Search

The essay discusses Central Eastern Europe as a ‘laboratory’ of existing, emerging as well as contained elements of illiberal backlash. The Central European countries show both challenges and resilience mechanisms in more ‘extreme’ conditions than the cases from Western Europe. The paper offers the connection between the domestic development of Central European states and the ‘polycrisis’ of European integration by linking the issue of politicisation of European integration with the emergence of illiberal politics in contemporary Europe. The goal and main argument of the paper are that there exists a nexus between illiberal Central Eastern European politicians and rising Euroscepticism in the region. The empirical research of Central Eastern European cases will help us better understand general trends of European integration politicisation.

This paper deals with the sluggish Europeanisation efforts of the current political elites of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A typical explanation for the lack of progress would be the complex structure of consociational democracy of the specific Bosnian confederation. The authors, however, claim that the structural obstacles could have been bypassed given the real will of political elites of all three nations to cooperate. The authors examine the role of the structure of the peculiar political system in comparison with the influence of the agency of Bosnian elites on the integration process. The empirical analysis focuses on the situation after the general elections in 2018. The authors discuss the contrast between the official declarations of consistent support for a European future with the real political performance of the various Bosnian party elites. These elites often misuse the institutional settings of the political system to block reforms. They also prefer the politics of obstruction to cement their leading positions within their constituent nations. More than a quarter century after the Dayton Peace Treaty and adoption of the Constitution, the lack of genuine intrinsic motivation to pursue Europeanisation has remained the main reason for the reluctant rapprochement of Bosnia to the European Union.

The paper examines how the radical right parties´ leaders work with emotions while addressing their voters and sympathizers on Twitter/X social media. We focus on the "supply side" on the level of leaders´ discourses. The goal is to demonstrate how they work with emotions, especially those of fear and anger. The context represents Russian aggression against Ukraine, because, typically, circumstances of a crisis bolster the ability of radical right leaders to use emotional rhetoric devices. Czechia, Hungary, and Slovakia represent three particularly relevant and distinctive cases among the CEE countries according to the relevance, relative strength, and stability of radical right parties. We examined social media, particularly Twitter, since it is one of the most prominent tools of political communication today, especially for populists. We collected the data of all Tweets between February 24, 2022 and February 24, 2023. We combined a systematic quantitative content analysis with a more in-depth qualitative analysis of the key characteristics of the discursive construction of the two most salient emotions: anger and fear. We did not confirm the assumption that they would utilise the war in Ukraine since most tweets addressed issues related to domestic politics. The research, however, confirmed that despite differences, anger and fear play a substantial role in the emotional repertoire and represent necessary rhetorical devices. Our findings concur with the literature on radical right populism and its employment of emotional discourse. We found that even a crisis in international politics has been reframed primarily as a domestic issue and integrated into classical discursive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the concept of decompression as a specific process of differentiation. Decompression can be anchored as one of the phenomena of non-compliance, representing a distinctive phenomenon, however. Governments or leaders acting in a decompression way are not Eurosceptics and they do not want to reverse the course of integration. We define decompression as a sudden violation of an EU rule by a member state, which leads to immediate disruption of shared trust in a basic EU policy or principle. In the case of a crisis, we can see a 'compression', an unexpected crisis-driven demand placed on domestic institutions. Decompression is a relaxation of this pressure triggering the non-application of an EU policy or principle in reaction to changes external to the political equilibrium. It sheds new light on the persistent power of individual politicians to compromise European integration in an unintended way, so far under-reported by the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the debate on entrepreneurial parties with the empirical example of the Czech ANO party. The authors focus on selected aspects of the internal organisation and functioning of the party, emphasising the points where business methods and practices are transferred to the environment of party politics. The empirical part shows how the leader has built loyalty inside the party, and analyses its methods of control and coercion that are similar to the human resources recruitment techniques used in businesses. The authors investigate such matters as the vetting of candidates for public offices, the significant barriers created against those wishing to join the party and the party leadership’s strict control over membership. The article also describes the development of ANO’s electoral-professional services and the creation of mass media support. In conclusion, the authors discuss the broader future for the internal workings of entrepreneurial parties – including their lack of intra-party democracy – and their relationship with the changing landscape of contemporary party politics.

