: COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION politics Q Routledge Taylor &. Francis Group Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics ISSN: 1352-3279 (Print) 1743-9116 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjcs20 Europeanization of Political Parties and the Party System in the Czech Republic Vít Hloušek & Pavel Pšeja To cite this article: Vít Hloušek & Pavel Pšeja (2009) Europeanization of Political Parties and the Party System in the Czech Republic, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 25:4, 513-539, DOI: 10.1080/13523270903310902 To link to this article: https://doi.Org/10.1080/13523270903310902 Published online: 25 Nov 2009. Submit your article to this journal C? [JH. Article views: 443 pjl View related articles G? ffil Citing articles: 5 View citing articles 0 Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journal Info rmation?journalCode=fjcs21 Europeanization of Political Parties and the Party System in the Czech Republic VIT HLOUŠEK AND PAVEL PSEJA The experience of the major political parties of the Czech Republic, both in the EU accession period and after joining the Union, suggests that processes of Europeanization have had only a limited impact, not simply on party programmes and organizations, but also on the structure and content of party politics and policies. Nonetheless, the field of policy appears to be a potentially more relevant area for Europeanization to have an impact than in the arena of politics, understood as the inter-party quest for power. This study examines processes of Europeanization, and their scope and impact on political parties and the party system of one of the new EU member countries, the Czech Republic. The Czech case is interesting not only because of the relative maturity of the Czech party system1 (primarily in comparison with developments in some of the other Central and East European -CEE - countries), but also because Europeanization is in some respects related to the processes of democratic transition. Indeed, the relationship between transition to and consolidation of democracy and Europeanization could be described as an interactive one. Moreover, Czech politics (or at least some parties and politicians) are often seen as assuming a cautious approach towards the EU. Research on the Europeanization of Czech parties, especially the degree to which this phenomenon does occur and in which segments of party politics this happens, therefore, can help us better understand the general dynamics of Europeanization. The essay is organized as follows. After a brief discussion aimed at clarifying the concept of Europeanization in regard to political parties from Vít Hloušek is Associate Professor in the Department of European Studies and International Relations, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, in Brno, the Czech Republic. He specializes in comparative political science, especially political and party systems in Europe, contemporary history, and the shaping and development of modern mass politics in Central Europe. Pavel Pšeja is Assistant Professor at the same institution. His research focuses on party systems and party politics, specifically in Central Europe, and in various issues related to the transition processes in post-communist countries. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.25, No.4, December 2009, pp.513-539 ISSN 1352-3279 print/1743-9116 online DOI: 10.1080/13523270903310902 © 2009 Taylor & Francis 514 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS countries of the so-called post-communist wave of EU expansion, we delimit key fields of potential Europeanization. The Czech example is then used in order to test the real impact of Europeanization on political parties and the party system, examining in particular party appeals, party organizations and trans-national party links. We conclude that the Europeanization of particular parties is observable, but only to a certain extent. In line with the findings of other contributors to this collection, the impact of Europeanization on the Czech party system remains very limited, confirming the rather pessimistic views of the Europeanization effects on domestic party systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Europeanization of Political Parties and Party Systems: A Theoretical Framework for Empirical Analysis The dominant usage of the term 'Europeanization' is related to European integration, and how this complex process influences the various spheres of political life in states that have some relationship to this process, or bodies associated with the creation of new 'European' political structures (the European Parliament, European political parties, European Union policies, and so forth)/ European integration contains two mutually interrelated processes: the transfer of political powers to a supranational level in order to achieve specific political outcomes; and the establishment of new political institutions with executive, legislative and judicial powers. The structure of government institutions at the European level creates a special environment in which internal political actors must navigate and adapt their goals, strategies and functional and organizational structures to that environment.4 Robert Ladrech5 suggested five important (and often interrelated) areas in which research should be conducted on the phenomenon of the Europeanization of political parties: (1) programmatic change; (2) internal organizational change; (3) patterns of party competition; (4) party-government relations; and (5) relations beyond the national party system - supra-trans-national co-operation. Drawing on Ladrech's framework, we can assume that potential Europeanization effects on parties and party systems could be divided into three main categories: programmatic aspects (including party rhetoric in electoral campaigning, or the means of voters' mobilization more generally); organizational aspects (including internal changes to party