Although sharing institutions for over seventy years, and the transition pathways from communism, the two successor states of the former Czechoslovakia have faced different challenges in the state-building process and adopted distinct economic policies over the past thirteen years since Slovakia became an independent state in 1993. At first sight, the two countries share seemingly similar political context and social and economic structures. Formerly parts of the communist bloc, both countries have undergone a difficult period of economic and political transformation in the early 90s and developed, literally from scratch, new institutions and political parties. The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also shared the same political goals in the past years ; the candidacy for the European Union and for the NATO, stabilization of the state-economy as well as shaking off the corruption have become the priorities of the countries on the long term. However, after a careful analysis we come to the conclusion that there exists a deep gap between the party systems as well as between the voters' alignment in the two states.
[...] Traditionally a pro-European party, this party has changed its orientation at the late 90s and became a rather anti-European oriented party especially with the influence of the former leader of the party, the present president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus. Though the speeches of the party-leaders differ considerably, the ‘Civic Democratic Party' declared recently that it is opposed to any other enlargement of the European Union, including the enlargement to Turkey. The party is therefore moving more right, some of its representatives adopting striking speeches marked by an extreme-right-wing orientation. [...]
[...] We will see that the cleavages cited above have turned out to be fundamental in the formation of the parties as well as in the elaboration of their campaign strategy Political Parties and Electoral Competition in the Czech Republic and Slovakia In the aftermath of the ‘velvet revolution', the split-up of the Czechoslovakia was not anticipated by the public, neither by the political spheres. Though the legislative elections in 1990 were held on a federal basis, the two dominant parties and its political elites that gained the largest support were largely allied. [...]
[...] Finally, in the third part, we will try to give an overview of the parties' attitudes towards the EU enlargement and the accession of Turkey to the European Union The Structuring of the Political Cleavages in the Czech Republic and Slovakia Identifying and explaining the structure of political cleavages and ideological conflicts is a crucial element to understand the orientation of the voters towards distinct political parties. The understanding of this issue can appear even more important in the post-communist countries where the cleavages are particularly numerous, but often miss a stable and enduring base of ideological alignment due to the combined effects of the communist legacy on individuals. [...]
[...] Therefore, the positioning of the parties concerning the EU enlargement as well as the question of accession of Turkey appears considerably divergent, if not sometimes confused. Although some of the parties adopt a traditional approach proper to their political nature, most parties develop a largely strategic politics dependent on their topical priorities. Resources Web pages of political parties in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia www.electionworld.com S. M. Lipset, S. Rokkan : Party systems and voter alignments, NY Free Press G. Sartori : Parties and Party Systems, [...]
[...] Whilst in the Czech Republic, the main issue of contention between the parties concern the cleavage related to economic and social questions as well as to the attitude towards the West, in Slovakia, on the contrary, the strongest dimension of partisanship concerns at first place the issue of ethnic rights, which is followed by the pro- or anti-market cleavage and the dispute over the attitude towards the minority of the Gipsies. But how do these cleavages influence the competition between the political parties? And how the political parties in Czech Republic and Slovakia use these issues in order to attract the largest number of voters? We will try to bring the response to these questions in the second part of this study. [...]
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