This paper deals with the changing discourses of former Czech president Miloš Zeman on European integration and the European Union. Together with his predecessors Václav Havel and Václav Klaus, Zeman symbolises the period of democratic transition and consolidation after the Velvet Revolution and, as prime minister from 1998-2002 and president from 2013-2023, he co-formulated Czech European politics. Although labelling himself a Eurofederalist, Zeman never spared any effort to criticise the EU. The paper assumes that the change in his Eurosceptic discourse was due to the institution of direct presidential elections. Zeman followed the Czech political mainstream, which is softly Eurosceptic. Moreover, Zeman's Eurosceptic critique of the EU corresponded with the positions shared by his electorate. Euroscepticism, therefore, helped Zeman's re-election in 2018. The authors analyse key texts from various periods of Zeman's political career to describe and interpret his discourses on the EU in particular and European integration in general, to demonstrate that beyond the façade of his Euro-federalism, one can find a specific version of the mainstream Czech Eurosceptic discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the article is to contribute to the bourgeoning debate on semipresidentialism, its definition, and its characteristic features, with analysis of the empirical example of the Czech Republic, a country which, according to Elgie´s standard definition, shifted to semi-presidentialism in 2012. The author investigates whether and how Miloš Zeman, the first directly elected president of the Czech Republic, influences relations among the key political institutions in the direction of the model of a semi-presidential democracy. The paper sets out the working concept of semi-presidentialism first and, through the lenses of process tracing, analyses the goals and acts of Zeman after he entered office in January 2013. The case study of the Czech Republic sheds light not only on the recent development(s) in the Czech political system, but it can be seen as an interesting example of how strong political personalities are attempting to expand their influence on politics in a parliamentary democracy and what the possible limits of this effort are.

The Visegrád Group has become increasingly known in the European Union as a controversial coalition that is often critical towards the mainstream direction of EU integration. This article aims to look beyond this image and examine how political parties and foreign policy experts in Czechia and Slovakia perceive the role of the Visegrád Group in their foreign policies. Using a narrative analysis of programme documents and the results of an expert survey, the article concludes that the prevailing inclination in both countries is towards an instrumental narrative as opposed to a more strategic or values-based one based on a shared identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the membership of the most important Czech political party, ANO (meaning "yes" in Czech), led by Andrej Babiš, in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Our goals are to reconstruct how Babiš's party joined ALDE and to discuss the ideological differences between ANO and ALDE. The paper shows that ALDE's offer of membership in 2014 was motivated by a pragmatic need to bolster its own position in the European Parliament; ANO, meanwhile, needed to anchor itself in European politics. Andrej Babiš's technocratic and illiberal view was not apparent at the beginning, but more importantly, this did not matter to ALDE. ALDE's Czech "point of contact," ANO's foreign policy expert and the leader of its party group in the European Parliament, Pavel Telička, made ANO's membership credible. However, as a Euro-optimist, Telička was not compatible with ANO's flexible ideological character in the long term and the party group split up. A comparison of the parties' European Parliament election manifestos and positions on crucial controversial European issues clearly reveals a deep division between ALDE and ANO—and their fundamentally opposed ideological positions. We describe the findings as a new hyper-pragmatic trend in the creation of Europarties, which weakens their ideological cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Czechoslovakia was the first industrialized economy to substantially increase tariffs after the First World War. At that time, Czechoslovakia was highly export-oriented, with a large trade surplus in industrial goods. We argue that the introduction of tariffs was a consequence of the ethnically heterogeneous structure of the economy. German capital controlled the highly export-oriented light and consumer goods industries; Czech capital dominated in industries that were far less export-oriented or even import-competing, such as machinery, transportation equipment, and electrical goods. Trade and exchange-rate policy preferences of both groups clearly differed; however, the policy decision-making process (at least until 1926) was completely controlled by Czechoslovaks and Czech capital, explicitly committed to a nationalist takeover of Czechoslovakia's economy. This is why it was possible to implement an exchange rate and trade policy that ran contrary to theoretical expectations based on the general (national aggregate) indicators of the national economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do soft and hard Eurosceptics differ from each other? This question has become more salient in recent years, as party-based Euroscepticism has been affecting daily mainstream European politics. This article explores this question through an examination of the impact of Brexit outside the United Kingdom. Using the Czech Republic, a country with a strong tradition of party-based Euroscepticism, we analyze representatives of both categories in the context of pro-EU parties. Using official party reactions to Brexit, we argue that the reactions of both camps substantially vary. While soft Eurosceptics consider Brexit to be an opportunity to reform the EU, hard Eurosceptics see Brexit as a call to destroy the EU. Moreover, the position of soft Eurosceptics is closer to the stance of pro-EU parties than to that of hard Eurosceptics. Our research thus contributes to a greater understanding of party-based Euroscepticism and to forming a clearer conceptualization of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the way that the Czech extremist – as well as the mainstream – politicians use to frame the