organization, the potential emergence of new strata of party officials - Euro-representatives, lobbyists and so on6 - and the formalization of relations on the level of euro-parties); and potential changes in the format and mechanics of party systems (including a potential 'European' cleavage challenging Sartori's one-dimensional simplification of inter-party competition space). THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 515 If we observe the influence of European integration on the format and mechanics of party systems, we discover that Europeanization has had a minimal effect on these characteristic features of the national party systems in European countries. In the party systems of member states, neither European integration nor its individual sub-themes have led to significant transformation of the relevant political parties (and the format of party systems) and the area of political competition. The influence of Europeanization on political parties, then, has been rather indirect. According to Peter Mair and Robert Ladrech, European integration gradually limits the room for manoeuvre of governments on issues of state policy, and thus in practice voids the arena of domestic political competition, in the sense that parties seriously seeking to play a part in forming governments must first come to an elementary consensus concerning their main political direction. Peter Mair speaks in this context of the de-politicization of political themes related to European integration. Hence, Ladrech indicates that the most important task for research on Europeanization and its impact on political parties is the analysis of the adaptation by parties to these changes in the operating environment, at both the political and the organizational levels.9 The Czech Party System Before and After 2004 The Czech party system seems to confirm Mair's basic assumption of no impact of Europeanization on the format of the party system. It had already achieved basic stability during the second half of the 1990s, and despite small changes the system as a whole tends clearly towards the format of Sartori's limited pluralism.10 There were six significant parties after the 1996 parliamentary elections, five after the elections of 1998, 2002 and 2006. Four major parties have remained significant since the very beginnings of the Czech party system: the Civic Democratic Party (Občanská demokra-tická strana: ODS), Czech Social Democratic Party (Česká strana sociálně demokratická: ČSSD), Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Komunis- v v tická strana Cech a Moravy: KSČM), and Christian and Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People's Party (Křestanská a demokratická unie-Československá strana lidová: KDU-CSL). Other parties that fall into the category of significant party, but have not always been present, include the right-wing extremist Republican Party and two liberal or conservative-liberal right-wing parties: the Civic Democratic Alliance (Občanská demokratická aliance: ODA) and its replacement the Freedom Union (Unie svobody: US). The last-named party was marginalized before the 2006 elections, but recently the Green Party (Strana zelených: SZ) entered the parliamentary arena.11 However, the format of two main poles (Civic and Social Democrats), two small poles in the centre of the Czech party 516 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS system (the Greens and Christian Democrats) and one peripheral left-wing pole (Communists) remained untouched. None of the above-mentioned changes can be explained even partially by Europeanization. No single-issue europhile or eurosceptic party occupies the position of a significant party. The only case that deserves discussion because of a possible direct effect of Europeanization could be the European Democrats (SNK Evropští demokraté: SNK-ED). The party did well in the elections to the European Parliament (EP) in 2004, in which it presented itself as a strongly pro-European formation. Euro-enthusiasm, however, is only part of the explanation. First of all, as is the norm in member states, EP elections are second-order elections in the Czech Republic and the turnout was quite low, reaching only 28.32 per cent. Most of the electoral success of the SNK-ED could be explained by the huge popularity of independent candi-dates. " Moreover, the European Democrats were not a single-issue pro-European party: rather, it was established in order to supply a liberal alternative to ODS. Last but not least, the EP elections list was led by the popular and charismatic politician Jana Hybášková. Later developments have shown that the party has not managed to maintain political relevance at the level of the Czech party system. In January 2006, the SNK and the ED merged to form the SNK European Democrats, but in the 2006 parliamentary elections they won only 2.08 per cent of the votes. We can conclude that no direct Europeanization effect was shown in the case of the format of the Czech party system, but what about the mechanics and the logic of the party system's functioning? The main question is whether the parties have sought to use the European issue more in inter-party competition since EU accession. We seek to provide an answer by assessing the structure of cleavages in the Czech party system, and by comparing and contrasting the 2002 and 2006 election campaigns. In Sartori's terms, the Czech party system oscillates between moderate and polarized pluralism. As Maxmilián Strmiska argues,14 this is in part thanks to relatively strong peripheral forces, the anti-systemic Communist Party and the level of polarization of the Czech electorate. The important point to stress here is that neither progress in the accession process nor entering the EU has had any impact on the main basic characteristics of the Czech party system, as the stable semi-polarized attributes persist from the period before the 'hot' accession phase. In a similar vein, the basic cleavage structure remained