Blue Velvet: the rise and decline of the new Czech right

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Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, Marburg, Germany, 18–21 September 2003. The author would like to thank participants for their comments and to acknowledge the support of the British Academy in providing a travel grant that enabled him to attend the conference.

Notes

In the 1990 election campaign the perception of collaboration was reinforced by the revelation that its then leader, Josef Bartončík, was listed as an informer in the records of the former communist secret police.

The Alliance thus failed to contest the 1998 parliamentary elections. In the June 2002 elections after leaving the Quad-Coalition, it ran an independent list, which received 0.50 per cent.

See S. Hanley, ‘Europe and the Czech Parliamentary Elections of June 2002’, Royal Institute of International Affairs/Opposing Europe Research Network Election Briefing No.5 (July 2002), at <http://www.riia.org> (accessed 7 March 2004).

See J. Urban, ‘The Making of a Czech President’, East European Perspectives, Vol.5, No.8 (16 April 2003), at <http://www.rferl.org/eepreport/2003/04/8–160403.html> (accessed 1 June 2003).

Reports suggested that Miroslav Topolánek was essentially seeking to balance out all major organizational and regional interests in ODS, rather than undertaking major new ideological initiatives; new ODS policy was said to be driven by individual ODS shadow ministers: see L. Bek, ‘Topolánek nezvládl sjednotit ODS’, Právo, 5 Sept. 2003, p.1.

See B. Pečinka, ‘Komentář: ODS mezi stagnací a růstem’, Proglas, No.2001/4 (2001) online edition, and ‘Budoucnost české pravice’, Proglas, No.8/2002 (2002), pp.11–13.

After the departure of Josef Lux in 1998, the Christian Democrats were led by Jan Kasal (1998–2001), Cyril Svoboda (2001–3) and Miroslav Kalousek (2003 to date). Since its foundation in 1998, the Freedom Union has been led by Jan Ruml (1998–2000), Karel Kühnl (2000–2001), Hana Marvanová (2001–2), Ivan Pilip (acting leader 2002–3) and Petr Mareš (2003 to date).

The most recent CVVM poll at the time of writing recorded the Freedom Union's electoral support at 2.5 per cent: ‘CVVM: soc. dem spadl na 14 procent’, Právo, 26 Feb. 2004, p.3.

The majority of KAN delegates rejected the merger agreement at a special conference, leading to a split in the organization.

Daniel Kroupa and Pavel Bratinka cite ideological differences and Klaus's indifference as the reason for the failure to merge: see D. Kroupa, Svoboda a řád (sváteční rozhovory) (Prague: Éós, 1996), pp.15–20, and M. Hamerský and P. Dimun (eds.), 10 let na straně svobody (kronika ODA z let 1989–1999) (Brno: Bachant, 1999), pp.24–5, 28. However, there is evidence that the Alliance's wish to enter Klaus's new party as a collective member was the real stumbling block: see comments by ODA representative Žegklitz at the Civic Forum Political Club, as reported in Infórum, No.54/91, 4 Jan. 1991. Klaus also cites his refusal to compromise on the principle of individual membership as the obstacle; see V. Klaus, První zpráva (Prague: Cartoonia, 1993), p.65.

The European Democrats won 18.3 per cent of the vote in Prague in the November 2002 local elections.

ODS's highest national vote was 33.9 per cent in the ballot to the lower house of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly in 1992.

See M. Mareš, Pravicový extremismus a radikalismus v České republice (Brno: Barrister & Principal, 2003).

ODS's own figures suggest membership peaked at 23,269 in 1992, declining sharply to 16,289 after the party lost office in 1997, before recovering to 18,908 at the end of 2000: see L. Benešová, Kronika ODS: 10 let historie (Prague: ODS, 2001), published in electronic form at <http://www.ods.cz> (accessed 1 Feb. 2004).

The Christian Democrats at present have 9.58 per cent of elected communal and municipal councillors, marginally more than the Civic Democratic Party, although they typically represent smaller communes; the Freedom Union–Democratic Union, by comparison, has only 0.72 per cent of local councillors: see <http://www.volby.cz> (accessed 5 March 2004).

See, for example, L. Kopeček, ‘Aplikace Rokkanovské theorie cleavages na české politické strany na počatku éry masové politiky’, Středoevropské politické studie, Vol.4, Nos 2–3 (2002), published electronically at <http://www.iips.cz> (accessed 15 Sept. 2003). One peculiarity of the pre-1938 Czech party system was the presence of both a Catholic and an agrarian party.

