Search

In a democratic environment, political equality implies proportionality. Achieving this in an electoral setting can be complicated and unrealistic. The aim of this article is to investigate the logic, approach and method of creating constituencies in the elections for Slovak self-governing regions in 2022. We track the key attributes related to proportionality: the legislation, the actual creation of constituencies, the mechanisms used for the redistribution of mandates and the achievement of proportionality in individual constituencies within particular regions. Our results indicate considerable disproportionality within the constituencies of particular self-governing regions, which is mainly caused by the lack of effective legislation, the different approaches of authorities in creating constituencies and the absence of limits to the violation of electoral and thus political equality.

Territorial self-government is related to a range of competencies and services that must be provided and ensured for residents in the area. However, there are some countries where there are doubts about the ability of certain local governments to fulfil their responsibilities. Slovakia is an example of this. The significant fragmentation of the territory results in a large number of small municipalities. For this reason, the aim of this article is to find out the ability of small municipalities, categorised by population size (up to 500 and up to 1,000 inhabitants), to provide technical infrastructure services within their territories, in particular in the areas of sewerage, public water supply, gas supply, mobile phone services and internet connectivity. The aim is also to determine whether there are any differences. The study is based on an analysis of secondary and primary (questionnaire) data. The study shows differences in the technical equipment of small municipalities for the indicators studied. Regional differences and discrepancies between sub-categories of small municipalities are also present in terms of technical infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wide range of different factors influence a voter's choice in support of political party or representative. The research deals with the electoral behavior of voters in Slovak regional elections in 2017. Specifically, it focuses on the impact of defined socio-demographic characteristics and indicators such as share of inhabitants of the municipality aged 18-30 of Roman Catholic faith, share of municipal inhabitants with higher education, share of economically active inhabitants of the municipality, share of PC / Internet users in the settlement structure of Banská Bystrica region in relation with election results of M. Kotleba as a chairman candidate. We used statistical measurement and correlation analysis to fulfil our goal. The data combine election results with socio-demographic characteristics of municipalities in Banská Bystrica region. Graphical maps present the intensity of strength of the association between variables according to view of districts in Banská Bystrica region. The resulting findings show a statistically significant relationship in two defined categories. In the first case, with the increasing proportion of Roman Catholic faith in the municipality, the support of the candidate also increased. Similar findings were identified in relation to share of university educated inhabitants in the municipality. The electoral support of Marian Kotleba in 2017 Slovak regional election was influenced by factors of measured socio-demographical characteristics of municipalities. The findings confirmed similar conclusions from 2013 analysis of Marian Kotleba support in regional elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the issue of participatory budgeting as one of the newer tools of political participation. Its aim is to characterise the current situation in the Slovak Republic at two levels of territorial self-administration (self-governing regions and municipalities). To reach defined aims, it monitors the existence of legislative settings at the national level, the existence of individual settings at the observed levels and subsequently the practical application of the participatory budgeting itself. Procedures associated with the study of documents are used in article; the obtained data are summarized, described and compared mutually. In addition to laws and regulations issued by self-government units, the source of data is also the regional and local self-government units' official websites. In the absence of one universal definition of the participatory budgeting rules at the national level, the findings have shown that there are relatively extensive conditions for implementing participatory budgeting with its specific settings defined by self-administrations. In Slovakia, participatory budgeting is only gradually introduced into the internal rules, which reflects a relatively small number of municipalities or self-governing regions, which ultimately use it effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]