untouched by the European integration process. The cleavage based on socio-economic factors, which was already dominant in the 1992-96 electoral term, increased in salience in the 1996 and 1998 elections. Moreover, the prevailing dominance of the socio-economic cleavage was demonstrated by the main themes of the two THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 517 v major parties, CSSD and ODS, in the period before and after the 2002 election.15 The 2002 parliamentary elections were the first that were influenced by a clear prospect of Czech membership of the EU. The main question was not whether to join the EU or not, but rather the issue was one of differences in the rhetoric of particular parties relating to the conditions for Czech membership and more generally the question of negotiation with the EU on particular matters. Whereas the Social Democrats, Civic Democrats and Quad Coalition (Union of Freedom and Christian Democrats mainly) supported EU membership, the Communists repeatedly declared their opposition to EU membership.16 Issues related to the EU were important for the electoral campaigning of significant Czech parties in 2002. Surprisingly little space was devoted to a general discussion of whether or not to join the EU. More contentious, however, was the question of the referendum on EU accession. While the Social Democrats wanted to introduce a general law on referendums, the Civic Democrats supported only a single-issue referendum on EU membership; but even the Communists declared that they would not block EU membership if the referendum confirmed a Czech pro-EU position. Other 'European' issues mixed traditional topics from the 1990s with new 'EU-fiavour' issues (the Benes decrees, the Sudeten German question, the Temelm nuclear power plant and so on). Such issues were exploited more by eurosceptic parties or politicians arguing that EU membership would reopen these issues and would provide unfavourable negotiating positions for 17 the Czech Republic. The only attempt to voice a pro-EU position as a leading issue in its electoral campaign was made by the Quad Coalition (later the 'Coalition' composed of KDU-CSL and US-DEU18) and most of all by Freedom Union, which had held its own campaign explaining the expected positive results of Czech membership. The Coalition had voiced strong support for EU membership and had declared its support for a federalist vision of further European integration, accusing other parties (mainly ODS) of a lack of modern 'European political culture'. However, this campaign - not helped by the internal problems of the Coalition - was not very successful. The strategy of putting a pro-EU position at the top of its political profile was abandoned by the Christian Democrats soon afterwards, while US began to fall apart through its own internal problems. We can conclude that the Europeanization of electoral campaigns reached its peak in the 2002 parliamentary elections; even so, EU issues were neither the most important of this campaign nor were they decisive for voters. Anti-EU issues were used more by extra-parliamentary parties, while EU issues were used by the more mainstream parties. The Social Democrats, for 518 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS example, tried to depict ODS as a eurosceptic party that could endanger the Czech Republic's entry to the EU.19 However, voters made their choices more on domestic issues (social and economic policy, stance towards the so-called opposition agreement and so on) than EU issues. Nonetheless, the different stances of parties towards European integration had a certain dividing and uniting capacity among the parties themselves. Indeed, it was the proclaimed pro-European attitude of the CSSD, the KDU-CSL and the US-DEU that served as an important justification for the government created by these parties after the election. As far as the 2006 parliamentary election is concerned, the role of EU issues dropped dramatically, as the main focus of the campaign was domestic matters. Foreign policy issues (including the EU questions in this respect) played only a secondary role in comparison with the 2002 or 21 1998 elections. EU issues were not hot issues of the electoral campaign of any significant Czech party even though each electoral programme contained the almost 'obligatory' passage devoted to the party's view of European integration. The pretty limited scope devoted to EU issues in party programmes corresponded well with the almost negligible role of EU matters in the electoral campaign. The only exception to this rule was the electoral manifesto of the Green Party, which contained many references to the EU and not just in the sectors devoted to foreign policy issues. The Greens, however, in some respects have only instrumentalized EU issues in order to present themselves as a normal part of a well-developed West European party system.23 Summing up the 2006 campaign, we can observe even a certain de-Eur-opeanization of Czech electoral competition. Issues related to social and economic policies were the dominant thematic foci of the significant Czech parties and the most important factor influencing voters' decisions. In comparison with the 2002 elections, the Social Democrats did not depict ODS as eurosceptic and hence, in terms of its European policy, a dangerous party. Thanks in part to the loss of influence of Vaclav Klaus, the previous self-declared 'euro-realistic' (meaning eurosceptic) rhetoric was omitted from ODS's platform. The role of Christian Democrats and Communists was secondary in the campaign, because the core of the election was reduced to a battle between the two major parties, CSSD and ODS. A comparison of the 2002 and 2006 elections, therefore, highlights that the Czech party system remained virtually untouched by Europeanization effects. No new parties have emerged (format), neither has a new cleavage formed, nor has Europe become a more important axis of inter-party competition (mechanics). Indeed, we