Suchergebnisse

The recent comprehensive research on youth attitudes to democratic governance, political leaders and civic participation has explored several patterns of electoral behaviour of young voters. The major domains of such include support for alternative political platforms, dissatisfaction with the democratic performance, rise of xenophobia and propensity to far-right politics and radical problem solutions. These trends have been, to some extent, visible during the electoral campaign and confirmed in the results, let alone the rise of extremist measures among young voters and their political support. The aim of the research paper is to confront the research data in Slovakia from two contrasting field sites with the electoral paradigms as interpreted from the electoral results and support for particular political parties and movements. We argue using the combined methodological approaches from quantitative surveys and in-depth individual interviews with young people from MYPLACE project and other research data to compare the research implications with the electoral results and related major themes.

The aim of this paper is to explore the modern trends of political leadership in relation to young generation in Slovakia as interpreted by the results from international collaborative research project. The author tries to address the issues of trust, attitudes and challenges within democratic governance and political leadership in contemporary political and social agenda in the specific case study of Slovakia. First, we use the theoretical approaches to understand political leadership in context and then we apply the qualitative analysis of individual interviews with respondents in two field sites in Slovakia to link the issues of democratic governance and political leadership. Finally, using the survey data and quantitative statistical analysis we measure the political trust and attitudes of young people toward politicians and social organizations. This paper confirms the relatively large negative positions of young people to their political interest, trust, attitudes to political elites and practical democratic performance.

ABSTRACT
This article discusses the continuous substitution of traditional mutual conflicts and historical grievances between Slovakia and Hungary that has created fertile ground for nationalists on both sides. Currently, we witness the rise of anti-Roma positions and negativism oriented toward this particular group of the population in Slovakia and Hungary. For this reason, we track the sources of new nationalism associated with the hatred of the Roma population. This can be demonstrated by a variety of political incentives and measuring extremism as a tool of acquiring and maintaining political power. The aim of the article is to investigate the extent and reasons of the new social and political dimensions of Slovak and Hungarian nationalism. We assume that the traditional form of bilateral nationalism based on historical, political and social tensions between Slovakia and Hungary is being transformed by the ethnic nationalism against the Roma minority in Central Europe. To support our argumentation, we use the qualitative data from in-depth interviews with young respondents from two contrasting research field sites in Slovakia from EC research project MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement).

Abstract

Gender ideology has quickly developed as a response to fostering human rights, especially in the case of gender equality. Gender policy thus became a political and ideological instrument that subjects human rights to another contest – a new form of crusade pursued by anti-gender movements which advocate traditional and conservative ideologies against gender equality and gender theories. In this paper, we seek to track and map the recent development of anti-gender movements and their mobilisation. We apply critical discourse analysis to several doctrines of antigenderism in order to understand the global popularity and mass appeal of these movements.

The law-making process is one of the extremely important forms of local self-government activities. By means of law-making, local self-government regulates the conditions of life and behaviour of the local community living in a particular area of local self-government. Through law-making, therefore, local self-government can significantly interfere with an individual's life. The paper is focused on the analysis of the current legal regulation of the local self-government law-making process in the Slovak Republic and the identification of its weak points. The authors examine the results of control activities of authorities performing the review of constitutionality and legality of local law-making. On this basis, we submit a number of suggestions and incentives for changing the current legal regulation of law-making competence of local self-government.

The system of decentralized public administration creates a vital environment for better interaction between the state, its sub units and citizens. Despite all benefits, the growing nature of bureaucratic procedures and power distribution seem to attract more attention, mainly from the reasons of unprecedented mechanisms of control. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the potential of Public Prosecution Service in Slovakia to control the decentralized public administration being provided with a statutory power to monitor the field of public administration as a whole. The paper is conceived as a case study of methods of prosecutorial supervision and their practical application in Slovakia. ; Šiame straipsnyje nagrinėjamos valstybės prokuratūros galimybės kontroliuojant išplėstą ir decentralizuotą viešąjį administravimą, pasitelkiant Slovakijos pavyzdį. Autoriai analizuoja viešojo administravimo decetralizavimo koncepciją ir būtinybę valdyti bei vertinti savivaldos modelį Slovakijoje. Autoriai taip pat siekia atsakyti į klausimą ar viešosios prokuratūros tarnybai turėtų būti suteikta įstatymų numatyta teisė koordinuoti visą viešojo administravimo sritį kaip visumą ir ar ši kompetencija neturėtų būti patikėta kitoms valdžios institucijoms. Buvo prieita prie išvados, kad esant platesniam kontrolės mechanizmų spektrui, padidėja decentralizuotos administravimo sistemos vaidmuo ir tikslas siekiant užtikrinti didesnį skaidrumą, veiksmingumą, demokratinį valdymą ir glaudesnį valstybės tarnautojų santykį su piliečiais.

This paper studies the different positions and the polarization among Slovak political elites due to the European migration crisis and the Union´s migration policy. The inability of collective action at the supranational level is first grounded at the national level. From this basis, the authors differentiate the various standpoints of the selected political leaders and parties towards the current migration wave. Based on this cleavage, we seek to demonstrate the patterns of modern day political party leadership in Slovakia and, secondly, to compare the political response and agendas across the Slovak party system.

Abstract
Language practice and its official recognition are considered crucial markers of national identities in the region of Central/Eastern Europe. The issue of language rights used to be a vital aspect of the agenda in national movements in the former Austrian (Austrian- Hungarian) Monarchy, together with the process of territorializing and constructing of national identities in the region since the nineteenth century. The protection, persistence, preservation and further development of the national language was introduced as part of the moral obligations and commitments of the members of a community to the constructed national community.
This article examines two discrete yet related research questions that address language. The first one is based on dependence theories and analyzes to what extent the contemporary language policy of the Slovak government and political elites as well as its institutional and legal framework are affected by the decisions adopted in the past which created certain institutional as well as mental frameworks of shaping of the language policy. The second research question is related to the place of the "language issue" in contemporary Slovak domestic political discourse and its role in bilateral relations between Slovak Republic and Hungary with regard to the EU accession in 2004.

The aim of this study is to focus on fiscal decentralization and regional financial autonomy in Slovakia. The public administration reform and fiscal decentralization process in Slovakia ought to increase the autonomy of the multi-level governance and to decrease its dependency on state budgeting and other transfers. We argue that regional territorial governance is greatly dependent on financial incentives from central state financing, which limits the expected effect of decentralization and regional fiscal autonomy. By collecting quantitative data on state transfers and revenues to regional governments we demonstrate the limits of spatial, financial and decision-making autonomy within particular regions. The selected time frame 2005-2016 reflects all stages, reforms and changes in the fiscal decentralization of the second level governance in Slovakia.