I will deal with the actual poll results in a few future posts, but I want build on the introduction of the Czech dashboard by talking about broader trends and in particular by assessing the magnitude of “new party eruptions,” the dominant feature of the current Czech campaign. In my own recent study of populism …
I was intrigued to see stories about a recent Fico appearance, particularly one in HNOnline entitled, “Fico: There is an artificially created impression that every politician is a thief.” How did that impression get created? I have a partial theory: The points Fico raises in the article are not at all inappropriate: Politics is hard …
Thanks to Michael Petras and Martin Muransky for organizing a fabulous conference:Below please find a few notes from various speakers and at the bottom, the conference schedule in Slovak. Social Democracy after the 2006 Elections in Slovakia Bratislava, Slovakia, 23-24 May 2008 Organized by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Social Policy of the Slovak GovernmentJuraj Draxler, …
(or why Dr. Sean hits the nail on the head) Kudos to Sean Hanley for his recent post, Do Slovak and Czech Christian Democrats have a prayer? Dr. Hanley, whose blog (Dr. Sean’s Diary, http://drseansdiary.blogspot.com/) has long been my model for public, academc discourse on postcommunist Europe, yet again calls attention to precisely the questions …
Vernor Vinge, "People Power in the Future" No one knows the future, so scenarios are much preferred to predictions (and for some the most important issues, scenarios are more useful than elaborate probability analysis). Straight line linear projections, predictions from the futurists of the 1970’s in regard to oil prices proved accurate with regard to …
One more brief post on an issue separate from (but perhaps closely related to) the question of populism and its routinization. As graphs of party support show (xxx), Slovakia’s party scene has divided itself into three distinct groupings when measured in terms of popular support: Smer, in a league by itself; a cluster around 10% …
