This research project adresses central questions within the study of parliamentary representation in the Czech Republic. Our study is focused on three themes: (1) Parlamentarians - who are Czech republic's political representatives and how do they conceptualise their role? (2) EU accession - how is political representation within a system of multilevel governance percieved by parlamentarians? Is there a division of labour or competition between representative institutions? What are Czech parlamentarians' attitudes toward EU institutions and proposals for reform? (3) Policy-making - how do parlamentarians percieve the legislative process? Has there been a fundamental change in the policymaking process following accession?
More generally, this project extends previous research at the national level and explores how accession has changed the nature of political representation in the Czech Republic. Using theoretically informed empirical methodology, this study makes a substantial contribution to debates surrounding the quality of democratic representation in the Czech Republic.
Publikace vydané v rámci projektu (celkem 16, zobrazeno 11 - 16)
The first decade of the Czech democratic Parliament has seen the development of a newly conceptualised, bicameral Parliament in a new State. We identify general tendencies toward stabilisation, similar to Western European parliamentary practices. Another trend is the gradual change from organising the Parliament according to the majority principle to that of consensus.
Using roll-call and parliamentary survey data from the sixth legislature in the Czech Republic (2006–2008), this research demonstrates that spatial models of roll-call data are not readily explainable in terms of party cohesion and discipline. The difficulty of making a substantive interpretation of dimensions extracted suggests the use of spatial models of roll-call voting where party discipline is strong requires more theoretical and methodological work.
This paper compares the development in four Central European parliaments in the second decade after the fall of communism. At the end of the first decade, the four parliaments could be considered stabilised, functional, independent and internally organised institutions. Attention is paid particularly to the changing institutional context and pressure of ‘Europeanisation’, the changing party strengths, and the functional and political consequences of these changes.
The following chapter is dedicated to the discussions on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the Parliament of the Czech Republic and its further implications. The first part deals with the stance of the Czech political elite towards the European integration and its further deepening, which should allow us to understand the grounds for its behaviour. The next part analyses the actual ratification discussions, which were extended into the Czech Presidency term.
The book deals with one of the three core functions of legislatures – the oversight, and demonstrates, how this function is performed in case of state budget. The chapter then analyses the specifics of the budget negotiation process in the Czech Republic, which is different from the general legislative process. Attention is paid to single stages of the budgeting process and the role the parliament and parliamentary oversight.
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