The (re-)emergence of the Czechs as a political nation from the early nineteenth century largely excluded the aristocracy as a pro-Habsburg interest; similarly, the Catholic Church, although institutionally and numerically dominant in the Czech lands, was seen as ambivalent towards aspirations for national self-determination.

B. Garver, The Young Czech Party 1874–1901 and the Emergence of a Multiparty System (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1978).

See G.M. Luebbert, Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy: Social Classes and the Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). A key difference with the Scandinavian context was the fragmentation of the Czech left, which reflected the divisive effect of the National Question and the strength of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

See J. Rataj, O autoritativní národní stát: ideologické proměny české politiky v Druhé republice 1938–1939 (Prague: Karolinium, 1997).

See G. Evans and S. Whitefield, ‘The Structuring of Political Cleavages in Post-Communist Societies: The Case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia’, Political Studies, Vol.46, No.1 (1998), pp.115–39; H. Kitschelt, Z. Manfeldová, R. Markowski and G. Toka, Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-party Collaboration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); K. Vlachová, ‘Levice a pravice v české republiky v letech 1996–2000’, in Z. Manfeldová and M. Tuček, Současná česká společnost (Prague: Sociologickýústav, 2002) pp.254–70; K. Krause, ‘Once More unto the Breach: The Politics of Cleavage in Slovakia and the Czech Republic’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA, 29 Aug.–1 Sept. 2002.

See, for example, P. Matějů and B. Reháková, ‘Turning Left or Class Realignment? Analysis of the Changing Relationship between Class and Party in the Czech Republic 1992–1996’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.11, No.3 (1997), pp.501–42, and B. Reháková, ‘Social Stratification and Voting Behaviour’, in Večerník and Matějů (eds.), Ten Years of Rebuilding Capitalism: The Czech Republic after 1989 (Prague: Academia, 1999), pp.228–50; Krause.

See B. Abrams, ‘Morality, Wisdom and Revision: The Czech Opposition of the 1970s and the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.9, No.2 (1995), pp.234–55.

Principally the writings of Petr Pithart and the Střední Evropa group: see P. Pithart, Dějiny a politika (Prague: Prostor, 1990); M. Laruelle, ‘Střední Evropa’: Une autre écriture de la nation? (Prague: CEFRES Documents de travail, No.4, 1996).

See P. Oslzlý (ed.), Podzemná univerzita (Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 1993); B. Day, The Velvet Philosophers (London: Claridge Press, 2001).

See S. Hanley, ‘The New Right in the New Europe? Unravelling The Ideology of “Czech Thatcherism”’, Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol.4, No.2 (1999), pp.163–89; G. Eyal, The Origins of Postcommunist Elites: From Prague Spring to Breakup of Czechoslovakia (Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), pp.135–93.

Structural legacy arguments have difficulty explaining the failure of the ‘Prague Spring’, which appears to be a critical juncture when more than one path of political development was open, whose outcome was dependent on the contingent choices of political actors (including external actors in the USSR). In structural historical terms, arguably the same forces that generated ‘bureaucratic authoritarian’ opposition to reform also generated the powerful reform communist movement itself.

For example, A. Bozóki, ‘The Ideology of Modernization and the Policy of Materialism: The Day After the Socialists’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.13, No.3 (1998), pp.56–102.

Much of the British politics literature of the 1980s on ‘Thatcherism’ does, however, suggests that, despite a conservative social policy agenda, the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher should be regarded primarily as an agent of market-led modernization; in this sense, the Czech New Right can be seen as paralleling its Western ideological models: see S. Hall and M. Jacques (eds.), The Politics of Thatcherism (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1983); S. Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left (London: Verso, 1988).

As one Charter 77 signatory wryly observed, ‘all the other people in Civic Forum wear sweaters and call each other ty, but these gentlemen wear ties and say vy’; P. Uhl, ‘The Fight For Socialist Democracy in Czechoslovakia’, New Left Review, No.179 (1990), p.15.

‘Vážení přátele’, Bulletin ODS, No.11, 15 May 1991.

See Article 2 of the first ODS Statutes on the function and role of the party: Stanovy ODS (Prague: ODS, 1991).

Svoboda a prosperita (Prague: ODS, 1992), p.2.

H. Appel, ‘The Ideological Determinants of Liberal Economic Reform: The Case of Privatization’, World Politics, Vol.52, No.4 (2000), pp.520–54.