issues related to Moslem migration. The paper seeks to find the answer to a situation of successful use of anti-Islam and anti-immigrant campaigning in the country, which is neither a destination country nor an important transit country for the migrants. The paper approaches the topic through the conceptual lenses of the concept of cognitive frames. By discursive analysis of selected Czech politicians’ rhetoric in the period of 2015–2016, the authors show how politicians are constructing the cognitive frameworks on migrants and refugees, connecting these groups with radical Islam and the construct of danger, thus shifting the migration issue from the framework of international assistance and aid to securitized frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses and compares two Czech entrepreneurial parties, Public Affairs (W) and ANO (meaning 'yes' in Czech). Both parties achieved great success in the first parliamentary elections in which they contested; however, whereas W quickly collapsed, the success of ANO proved to be sustainable. The theoretical framework of the article Is the development model of institutionalisation proposed by Robert Harmel and Lars Svásand, which has three phases: identification, organisation and stabilisation. We show that in the identification phase the leaders of both parties, Vít Bárta (W) and Andrej Babiš (ANO), proved to exploit the crisis in traditional political representation and the hunger for new parties and personalities effectively, while successfully developing their protest appeals. The differences were visible during the organisation phase. On the one hand, Bárta's strategy of dual leadership (formal and actual) of his party caused conflicts, defections and undesirable media attention. On the other hand, Babis's leading role in the new party was clear. He also constructed the party's internal mechanisms, and as such was able to control intraparty dissent. The problems of Bárta's W deepened in the stabilisation phase. The combination of unmanaged government engagement and growing scandals discredited the party. By contrast, Babiš was able to gradually transform ANO into a competent and credible government party. This successful stabilisation greatly helped to facilitate an efficient and disciplined party organisation, 'accommodating the neutrality' of some important media, effective communication with voters and improvement of the economic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a conceptual framework to investigate the phenomenon of entrepreneurial parties in the countries of East-Central Europe. The authors evaluate existing concepts related to increasing interdependence of party politics and the business sector, such as business-firm parties. These concepts are typically much too bound to a particular example of historically emerging entrepreneurial party and therefore the paper offers a more general concept of entrepreneurial party. The concept is based on five basic features: (1) the central role of the leader and his private initiative, (2) the party as a personal vehicle, (3) the crucial formative influence of a leader over the political project. Two other features are related to the social and institutional un-rootedness of the entrepreneurial party which is neither a product of (4) a promoter/sponsor organisation or social movement, nor it is an outcome of (5) a parliamentary split or emergence of a new faction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to reflect on the multiple dimensions of the Czech party system, examine it for breaking points and, at the intersection of these points, periodize the developments in the years 1989-2014. Attention is paid to four different party system variables - party format, party type, extent of bipolarity, and formation of coalitions and coalition relations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low interest in the political questions of European integration in Central and Eastern European countries, which has sometimes lead to apathy, and in some cases to increasing Euroscepticism among the citizens, can perhaps be partially explained by the lack of expertise and interest among politicians. This article analyses data on the level of knowledge and position towards the European Union among Czech political elites in the Czech Republic. Using party manifestos and secondary literature, the authors present a conceptual map of the Czech debate among Czech political parties and party politicians on the EU. First, the main currents of the debate are shown, as well as, and especially, the superficial, vague and ideological nature of that debate. The key narratives are divided according to positive and negative attitudes toward the EU and European integration in general, as well as according to domestic or imported sources of a party's view on integration. In the second part of this article, the broader views of Czech political elites who focus on EU politics are presented and discussed. Original data from the expert survey are presented. The authors show that the debate of "European" politics by the expert elite is much better structured and less ideological than among the politicians, although it is not quite as consensual as expected. The political narratives are present among the elites of European politics in the Czech Republic as well, which can hamper the necessary communication between politicians and the experts and, as a consequence, rather naïve and superficial features of the Czech political debate on integration tend to persevere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central Eastern European party politics offers a good example of the trend towards centralizing internal party decision making, as well as encouraging strong personalities in the role of party leader. This trend is visible in all three major spheres of party activity: election campaigning, the internal organization of parties, and governmental politics. This paper focusses on the party systems of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia to demonstrate that there are actually two processes of presidentialization that occur in party politics. On the one hand, the role of the leader is gaining importance in more traditional, well-established parties such as the Civic and Social Democrats in the Czech Republic and Fidesz in Hungary. On the other hand, perhaps an even clearer presidentialization process is evident in the emergence of new protest parties focussed around strong personalities that often make no attempt to establish