Party system of Czech Republic in the process of reconstitution and democratic consolidation

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 non-structured, 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.

U savremenoj političkoj teoriji i 'tranzitologiji' preovlađuje mišljenje da je demokratska konsolidacija uspela samo ukoliko se partijski sistem čvrsto etablirao u društvo, odnosno pustio jake i razgranate korene u društveno tkivo, u smislu njegove opšte struktuiranosti i političkog kapaciteta da predstavlja sve značajnije segmente društva. Ovaj rad predstavlja pokušaj da se, donekle, doprinese debati da li su partijski sistemi koji su se pojavili u Centralno-istočnoj Evropi od 1989. godine ostali fundamentalno nestruktuirani, i tako visoko eterični i veoma fražilni, odnosno da li oni pokazuju izvesne znake struktuiranosti (sa pojavom jedne ili više dimenzija naglašene političke kompeticije) i stabilnosti (sa sličnim i jasnim modelima partijske podrške u konsekutivnim izborima). Analizirajući proces nastajanja i razvoja čeških političkih partija u periodu od 1990. do 1998, rad nastoji da pokaže da je partijski sistem, zaista, bio struktuiran za vreme ovog perioda od tzv. regionalno-horizontalnih faktora kao što su ekonomska nerazvijenost religioznost, društvene klase i urbano-ruralne razlike. Specifičan način na koji su ove socio-ekonomske razlike i podele prevođene u dimenzije političke kompeticije varira od zemlje do zemlje, ali unutar svake postkomunističke zemlje, pa i Češke Republike, model-dizajn partijskog pejzaža je bio veoma konzistentan od jednih do drugih izbora.