Suchergebnisse

The paper deals with the organizational model of political parties created by Italian political scientist Angelo Panebianco. For presentation of this, outside Italian academic discourse, an 'unknown' model is necessary to briefly describe the whole organizational theory and to introduce the review of this model. After that we examine the applicability of Panebianco's scheme on the structural transformation of communist political parties at the end of 1980s. This suitability will be measured on the case example of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The PCI was historically the strongest and most influential communist party outside the Soviet bloc and that is why it is convenient to apply the organizational model to the organizational changes of the PCI during its transformation. We also define five main criteria of these changes and their compatibility with the Panebianco's model. Thus the main aim of this paper is to prove the suitability of the organizational model not only to the structural transformation of the Italian communists but using this case example also to the universal transformation of the communist parties in the western world. Adapted from the source document.

The paper analyzes the far right People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) in 2006, 2010 and 2012 Slovak parliamentary elections. The main questions that the paper seeks to answer are 1) whether and how has the party changed its main themes during the periods before elections, 2) what the party's position toward the Roma minority has been, and 3) how the thematic adaptation has affected electoral results of the party. The paper analyzes the changing position of the party toward the Roma minority in the context of three electoral periods and it links the party's electoral results with the occurrence of so-called Roma settlements in the areas, where the party gained a significant share of the vote. We found that during the 2006 elections the party mostly emphasized the need for the renaissance of the (Slovak) nation and the reflection of its roots and national historical figures. In both the 2010 and 2012 elections the party for the most part sharply criticized the Roma minority and the mainstream political parties. We argue that this change was reflected in the party's electoral gain. Since 2010 the party has changed its focus to an active campaign against Roma and electoral results of the party have improved. In 2006 LSNS gained the most votes in areas where the local appeal of its leaders emphasizing the nationalistic themes was the largest and in both 2010 and 2012 the party gained the most votes in regions with the highest occurrence of Roma settlements. We also identified all four features that according to Mudde (2000) characterize far right parties in the electoral themes emphasized by LSNS. Adapted from the source document.

It is clear from political science literature that political parties are not static entities. Similar to other political institutions, they tend to transform with time, in response to changes in their surrounding environment. If the economic, social, cultural and political parameters in society are to substantially change, it is possible to deduce a change in the role of a political party and its organisational structure. The transition from totalitarian to democratic societies in Central, and partially in Eastern Europe, presents a process so unique that one may legitimately question if this has not resulted in a serious modification of the catch-all party type. In the region of Central Europe, Czechoslovakia - and after 1993 the Czech Republic - presents a special case, where during political and economic transformation next to general features, specific factors were also enforced, which eventually influenced the set-up and formation of parties in their early stages. It is left to consideration and further scrutiny to decide whether the unrepeatable environment of the Czech-Moravian melting pot, has not cultivated the clientelistic form of political party. Adapted from the source document.

A major representative of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) renewed its violent activities while ending a ceasefire that lasted for almost five years in 2004. The nature of its armed struggle is in many aspects different from that of the period of 1984-1999. The issue of the Kurdish question in Turkey has been once again becoming increasingly dynamic in the last years, and the violent manifestations connected with this issue have been increasing as well. The presented case study deals with the offensive tactics of the PKK during its armed struggle in Turkey in the period from 2004 to 2011. The activities of the PKK are framed in the concept of insurgency. The analysis is focused on a description and interpretation of the nature of the PKKs offensive operations. On the basis of the analysis of the operational level of the PKKs activities, the pursued insurgent tactics are identified. The PKK pursues and combines four kinds of typical insurgency tactics - provocation, intimidation, protraction, and exhaustion, with the first two being the most important. In the background of the PKKs campaign, we can observe that the PKK plans and times its operations very carefully. At the same time the PKK focuses on getting and maintaining popular support for itself. Adapted from the source document.