can actually observe a decline of EU-related issues in political debate. Moreover, whereas the EU-related positions of the coalition partners were important in the formation of the government in 2002, the EU THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 519 v positions of coalition parties (ODS, KDU-CSL, and the Greens) in the government formed after the 2006 election played no significant role. Programmatic Changes of Czech Parties - Searching for the Role of a European Integration Agenda In the relatively early stages of the Czech party system's development, the programmes and declarations of Czech political parties highlighted a role played by Europe and the European Union. Since the very emergence of an independent Czech Republic in January 1993, and even earlier in Czechoslovakia, Czech political parties regularly employed slogans such as 'back to Europe', indicating that the Czech Republic wished to return to its 'rightful' place among the countries of traditional European culture and civilization that belonged to the European Union. However, despite this rather rhetorical emphasis on Europe and also the formal bonds that began to tie the Czech Republic to the European Union, necessitating some reflection in party programmes and other manifestos, up to the 1998 election to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament (the lower house) no obvious impact of European issues on party programmes was discernible beyond general statements, as the dominant political issues were those related to transformation within the country. However, after 1998 - and all the more so in the pre-election period in 2002 - there was an obvious increase in the deployment of EU-related issues, such as the Czech Republic's accession to the EU, the future development of the European Union, the euro, security, and social and financial regulations. Although after the Czech Republic's entry into the EU in the spring of 2004 there was a downward tendency in the emphasis on these issues, since 2007 we can identify another period of more frequent attention paid to questions linked to the EU and its policies. This increased attention was evidently related to the Czech presidency of the EU in the first half of 2009 and possibly also to the continuing adjustments of the Czech Republic as an EU member. In general terms we can say it is relatively easy to identify several fields in which European issues have evidently manifested themselves in party programmes. These include questions of accession and membership (naturally only up to 2004), the future of the EU and the Czech position within the EU, opportunities to draw on EU funds, and finally certain other issues of lesser relevance, including non-discrimination and promotion of equal rights, that have been occasionally raised in the programmes of some parties. While much can be said about individual expressions of party positions in these fields, let us emphasize that there have been two major elements shaping citizens' perception of European influence: the fact that all Czech political parties expressed general support for Czech membership of the European 520 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS Union, and the debate between supranational and intergovernmental visions of the EU, primarily epitomized in the debates surrounding what can be dubbed the 'European constitution' issue. However, should we wish to talk about Europeanization, we need to see whether these issues have shaped party programmes and also assess their prominence in comparison with other, more obviously domestic political issues. We focus primarily on the four 'ever-presents' of Czech party politics identified above (ODS, ČSSD, KSČM and KDU-ČSL). In addition, we include the Green Party, which had been an active player in Czech politics since 1990, and which succeeded in gaining parliamentary seats in the 2006 election. For the purpose of this essay we pay attention to the period immediately prior to Czech accession to the EU and to the first four years of membership, so we focus on the 2002 and 2006 party manifestos.26 Although we acknowledge the limitations of using party manifestos, in line with Haughton and Rybář,27 it is possible to argue that manifestos provide authoritative statements of parties' official positions and are usually an important source used by the media and parties themselves to shape public discourse. To make these manifestos comparable, we decided to make a thorough analysis both of party manifestos prepared for the 2002 and 2006 elections, and of fundamental party programmatic documents pre- 28 senting the long-term direction of specific parties. To allow for the easiest comparison of all parties under consideration, we have divided the manifestos of each party into 12 segments. Each party programme analysis is presented in a table giving details of the occurrence of any relevant reference to the EU that can be found in the documents mentioned above. For each party, three evaluation criteria are used depending on the context in which the reference is made: in this way we differentiate between positive (+), neutral (0), and negative (-) references. Civic Democratic Party Following its liberal and conservative views, as coined by the first party chairman Václav Klaus, the party has traditionally preferred economic issues over any other field in the social arena. Moreover, in the field of foreign policy, or international politics in general, ODS often employs ways of thinking corresponding to the realist paradigm, thus being sceptical towards any attempt at creating a supranational entity. These patterns can be clearly seen in two major documents the party published in 2000 and in 2001, respectively: 'National Interest in the Real World'" and 'The Manifesto of the Czech 31 Euro-Realism'/ Opinions voiced in these documents were strongly reflected also in the 2002 election programme, in which ODS warned against a European 'super-state' and any attempt to strengthen the