Publication details
Opoziční smlouvy „za kopečky“ II.: Byl pakt ČSSD a ODS z let 1998–2002 demokratickou deviací?
| Title in English | Opposition Agreements Outside the Czech Republic II.: Was the Social Democratic Party and Civic Democratic Party Pact from 1998 to 2002 a Democratic Deviation? |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Středoevropské politické studie |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | http://www.cepsr.com/clanek.php?ID=606 |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CEPSR.2013.4.284 |
| Field | Political sciences |
| Keywords | minority governments; support party; Opposition Agreement; Czech Republic; Denmark; Sweden; New Zealand; Italy |
| Attached files | |
| Description | This is the second part of a two–part paper, the first one having been published in the previous volume of this journal. The Czech Opposition Agreement of July 1998 gave the ČSSD the chance to form a single-party government; moreover, the party received a guarantee from the ODS that it would not support a no-confidence vote. The main gains for the ODS were several posts mainly in parliament, as is common under some similar arrangements abroad. However, the ODS did not gain a strong or direct way of influencing executive power, as there was no parallel to ministers outside the cabinet as in New Zealand, or political advisors to the ministries as in Sweden. The text of the Opposition Agreement did not include any paragraph about cooperation in terms of supporting a particular program. The only, but important, exception was the idea of reforming the political system, which, however, lacked specific details. It was this lack of details that, in the fall of 1999, contributed to a crisis in the Opposition Agreement because of disagreements between the ODS and ČSSD on major reforms to the electoral system. Along with the problem of how to collect enough votes to approve the budget, the issue of electoral reform became the subject of a new agreement between the two big parties that was called the Tolerance Patent. The Tolerance Patent significantly strengthened cooperation between the ČSSD and ODS, but, on the other, it did not constitute a comprehensively institutionalized agreement on cooperation. |
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