Archive 4/2001

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Although in 1989 Francis Fukuyama in his essay “The End of History?” stated the victory of liberal democracy, its enemies continue to exist (even inside Western civilization). Democratic states use various means of defence against extremists. Specific anti-extremism policy can be defined and studied using policy-analysis. This policy can rarely be found in its consistent form, it rather abstract s from other policies. The relationship between internal security and anti-extremism policy is most important. An important role is also played by civic society. There is a large number of conflicts in the politics dimension. Various programs and laws can be seen as outputs anti-extremism policy.

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The article deals with the issue of security policy in Federal Republic of Germany. It is possible to observe, that traditional political parties have inclined to realistic paradigm of security, and alternative political parties (green, environmental and feminist) to wide paradigm of security. Testing this hypothesis on the example of security policy of Bündnis 90/Grünen (alternative party) and CUD/CSU (traditional party) in Germany hasn’t disprove this hypothesis. But it is impossible for the time being to argue that the tested hypothesis is true, because we have tested it only on the example of Germany. The hypothesis about inclination of traditional parties to realistic school of security and alternative parties to wide school of security should be tested on many countries as possible to increase the probabilities of it being true. We are not able at this stage of research to establish the causal relations and causes of the observed phenomenon. At this stage of research we need to accommodate more empirical data and test the proposed hypothesis. During later phases of research we can try to detect causal relations.

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The article takes into account present debates concerning the best possible way of the election of President in the Czech Republic. According to valid legislative, the President is elected by the Parliament. As this mode of election displays a series of disadvantages (e.g. insufficient legitimacy, powerful influence of political parties, danger of non-election of a President), a shift toward direct election is actually discussed. However, this mode of election is not optimal as well since it does not correspond to the present conception of a position of a “weak” President, which is applied in the Czech Republic, and excessively increases the number of national elections. Therefore, the article presents another suggestion: the President should by elected by an assembly of electors. The assembly should, in one half, consists of the members of the Parliament (deputies and senators) and of the members of regional bodies in the other. This compromise suggestion eliminates majority of disadvantages that can be seen in connection with the former modes of the election of President.

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The purpose of this article is to provide a political science analysis of the Treaty of Nice which was concluded by the European Council meeting in December 2000. First of all, as it is not yet known exactly when and in what order the applicant courtiers will join the Union, the new distribution of seats in the European Parliament, the new composition of the Commission and the new definition of qualified majority within the Council are determined for a Union of 15 member states. The Treaty restricts itself to setting our principles and methods for changing this system as the Union grows. The Treaty also encores changes in a balance of power between the member states in en enlarged Union.

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The present article brings the systematical analysis concerning the development of the catholic camp (Lager) in Austria and foremost the situation of the political parties which represented this camp from the beginning of the party formation of Christian Social Party (1890s) until present. The analysis is based upon the concept of camps (Lagers) which is distinguished from the concepts of poles and pillars (Saule) First, there are examined the beginning of the catholic camp and catholic policy and the processes of formation of catholic milieu and its penetration in the dominant liberal society, politics and culture of the establishment in the Habsburg Monarchy. The catholic camp and its political party (Christian Socialist) were competing with the social democratic milieu in the difficult struggle for supremacy over the polity and politics during the Austrian First Republic. The creation of the authoritarian state is interpreted as in fact victory of the catholic camp and its political, culture and societal ideas. After six years of the German occupation, the Second Austrian Republic was created under the supervision of the Allies. Austria in the years 1945-1966 is described as almost pure example of the consociation democracy. The camp mentality and the deep-rooted cleavages dividing Austrian society were almost of the same intensity as in the pre-war era of the First Republic, but the behavior of political leaders was different determined by the ideas of cooperation and seeking of compromise. In this situation, Austrian People’s Party was successfully maintained its position of the leading political force of the organization within the catholic lager. In the years 1966-1970 there was ruling even the majority government composed only from the members of OVP. However, the Social Democrats took the initiative in the period 1970-1987 (in the years 1983-1897 in the coalition with the Austria’s Freedom Party). In detail there are examined the processes of dealignment, the reconfiguration and decline of existing cleavages and the rise of new societal divisions. These processes fragmented the traditional segmentation of Austrian society and they caused the erosion of the camp mentality and the camp milieu during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The classical electorate of the OVP was disintegrating and for the party it was very difficult to find ability to create new voters ties and alignments. The Austrian party system is no longer the bipartite one since the powers of three main actors (SPO, OVP, FPO) are almost equalized measured according to the election results. The OVP was forced back in the Austrian party competition with its rigid structure and not very advantageous ideological background and without the traditional camp alignments backing.

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The election of one third of the Senate in France was held on 23 September and the left wing parties strengthened their position mostly at the expense of smaller right wing subjects. The biggest relative gain was enjoyed by the French Communist Party and the Greens, the absolute profit by the Socialist Party, and Liberal Democracy suffered absolutely and relatively the biggest loss. Among Senate clubs the biggest absolute gains were enjoyed by the Socialists and the relative gains by the Communist, Republican and Citizen clubs whereas the Republicans and the Independents suffered the biggest absolute losses and the Democratic and Social European Rally suffered a relative loss. From the change of the Election Act made in 2000 it was the rule designed to ensure a larger proportion of women representation in the Senate that had a greater impact on the results: the number of women among the Senators has increased by 75% when compared to the state before the election.

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The article examines results of September 2001 parliamentary election in Poland. These results had a great impact on the evolution of the party arrangement. Government Solidarity Electoral Action Right – AWSP – was preferred by only 5,6% of votes. Former government ally AWSP Freedom Union – UW – gained also bad result (3,1%). Solidarity Electoral Action (the title of the alliance was changed to AWSP in 2001) was preferred by 33,8% (Freedom Union 13,4% of votes) in the last parliamentary election in 1997.The main reason of a fatal defeat of AWS and UW was process of their disintegration and competition of new right political formations. The three popular polish politicians Donald Tusk (UW), Andrzej Olechowski (independent) and Maciej Plaźynński (AWS) initiated a founding of a new right-wing party – Civic Platform (PO) at the beginning of the year 2001. The two brothers Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczyński founded a formation Law and Justice (PiS). A great part of parties elites and members from AWS an UW defected and joined PO and PiS. But left-wing coalition of post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and Labour Union (UP) was more successful (with 41% of votes which didn’t gave it the absolute parliamentary majority) in the election. The winner formed a new government coalition with agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL) (9%). The success of radical political subjects – ultra catholic League of Polish Families (LRP) and agrarian “Samooobrona” - was a surprise of election.

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Norton, P. (ed) (1999): Parliaments and Pressure Groups in Western Europe, London, 181 pages.

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Ismayr, W. (2000): Der Deutsche Bundestag im Politischen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 512 pages. Zajc, D. (2000): Parlamentarno odločanje. (Re)parlamentarizacija v Srednji in vzhodni Evropi. Funkcije novih parlamentov, Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede, 227 stran.

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