competencies of supranational THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 521 bodies, while emphasizing the important role of nation-states/ In accordance with these views, ODS also disagreed with any unification beyond the economic arena. In short, although ODS clearly supports Czech membership of the EU, it considers the European Union as a project that can be viable and desirable only if conceived along economic lines, and doubts the need for it as a tendency towards more substantial unity in other areas of political and social life. The same issues were also observable in the 2006 election programme, in which ODS continued to highlight the national interest, although at the same time making clear that there was no other way than continued membership of the EU. As Frizlova and her associates argue, regarding its contents the programmatic agenda of ODS has changed very slightly and the party, following its elites, keeps a stable position towards [the] EU ... over the years, the party declares an interest in [the] pragmatic employment of opportunities as presented by ... Czech membership in the European Union." In Table 1 we present the frequency of references to EU-related issues in the major programmes of ODS. At first sight it seems obvious there must have been a strong Europeanization in the period of 2002-6, but to assess the data correctly some further clarification is needed. First, the impact of the data is affected by differences in the programmes' volume: whereas the 2002 programme consists of almost 50,000 characters, the manifesto in 2006 was almost four times as long (approximately 179,000). Second, the long-term TABLE 1 REFERENCES TO EU KEYWORDS IN ODS PARTY PROGRAMMES (2002-6) 2002 2006 Lon g-term + 0 - + 0 - + 0 - Introduction 2 0 1 2 8 0 Social Policy - - - 5 0 0 - - - Housing and Regional Policy - - - 10 0 0 - - - Health Care - - - 2 0 0 - - - Economy 0 0 2 16 0 0 - - - Transport, Energy - - - 14 0 2 - - - Agriculture, Countryside - - - 11 0 0 - - - Education, Science, Information - - - 2 0 0 - - - Culture - - - 2 0 0 - - Environment 3 0 0 5 0 0 - - - Democracy, Justice 1 0 2 6 0 7 - - - Foreign Policy 20 0 40 34 0 8 24 4 0 Summary 24 0 44 109 0 18 26 12 0 522 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS programme, while being much shorter (just above 37,000), is also by far the oldest, as it was promulgated as early as 1995 - in very different conditions. Nevertheless, we can see that in the 2002 programme there was one reference to the EU per 735 characters, while in the long-term programme it was almost one per thousand characters, and in the 2006 manifesto almost twice as many as in 2002. This in fact means the frequency of references decreased proportionately by half between 2002 and 2006. Still, there are other relevant qualitative indicators. For example, in the 2002 programme, the chapter 'ODS votes for EU', which paid major attention to the Union, included some 90 per cent of all references to the Union and introduced the programme as such; in 2006, by contrast, references to the EU are scattered throughout the manifesto and there is no chapter specifically dedicated to the EU. On the other hand, the 2006 programme was much more pro-European in the sense that only some 15 per cent of references indicated negative opinions of the EU, while in 2002 negative expressions accounted for about two-thirds of all EU references. In ODS programmes, therefore, there is an inclination to Europeanization in qualitative terms, while at the same time in quantitative terms the European issues seem to have lost relevance since the country's accession to the EU. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia KSCM is the only significant Czech party that does not support Czech membership of the European Union, or - to put it at its mildest - declares a very cautious approach to membership and is interested only in using it as a tool to promote its own ideas and Czech national interests. As with ODS, in the case of KSCM it is also possible to identify a certain decrease in the interest expressed in EU-related issues in 2006 in comparison with the 2002 pro-gramme. In other words, KSCM does not elaborate anything closely related to the EU's development; rather, it takes into account only issues that are important domestically, while displaying a potential to make use of EU resources. Most strikingly, KSCM strives to present its own project of European integration, which is significantly different from current developments, and highlights KSCM's general lack of interest in real-world policies (see Table 2).35 It is KSCM's long-term programme, presented in 2004, that gives us the best opportunity to assess the party's opinions on EU-related issues both quantitatively (52 references compared with 25 references in 2002, and 39 in 2006), and especially qualitatively (there is one reference per 764 characters in 2004, while in 2006 it is one reference per 1,353 characters and one reference per 2,080 characters in 2002). In all programmes, references to the EU are predominantly grouped in the categories of 'Foreign Policy' and 'Democracy'; and while the 2002 and long-term programmes present quite a balanced view in THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 523 TABLE 2 REFERENCES TO EU KEYWORDS IN KSCM PARTY PROGRAMMES (2002-6) 2002 2006 Lon g-term + 0 - + 0 - + 0 - Introduction 3 0 0 Social Policy 1 - 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 Housing and Regional Policy 2 0 0 1 0 0 - - - Health Care Economy 1 0 0 1 0 3 2 0 0 Transport, Energy 0 0 1 1 0 0 - - - Agriculture, Countryside 3 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 1 Education, Science, Information - - - 1 0 0 1 0 0 Culture - - - - - - 1 0 0 Environment 1 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 1 Democracy, Justice - - - 6 0 1 2 0 7 Foreign Policy 3 2 9 10 4 5 15 1 16 Summary 11 2 12 24 6 9 26 1 25 terms of whether the approach is positive or negative, the 2006 programme seems to