PARTY SYSTEM OF CZECH REPUBLIC IN THE PROCESS OF RECONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION Cover Image

ПАРТИЈСКИ СИСТЕМ ЧЕШКЕ РЕПУБЛИКЕ У ПРОЦЕСУ РЕКОНСТИТУИСАЊА И ДЕМОКРАТСКЕ КОНСОЛИДАЦИЈЕ
PARTY SYSTEM OF CZECH REPUBLIC IN THE PROCESS OF RECONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION

Author(s): Zoran Krstić
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Универзитет у Нишу
Keywords: parties and party system; elections and election system; democratic consolidation; 'post communist' democracy; voting body; institutions of power

Summary/Abstract: In contemporary political theory and 'transitology' prevails thinking that democratic consolidation is successful only if party system has strongly been integrated into society, that is, if it has spread strong and branchy roots into social web, in the sense of its general structure and political capacity to represent all important parts of a society. This paper represents an attempt to contribute to debate: have party systems, which emerged in Central and Eastern Europe from 1989, stayed fundamentally nonstructured, and highly airy and very fragile, that is, do they show certain signs of structure (with the emersion of one or more dimensions of stressed political competition) and stability (with similar and clear models of party support in consecutive elections). By analyzing the process of emergence and development of Czech political parties in period from 1990 until 1998, the paper efforts to show that during the stated period, party system was really structured by so-called regional-horizontal factors, such as economic underdevelopment, religiosity, social classes, and urban-rural differences. Specific way in which these socio-economic differences and divisions were translated into dimensions of political competitions varies from country to country. However, inside every post-communist country, and among others Czech Republic, model-design of party landscape was very consistent from one to next elections.

  • Issue Year: 2000
  • Issue No: 03-04
  • Page Range: 227-256
  • Page Count: 30
  • Language: Serbian
Toggle Accessibility Mode