P. Rutland, ‘Thatcherism, Czech-style: Transition to Capitalism in the Czech Republic’, Telos, No.94 (1992–93), pp.104–29; S. Holmes, ‘The Politics of Economics in the Czech Republic’, East European Constitutional Review, 1995, No.4, pp.52–5.

M. Dangerfield, ‘Ideology and Czech Transformation: Neoliberal Rhetoric or Neoliberal Reality’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.11, No.3 (1997), pp.436–67.

M. Orenstein, Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001).

D. Stark and L. Bruszt, Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

On social democratic strategies for transformation, see P. Machonin, P. Štastnová, A. Kroupa and A. Glasová, Strategie sociální transformace české společnosti (Brno: Doplněk, 1996).

Kitschelt et al., pp.35–6, 157–96, 218–19.

Voters are able to cast a limited number of ‘preference votes’ for individual candidates on a list, which can have the effect of moving them to the top of the list.

For example, addressing his party's conference in December 1996 Klaus expressed satisfaction that the elections had ‘made Czech politics more transparent … marginal and poorly defined parties have disappeared … there are two basic paths, two basic visions … repre-sented, on one hand by ODS and, on the other by the Social Democrats’: V. Klaus, Obhajoba zapomenutých myšlenek (Prague: Academia, 1997), p.116.

‘Smlouva ODS a ČSSD o výtvoření stabilního politického prostředí v zemi’, Lidové noviny, 10 July 1998, p.2, Article VII, and ‘Tolerační patent’, Agreement No.2 at <http://www.ods.cz> (accessed 6 March 2004).

‘Zeman je skutečný politik, kterého odmítám podceňovat’, Lidové noviny, 10 July 1998, p.5. ODS initially preferred a simple plurality system on British lines; however, under pressure from the Social Democrats and – following the November 2000 Senate elections – unable to command the necessary constitutional majority – the two parties agreed on a less proportional form of PR.

See T. Kostelecký, ‘Navrhované zmeny volebního zákona vzeslé z dodatku “opoziční smlouvy” v roce 2000 a jejich možné dusledky’, Sociologický časopis, Vol.36, No.3 (2000), pp.299–306.

The 1992 Czech Constitution specifies that proportional representation must be used for elections to the lower house of parliament: M. Klíma, Kvalita demokracie v Ceské republice a volební inženýrství (Prague: Radix/Marshall, 2001), pp.108–22. A second electoral law reducing the proportionality of the previous system by increasing the number of electoral districts from six to 14 was passed in January 2002 and used for the June 2002 elections.

S. Saxonberg, ‘The Influence of Presidential Systems’, Problems of Postcommunism, Vol.50, No.5 (2003), pp.22–36.

See M. Shugart, ‘The Inverse Relationship between Party Strength and Executive Strength: A Theory of Constitutional Choices’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol.28, No.1 (1998), pp.1–29.

Moreover, the Constitution of the Czech Republic, whose presidency is weaker than that of post-communist Czechoslovakia, was agreed by major political parties in December 1992; the current weak Czech presidency is thus clearly the product of strong parties, not vice versa.

Y.M. Brudny, ‘The Dynamics of “Democratic Russia”, 1990–93’, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.9 (1993), pp.141–70; T. Grabowski, ‘The Party That Never Was: The Rise and Fall of the Solidarity Citizens' Committees in Poland’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.10, No.2 (1996), pp.214–45.

M. Hadjiisky, La fin du Forum civique et la naissance du Parti démocratique civique (janvier 1990–avril 1991) (Prague: Documents de travail du CEFRES, No.6, 1996).

See ‘Daniel Kroupa: Meziparlamentní klub demokratické pravice’, Infórum, No.44/90 (17 October 1990).

Hadjiisky.

P. Havlík, Klaus & ti druzí: Osobní inventura Petra Havlíka (Prague: Pallata, 1998), pp.25–6.

Here I follow Hopkin's synthesis of the literature on party institutionalization, adapting a rational choice framework: see J. Hopkin, Party Formation and Democratic Transition in Spain (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999); see also J.A. Aldrich, Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

P. Fiala, M. Mareš and P. Pšeja, ‘The Development of Political Parties and the Party System’, in Večerník and Matějů, pp.273–4, and IVVM data cited at p.279.

See A. Innes, ‘The Breakup of Czechoslovakia: The Impact of Party Development on the Separation of the State’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.11, No.3 (1997), pp.393–435.

‘Smlouva ODS a ČSSD’ and ‘Tolerační patent’.

