Suchergebnisse

The article focuses on representatives of the regional (and most recently established) level of government in the Czech Republic. It describes the context behind the emergence of regional governments & how they differ from the local & national political levels. It notes the close personnel connection between local & regional political elites. Experience gained in local politics helps elites to succeed at the regional level. The presence of local politicians in regional government varies with the level of residential fragmentation & the degree of urbanization in the given region. Unlike local politics, which is consistently comprised of a significant proportion of independents, regional representatives are almost exclusively members of political parties & movements. This situation on the one hand serves to increase the politicization of local politics & on the other leads to greater competition within political parties, whose programs & national leadership regional politicians wish to influence.

The image of the social scientist as a stranger is well known. However, there are different approaches to the notion of the stranger in sociology. A comparison of Schutz's & Simmel's conceptions of the stranger enables us to distinguish two forms of fieldwork used in the project Transitional Processes. The social anthropological approach strives to avoid intrusive interventions into the research area. The so-called heuristic investigation uses intentional interventions. Both approaches bring some opportunities & threats especially in the case of cooperation with a scholar who is native to the studied locality. The local researcher can overstep his ethnocentrism thanks to the teamwork. On the other hand, collaboration with strangers may disrupt his loyalty to his ingroup.

The municipal structure of the Czech Republic experienced a wave of fragmentation after the fall of the communist regime. As a result, most Czech municipalities today have populations of only a few hundred inhabitants. This situation creates specific conditions for the democratic functioning of local representative bodies. In this paper we focus on two features of Czech local government. First, we deal with electoral competitiveness in Czech municipalities; second, we analyse councillors' accountability to voters, their readiness to stand for re-election and their electoral success in successive elections. Based on an analysis of data on individual candidates and elected councillors in four successive terms, we demonstrate that the willingness to stand for election and re-election does not decrease over time; however, the choice among different candidates is limited in the smallest municipalities. Thus, the data show a reduced willingness to stand for re-election and an extraordinarily high chance of re-election in smaller municipalities. This finding weakens the general assumption about higher accountability of elected officials in small municipalities. On a more general level, we conclude that Czech local government has some features of small political systems with infrequent occurrence of major election conflicts. Adapted from the source document.

This article is concerned with the political careers of local councillors. More specifically, the key question is about a possible professionalization of councillor careers at the local level in Europe. If the careers of local councillors tend to follow a number of standard routes, to what degree can these be perceived of as professionalized? In our effort to identify dominant courses of mobility, we distinguish between three successive stages of councillor careers: Pre-electoral experiences, in-council orientations, and future career aspirations. In the ideal model of professionalization there is a strong link between career stages. Professionalization is seen as a unidirectional process by which an occupational group gradually acquires the traits of a profession. By and large, local political careers in European countries do not adhere to the linear model of professionalization. Instead, a fits-and-start model seems more suitable, indicating that professional careers to a large extent are shaped incrementally, through learning and practical experience.