Abstract
This chapter shows that under the conditions of fragile parties, proportional representation makes it easier to enter the parliament but more difficult to form and sustain governments. Czech parties are still not consolidated. Although people have the chance to take part in frequent elections for different constitutional bodies, the linkages between voters and their representatives remain loose and characterised by distrust. The party system was marked by extreme and polarised pluralism; only from 1996/1998 until 2010/2013 was it a limited pluralism with bipolar functionality. However, its features do not adequately fit into the concepts of comparative party studies. The party competition includes a recent struggle over the interpretation of the past as well as the socioeconomic cleavage structure. In addition, a new occurrence involves the rise of business parties that break boundaries between economic and political interests.
This chapter has been written as part of a Masaryk University research project, ‘Prospects of European integration in the context of global politics’ (MUNI/A/1025/2018).
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Notes
- 1.
Detailed data on voter turnout in all types of election are available at www.volby.cz.
- 2.
The modification consisted of changing the first divisor from one to the square root of two, i.e. 1.42.
- 3.
The country of about 10.5 million inhabitants is divided into 6253 self-governing municipalities (as of 2015), of which about 78% have fewer than 1000 inhabitants (in fact, a full quarter of municipalities have fewer than 200 inhabitants).
- 4.
ODS , the Left Bloc (LB), ČSSD, the Liberal-Social Union (LSU), KDU-ČSL, the Association for the Republic–Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (SPR-RSČ), the Movement for Self-Governing Democracy–Society for Moravia and Silesia (HSD-SMS) and the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA).
- 5.
For the evolution of parties during the 1990s, see Pšeja (2005).
- 6.
For the discussion of KSČM and whether it was a ‘full-blooded’ or ‘masked’ anti-system party, see Kubát (2010).
- 7.
For a typology of coalitions, see Balík (2009, pp. 188–196).
- 8.
For the phenomenon of caretaker governments, see Hloušek and Kopeček (2014a).
- 9.
Succinctly symbolised in the Civic Forum’s slogan for the 1990 elections: ‘Parties are for partisans, Civic Forum is for everybody.’
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Balík, S., Hloušek, V. (2020). Permanent Campaigning and Pitfalls of Proportional Representation with Fragile Parties. Elections and Party System in Czechia. In: Lorenz, A., Formánková, H. (eds) Czech Democracy in Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40006-4_5
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