be, surprisingly enough, somewhat more pro-European. What is quite striking about KSCM's approach to the employment of EU issues in its manifestos is this apparent shift towards a more welcoming approach (or less hostile one), in the period 2004-6, because while in the long-term programme the party in both major chapters assumes a clearly anti-European position, in 2006 there appears a conspicuous shift towards a more pragmatic acceptance of Czech membership of the EU. Czech Social Democratic Party Unlike ODS and especially KSCM, Czech social democrats are strongly in favour of European integration and tend to highlight the positive aspects of Czech membership. Surprisingly enough, CSSD's 2002 programme includes references to the EU that are very limited in number and dispersed throughout the text. However, in the 2006 programme not only can we find a special subchapter dealing specifically with the EU, but there is an obvious tendency to present Czech membership of the EU as a success story, pointing out examples of 'catching up' with the traditional EU economies. Comparing the 2002 and 2006 election programmes, we can note several very intriguing findings. First, there was a huge upsurge in the frequency of EU references, climbing from a very modest 20 occurrences in 2002 to 183 in 2006, while the long-term programme (published in 2004) contained as many as 354 references (see Table 3). However, as with the majority of other parties, the programme for the 2006 election was much more extensive, 524 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS TABLE 3 REFERENCES TO EU KEYWORDS IN CSSD PARTY PROGRAMMES (2002-6) 2002 2006 Lonj £-term + 0 - + 0 - + 0 - Introduction 21 0 0 22 0 0 Social Policy 1 0 0 5 0 0 10 0 0 Housing and Regional Policy - - - 4 0 1 2 0 0 Health Care - - - 6 0 0 2 0 0 Economy 6 0 0 36 0 0 17 0 0 Transport, Energy - - - 9 0 0 3 0 0 Agriculture, Countryside 0 0 3 9 2 5 0 0 10 Education, Science, Information - - - 18 0 0 13 0 0 Culture - - - 8 0 0 13 0 0 Environment - - - 2 0 0 22 0 1 Democracy, Justice 4 0 0 8 0 0 13 0 0 Foreign Policy 6 0 0 49 0 0 201 2 14 Summary 17 0 3 175 2 6 318 2 25 including almost 180,000 characters compared with the 25,000 characters of the 2002 programme/ On the other hand, CSSD is unique in the volume of its long-term programme (an almost unparalleled 277,662 characters). Despite this extraordinary increase in size, the frequency of references, while it has also risen, increased at a much slower pace. Nevertheless, we can observe both quantitative and qualitative progress towards a more relevant role of EU-related issues. Significantly enough, CSSD tended to play down any issues that might be interpreted as contradicting the benefits of Czech membership of the European Union, so consequently the ratio of neutral and negative references to all references dropped from approximately 15 per cent of the total number of references in 2002 to about 5 per cent in both of the later programmes. Christian and Democratic Union—Czechoslovak People's Party Any assessment of the impact of Europeanization on programmes presented by the KDU-CSL may be deemed rather more difficult as this party was part of the Quad Coalition^ in the 2002 election. Fortunately, KDU-CSL supplied the major parts of the Coalition programme/ so it is still possible to compare the 2002 and 2006 programmes in a meaningful way (see Table 4). The 2002 programme contained a full chapter ('Coalition for the European Future and Security of our Country') focused on European issues, which is a unique element in comparison with other election programmes. In this chapter, the major emphasis was on the federalization of Europe and further reinforcement of supranational features of the European Union. Also in the security THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 525 TABLE 4 REFERENCES TO EU KEYWORDS IN KDU-ČSL PARTY PROGRAMMES (2002-6) 2002 2006 Lon g-term + 0 - + 0 - + 0 - Introduction 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 4 0 Social Policy - - - - - - 0 1 1 Housing and Regional Policy Health Care 1 0 0 0 1 0 - - - Economy 13 0 0 5 2 1 0 5 0 Transport, Energy - - - 4 0 0 - - - Agriculture, Countryside 2 0 0 10 0 3 - - - Education, Science, Information 5 0 0 7 0 0 - - - Culture 1 0 0 1 0 0 - - - Environment 3 0 0 2 1 2 - - - Democracy, Justice 3 0 0 1 0 3 3 0 0 Foreign Policy 45 0 0 46 2 3 15 7 0 Summary 73 3 0 76 7 12 18 17 1 area the programme strongly favoured the common foreign and security policy, but advocated extending it further. Significantly, in the 2006 election programme some of the priorities highlighted four years earlier are absent. While KDU-CSL kept its obvious pro-EU stance, for example supporting federalization and further integration, it tended to put an emphasis on on making the best possible use of Czech EU membership/ However, although KDU-CSL in its 2006 programme stuck to many opinions expressed in 2002, the scope of details elaborated in the programme was much more limited, thus leaving more space for discussion of domestic political issues. In terms of Eur-opeanization, at any rate, it is important to say that KDU-CSL in the 2004 election to the European Parliament clearly employed the programmatic values of the European People's Party (of which KDU-CSL is a member), which can be seen as probably the clearest evidence of Europeanization to be found in the programmes of significant Czech political parties. Unlike other parties - with the partial exception of KSCM - with KDU-CSL we witnessed no significant increase in the number of references to EU issues (from 76 to 95), which may come as a surprise given the strong pro-European reputation that the party enjoys. On the other hand, in the 2006 election KDU-CSL also presented a programme that was much larger than its predecessor - almost 150,000 characters against slightly more than 60,000. This resulted in an actual and strong decrease in frequency, as the 2006 programme employed only one reference per 1,562 characters, while