who would try to conceptualize the relationships between political parties and territorial units has to cope with. In respect of issues in question the solutions offered by Caramani and Jones&Mainwaring often seem ...

The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of political instability on inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) in transition economies (CEE, Balkan and Post-Soviet countries). Regarding standard indexes of political instability, there is a shortage of data within the selected sample of countries. Therefore, we propose alternative proxies for political instability. Furthermore, we distinguish between two types of political instability being omitted in thematic literature: elite (minority or weak governments) and non-elite (violent protests, civil wars, coups). The paper provides two-step empirical analysis: correlation analysis and regression models using standard OLS. Both analyses compare the effect of selected proxies for political instability on inflow of FDI and FDI per capita. In summary, it is not possible to prove the effect of political instability on inflow of FDI in transition countries in unambiguous way. Despite it, a few statistically significant variables seem to be perspective for future research; subindex Political Stability within Governance Matters by the Word Bank and Group Grievance within Failed State Index by the Fund for Peace (non-elite); Herfindahl Index Government and a dummy for (non)presence of parliament election (elite).