and maintain a more complex internal party organization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper deals with the history and political impact of "Moravist" or Moravian political representation. The movement that started already during the 1968/1969 period to rise claims of Moravian political autonomy or "home rule" and that was transformed after 1989 into a full-fledged political party to compete for chairs in the Czech diet and Czechoslovak federal parliament presents an interesting example of a failed attempt in regional and later on even ethnic mobilization in the history of recent Czech politics. The paper will focus on the development of the Movement for Autonomous Democracy - Society for Moravia and Silesia and the parties and movements that followed after the disintegration of the movement in mid-1990s. The second aim of the paper is to analyse and evaluate strategies employed by Moravian regionalist parties in order to valorise the issue of regional minority claims. The original appeal of the Movement for Autonomous Democracy was based on claims for territorial autonomy lost during the communist period. Later on, together with the marginalization of political relevance of Moravian parties and politicians (loss of parliamentary relevance after 1996), a distinct tendency towards radicalization could be observed. The new generation of Moravian activists reframed actually the minority claims from territorial / regionalist context and started to adopt the language of an oppressed national minority distinctive from and suppressed by the Czech majority. This "invention" of separate Moravian "nationality" was by far the most original, though unsuccessful, attempt to mobilize cleavages of ethnic politics in the Czech Lands after 1989. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2010 parliamentary election resulted in the unprecedented electoral success of the Public Affairs, the first electorally successful exclusively populist political party in the history of the Czech Republic. The article examines the history, ideological profile and the internal organization of the party and concludes that the success of the party was facilitated by the growing dissatisfaction with the political situation. The VV result also indicates (together with the success of TOP 09 and the drop in electoral support for ODS) that the dynamics of the party system are changing, and that the right-wing/centre part of the political spectrum in the Czech Republic is undergoing restructuring. When assessing the organizational structure of the party, VV can be labelled as an excellent example of business-firm party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article centres on research into paradiplomacy, the international involvement of sub-national units. It aims at finding appropriate concepts for use in research into the paradiplomacy of Czech regions. The main international scholarship on paradiplomacy is reviewed and the most popular concepts and typologies are introduced. Subsequently, several contradictions and deficiencies are revealed. Then, contemporary research into paradiplomacy in the Czech Republic is summarized. The article argues that Czech research has already identified genuine regional paradiplomacy, but lacks definition with respect to its specifics. The main argument is that, although it was appropriate to apply some concepts from research into federal states for the identification of paradiplomacy, extensive use of these concepts and typologies cannot bring results in research into the content of Czech paradiplomacy. Thus, a step back is suggested. Brian Hocking's approach, which perceives non-central governments as genuine actors of international politics, is suggested. Keating's typology seems the most appropriate for empirical research. In addition, it is argued that further research should focus mainly on the content of the paradiplomacy of Czech regions. The final part of the article proposes the application of such a research strategy on the example of the South Moravian Region. Its expected merits and benefits are then summed up in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the discourse of Vaclav Klaus on European integration by analysing his discourse on the euro during his term of office as President of the Czech Republic. The authors apply critical discourse analysis to selected speeches by Klaus, using their findings to analyse Klaus's position on the euro and European integration through the conceptual lens of soft versus hard Euroscepticism and the difference between the strategic and ideological foundations of Klaus's views. The research confirms the expectation that a consistent, deeply ideological motivation lies behind Klaus's negligible concern for strategy, as well as finding a connection between national-conservative political and neoliberal economic streams in Klaus's political thought. The analysis also brings interesting insights into the debate over the concept of Euroscepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has been changing since the start of the economic crisis in 2008. Many previously uncontested issues -- among them the euro - have been challenged. As a result of these developments, attitudes usually labelled as Euroscepticism have become more accepted as a part of the political mainstream. This article tries to identify -- on the basis of the analysis of the euro discourse of Václav Klaus, former Czech president and prominent Eurosceptic -- whether the current critical atmosphere in the EU can be explained through assumptions of theoretically defined soft and hard Euroscepticism and can be thus seen as a manifestation of Euroscepticism. The article concludes that even if the euro discourse of Václav Klaus contains both elements of soft and hard Euroscepticism, an important level of expertise critique towards the euro that can be found in Klaus' discourse can not be explained by Euroscepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statebuilding and Nationbuilding in the Conditions of Postconflict Kosovo Reconstruction The aim of the paper is to examine interconnections between the process of state-building and the process of nation-building during a period of post-conflict reconstruction. The specific case of the current reconstruction process in Kosovo is exceptional due to extensive international support expressed through political and economic means. Regardless of efforts towards reform made by powerful members of the international community, future sustainability