in 2002 it was one in 831 characters. The long-term programme fell exactly 526 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS between these extremes, but is of limited use in this regard given its adoption as early as 1997. The Green Party When compared with other parties in this research, it is obvious that the Greens present a special case. It is the only party we examine that has not been represented in the Czech parliament since the very beginnings of the Czech party system in the early 1990s. While we cannot therefore follow the transformations of the party programmes in the perspective of its parliamentary representation, it is to be noted that the Greens have been a part of Czech party politics since 1990, and their breakthrough into parliament in 2006 gives us an opportunity to consider whether developments observable in such a party differ in any substantial way from those we can analyse in parties with longer parliamentary experience. As is evident from Table 5, the frequency of references to EU-related issues is not in any case different from other parties, the only exception being their extremely low occurrence in the 2002 programme - 11 references represent by far the least number encountered anywhere. As is common elsewhere, the steep increase of references in the 2006 programme is primarily due to its sheer size (nine times as voluminous as the 2002 programme), but unlike all other parties the Greens still kept a very low relative ratio: in 2002 there was only one reference per 2,175 characters, and in the long-term programme (announced in 2003), and consequently in the 2006 programme, this item increased to 1,780 and 1,647 characters, respectively. However, these TABLE 5 REFERENCES TO EU KEYWORDS IN GREEN PARTY PROGRAMMES (2002-6) 2002 2006 Long-term + 0 - + 0 - + 0 - Introduction 0 1 2 3 4 0 Social Policy - - - 9 0 6 - - - Housing and Regional Policy - - - 9 0 0 - - - Health Care - - - 2 0 0 - - - Economy 1 0 0 11 0 0 - - - Transport, Energy 1 0 0 13 2 0 - - - Agriculture, Countryside - - - 9 0 0 2 0 0 Education, Science, Information - - - - - - 1 0 0 Culture - - - - - - 0 0 1 Environment 1 0 0 7 0 0 4 0 0 Democracy, Justice 1 0 0 12 0 0 8 0 0 Foreign Policy 4 0 0 38 2 4 29 0 3 Summary 8 1 2 113 8 10 44 0 4 THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 527 programmes are still lagging substantially behind those of other parties (with the unique exception of the KSCM programme for the 2002 election), as their employment of EU keywords is dramatically low. Really Europeanization ? Bringing together the findings from individual parties, a number of comparative observations can be made (summarized in Table 6). First, in all cases there is a relative increase (in some of them even an enormous one) in the size of programmes for 2002 and 2006 elections respectively. The Green Party's manifesto increased by almost 900 per cent - from approximately 14 to some 120 pages. However, a very different picture can be seen once we try to analyse the frequency of references. While the number of these references increased in all 2006 programmes, in only some programmes was this increase sufficient also to produce a higher frequency (CSSD, KSCM and the Green Party). To see this clearly, we can make use of the characters per reference ratio. Here, in 2002 ODS was the most 'European' party, with 735 characters per reference, followed by KDU-ČSL (831) and ČSSD (1,291), while KSČM (2,080) and the Greens (2,175) did not mention the EU very much. In 2006, the lead was taken over by ČSSD (1,021), followed by KSČM (1,353), ODS (1,410), KDU-ČSL (1,562) and the Greens (1,647). The differences are striking. While in 2002 there were huge distinctions between the parties, four years later the figures are much more similar. Moreover, the highest frequencies in 2006 are lower than those in 2002, which can be interpreted as a sign of diminishing interest in presenting the EU as a major issue.40 Rather, as we can see, the EU is often referred to in relation to a domestic problem, regardless of whether this is perceived as an obstacle or a stimulus. In both cases it acts as an external factor. Since parties act via governments, it is of interest to see what kind of data we can get by applying the same methodology to Czech governments in the same period.41 As our analysis of the governments' programmatic documents in Table 7 shows, the major value - ratio of characters to references - is very similar in all cases, the only exception being the Topolanek's government, 42 which employed EU words somewhat less often. What is more striking is the fact that the ratios for the governments correspond to the best results ever achieved by parties, which may lead us to argue the governments obviously tend to be more focused on European themes than do parties. In this context, the expectations that there will be an impact in the political arena may well be associated with a country's adjustments to the acquis com-munautaire and similar technical factors, and we might expect this impact to be given significant reflection in parties' manifestos as well. However, this is obviously not the case. It can be argued, though, that parties are 'carriers of TABLE 6 REFERENCES TO EU KEYWORDS IN MAJOR PARTY PROGRAMMES ČSSD KDU-ČSL KSČM ODS Green Party Long- Long- Long- Long- Long- 2002 2006 term 2002 2006 term 2002 2006 term 2002 2006 term 2002 2006 term Number of 25,821 178,684 277,662 63,166 148,385 40,257 51,994 52,775 39,746 49,963 179,070 37,558 23,921 215,704 78,342 characters Characters : 1,291 1,021 784 831 1,562 1,118 2,080 1,353 764 735 1,410 988 2,175 1,647 1,780 reference ratio Introduction - 21 22 3 1 4 - - 3 - 3 10 3 7 0 Social Policy 1 5 10 0 0 2 2 1 1 - 5 - 0 15 0 Housing and 0 5 2 0 0 — 2 1 0 — 10 — 0 9 0 Regional Policy Health Care 0 6 2 1 1 - 0 0 0 - 2 - 0 2 0 Economy 6 36 17 13 8 5 1 3 2 2 16 0 1 11 0 Transport, - 9 3 - 4 - 1 1 - - 16 - 1 15 0 Energy Agriculture, 16 10 2 13 - 4 2 1 - 11 9 2 Countryside Education, 0 18 13 57 021 2 