V. Klaus, ‘O politické odpovědnosti’ and ‘Pokus o interpretaci dnešní politické křižovatky’, in V. Klaus, Od opoziční smlouvy k tolerančnímu patentu (Prague: Votobia, 2000), pp.76–7, 82–4.

See, for example, J. Macháček, ‘Země dvou Mečiarů’, Respekt, No.29/98 (1998), p.2; J. Pehe, ‘Mečiarismus najdeme i v Čechách’, Mladá fronta dnes, 30 Sept. 1999.

See B. Pečinka, ‘Luxova velká politická hra’, Lidové noviny, 7 Dec. 1995; ‘Pokus o zesvětštění strany’, Lidové noviny, 18 May 1996; and ‘Česká CDU se nekoná’, Respekt, 1998, No.17 (20–26 April), p.3.

In addition to a governing Coalition Council established in September 1999, Quad-Coalition also sought to establish a common electoral list, an electoral programme, a ‘Shadow Cabinet’ and a prime minister-designate; the goals were formalized in an additional agreement in September 2000.

‘Svatováclavské čtyřkoaliční dohoda’, in Hamerský and Dimun, p.227.

Interview in Mladá fronta dnes, 14 July 1998, cited in P. Dimun, ‘Komentář: Taková byla Čytrkoalice’, Proglas, No.2002/2 (2002), online edition.

One-third of the Czech Senate is re-elected every two years; after the November 2000 elections 39 of 81 senators represented the Quad-Coalition.

See V. Dvořáková, ‘Civil Society in the Czech Republic’, in P. Kopecký and C. Mudde (eds.) Uncivil Society? Contentious Politics in Post-Communist Europe (London: Routledge, 2002), pp.134–56.

Dimun.

The ‘Coalition’ received fewer votes than the total its two member party had received running separately in 1998: see Hanley, ‘Europe and the Czech Parliamentary Elections of June 2002’.

See, for example, K. Williams, ‘National Myths in the New Czech Liberalism’, in G. Hosking and G. Schöpflin (eds.), Myths and Nationhood (London: Hurst, 1997), pp.132–40, or P. Bugge, Czech Perceptions of the Perspective of EU Membership Havel vs. Klaus (Florence: European University Institute Working Paper RSC No.2000/10, 2000), and S. Saxonberg, ‘Václav Klaus: The Rise and Fall and Re-emergence of a Charismatic Leader’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.13, No.2 (1999), pp.391–418.

T. Haughton, ‘Facilitator and Impeder: The Institutional Framework of Slovak Politics During the Premiership of Vladimír Mečiar’, Slavonic and East European Review, Vol.81, No.2 (2002), pp.267–90.

D. Šrámek, ‘Chceme vrátit lidem nzdějě, Fórum, 1991, No.17, p.2.

`One Man Party?', Lidové noviny, 22 April 1991.

Petr Nečas, ‘Tvář's brýlemí je vedle ptáka cenným logem’, Právo, 22 June 2002; the author was an ODS vice-chairman.

See Saxonberg, ‘Václav Klaus’.

See also A. King, ‘The Outsider as Political Leader: The Case of Margaret Thatcher’, British Journal of Political Science, Vol.32, No.3 (2002), pp.435–54.

‘Václav Klaus: Jakou roli bude hrát?’, Infórum, 1990, No.44 (17 Oct.), p. 8.

This paragraph summarizes arguments discussed at more length in Hanley, ‘The New Right in the New Europe?’.

Klaus did, however, make sporadic attempts to incorporate traditional Czech national symbols and myths into ODS ideology in the early 1990s: see Williams.

Similarly, in stressing that political parties were not merely efficient, but were a ‘standard’ west European form of political organization, ODS co-opted arguments first used by small historic parties of the left, indirectly drawing on pre-communist traditions of ‘partyness’.

For an example of this assertion see ODS's internal analysis of its prospects after the June 2002 elections, see M. Beneš, ‘Volby PS PČR 2002 – analýza volební kampaně ODS materiál pro Výkonnou radu ODS’, at <http://www.ods.cz> (accessed 1 Sept. 2003).

See S. Hanley, ‘From Neo-Liberalism to National Interests: Ideology, Strategy and Party Development in the Euroscepticism of the Czech Right’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2004), pp.513--48.

Many scholars would find this parallel questionable: see J. Zahradil, P. Plecitý, P Adrian and M. Bednář, Manifest českého eurorealismu (ODS: Prague, April 2001); published electronically at <http://www.ods.cz> (accessed 4 March 2004)