may be questioned. An alternative to the currently favoured institutional approach is provided by the work of Barry Buzan on the state, which puts an emphasis on the idea of the state, assuming integration between territorial, societal and political aspects. The conclusion presented in this article might be used as a lesson learnt from previous mistakes in work dealing with ethnically divided societies, for which it is not sufficient to provide institutional structures without an adequate socio-political reconstruction of existing conditions. If a society is not adequately adapted to the newly-established situation, the institutional structures will not be able to fulfil their key functions completely. Furthermore, it has to be clear that any possible reconstruction of institutional bases must be attempted only with a deep consideration of specific local conditions; otherwise its sustainability is doubtful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with issues of transitional justice in selected Central European countries. The relationship between the mode of democratic transition and the mechanisms and pace of transitional justice processes is discussed. The main focus is on the analysis and comparison of transitional justice issues in three Central European countries - the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The authors conclude that the mode of democratic transition is not as important as other political factors, such as the presence or absence of leftist parties in the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the Public Affairs Party, which entered the Czech House of Deputies after the 2010 parliamentary elections. The aim of the paper is to cover organizational matters and certain peculiarities of the party. As the most appropriate tool of analysis, the concept of a business firm party is used. The author shows how the political and economic interests of the party's most influential member, Vit Bárta, overlapped significantly and that Bárta could be depicted as a kind of "political entrepreneur" misusing political activity for his business purposes. The analysis of the functioning of the Public Affairs Party and especially the distribution of power inside the party shows, in comparison to classical examples of business firm parties, that Public Affairs embodies a new way of intersecting politics and business practices: the already existing party was taken over (in a hostile way, to use the language of business) by a business company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the issue of Territorial Employment Pacts as a tool of horizontal non-hierarchical Europeanization in the field of social policy. The authors examine the functioning of these pacts in Austria, and understand them as an example of political learning, experience and policy transfer that is suitable for designing Territorial Employment pacts in the Czech republic. Subsequently, the implementation of a Territorial Employment Pact in the Moravian-Silesian Region is discussed from the perspective of policy learning processes as well as mechanisms of horizontal Europeanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the "state of the art" of municipal and local politics research in Germany. The main objective is to describe and analyze good practice in German sub-regional politics research and to demonstrate its main distinctive features. The paper provides a general overview of current approaches to sub-regional politics research existing mainly in the framework of political science with strong connections to other disciplines (such as law or sociology) and a strong tendency to form a multidisciplinary approach. Our analysis deals with the following: a description of the main research institutions and distinguished scholars in the field, a discussion of prevailing topics, and a study of the most cited publication outcomes since the year 2000. The paper also examines the main differences between Czech and German research in the field of municipal and local politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Varying Paths of Transitional Justice: The Cases of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. The paper deals with the issue of transitional justice in selected East-Central European countries. The relation between the mode of democratic transition and the means and pace of transitional judicial processes is discussed. Main attention is paid to the analysis and comparison of transitional justice issues in three Central European countries -- the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. The authors come to the conclusion that the mode of democratic transition is not as important as other political factors such as the presence or absence of leftist parties in government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the Europeanizatlon of Czech political parties. The authors assess the scope of Europeanization of Czech political parties from the point of view of manifesto changes, changes in organizational patterns, and other important aspects. The study focuses on relevant parties during the period when the Czech Republic was a candidate country, and later a member country of the European Union. The main thesis argued in the paper is the limited impact of Europeanization processes on Czech political parties. The authors also demonstrate that the prospective development leaves little room for further Europeanization of political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes and compares Czech and Slovak party politics after 1989. The concept of cleavages is used as a theoretical starting point. The authors point out that although the communist period overshadowed the traditional cleavages dating from the second half of the nineteenth century, it is possible to analyze some politically-based cleavages in the respective party arrangements of the two countries. The main conclusion of the article is as follows: that despite differing trajectories of political development during the 1990s, at the present time, both the Czech and Slovak party systems show great similarities in terms of the prevalence of the socioeconomic cleavage. Socioeconomic cleavage emerged quite early after 1989 in the Czech Republic; in Slovakia the socioeconomic cleavage has become dominant only in recent years. This has contributed to the stabilization of the classic left-right model of political competition and the consolidation of the two countries' party systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]