001 Science, Information Culture 0 8 13 1 1 - 0 0 1 - 2 - - 0 1 Environment 0 2 22 3 5 - 1 3 2 3 5 - 1 7 4 Democracy, 4 8 13 3 4 3 0 7 9 3 13 0 1 12 8 Justice Foreign Policy 6 49 227 45 51 22 14 19 32 60 42 28 4 44 32 Summary 17 183 354 76 95 36 25 39 52 68 127 38 11 131 48 THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 529 TABLE 7 REFERENCES TO EU KEYWORDS IN THE PROGRAMMES OF RECENT CZECH GOVERNMENTS 2002 2004 2005 2007 (Špidla) (Gross) (Paroubek) (Topolánek) Number of characters 100,879 64,879 82,211 62,843 Characters : reference ratio 758 746 697 982 Introduction 8 8 27 3 Democracy, Justice 5 4 3 2 Economy 23 10 14 3 Transport, Energy 6 3 4 6 Education, Science, 2 7 11 - Information Agriculture, Countryside 3 7 6 6 Housing and Regional 5 4 6 1 Policy Environment 1 0 0 3 Social Policy 16 5 7 5 Security 22 7 6 - European Union 40 13 15 27 Foreign Policy - 19 19 8 Conclusion 2 0 0 - Summary 133 87 118 64 Europeanization' while at the same time they themselves are not particularly affected by it. Another notable element, clearly emerging from an analysis of party programmes, can be seen in the frequency in which the party programmes employ EU- and Europe-related keywords in the fields of foreign policy and security: as a rule these two areas present by far the most numerous segment in our analysis. In the case of ODS, in the 2002 and 2006 programmes, respectively, these areas account for 88 and 33 per cent of all occurrences, while in the programmes of other parties they amount, respectively, to 33 and 28 per cent (ČSSD), 56 and 49 per cent (KSČM), 59 and 54 per cent (KDU-ČSL), and 36 and 34 per cent (Greens). Although in all cases there is some decrease in the proportional relevance of foreign policy and security as primary fields of the EU and European agenda, only ODS provides an example of substantial change. Our analysis of party documents prompts a number of conclusions. First, there is a striking difference between developments regarding the quality and the quantity of the European features of party programmes. In 2006 we can find relatively numerous passages, dispersed throughout the programmes, which in one way or another touch on particular details related to various EU policies and so on, and their implementation in the Czech Republic. 530 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS However, this cannot be interpreted as a sign of Europeanization. Rather, the emergence of such particular points of reference is closely related to the socioeconomic cleavage (by far the most important cleavage in Czech politics). Indeed, issues of the EU and European integration frequently enter domestic debates in the socio-economic field, although this varies from party to party. " Second, we have seen that references to the EU and European issues are especially frequent in the fields of foreign policy and security, which can be interpreted as an indicator that the EU is perceived as an actor external to the domestic political arena. Indeed, developments related to the EU and Europe are seen as relevant only when they directly influence some hot domestic political issues. Third, regardless of their stance on the role the EU does or should play in contemporary European politics, all Czech parties seem to understand EU influences and politics as a framework of reference for domestic politics, or - to put it more precisely - for their own programmatic agenda. In these conditions it is possible to argue that Europeanization in the field of party programmes remains limited to this referential level, as it is difficult to identify any substantial changes in party programmes that might be directly derived from EU developments. Still, should we wish to search for particular levels of Europeanization, it may be said - perhaps rather surprisingly - that ODS displays the most striking elements of Europeanization in its qualitative dimension, although it often conceives of the EU in a negative way. Above all, despite any effort to find direct proof of Europeanization, it is obvious that developments that can be understood in such a way continue to play secondary roles in party programmes, and definitely do not have a major impact on party agendas. Does Europeanization Affect the Organizational Structure of Czech Political Parties? In terms of the size of the membership base, Czech political parties are more like narrow professional teams that approach the organizational characteristics of a cartel party where mass membership is de-emphasized.44 Such centralized parties tend to accord experts a strong role, thereby opening up potentially important space for European specialists as well. However, it is not easy to judge the role of European policy specialists within Czech political parties. Poguntke and his collaborators45 offer a broad conceptual map of potential effects of Europeanization on the party structure and the distribution of power. As far as informal channels of intra-party decision making are concerned, we acknowledge that more detailed qualitative research is needed in order to grasp the real role of European specialists.46 THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 531 The specific position of parties' representatives in EU institutions is not reflected in the formal documents of significant Czech parties such as statutes AH zLS or party rules. In some cases (ODS and the Green Party ) party rules in force in late 2008 were adopted before the Czech Republic entered the EU. The other parties adopted new party rules after accession: CSSD in March 2007, KDU-ČSL in March 2005, and the KSČM in May 2004. The Social Democrats'49 and Christian Democrats'50 party rules reflect membership of euro-parties as well as representation of MEPs on party governing boards.51 In compliance with its rather sceptical position towards the EU, the position of 'European' delegates is not specified at all in KSCM party rules with the exception that party MEPs are listed as possible candidates who may be 52 elected to the party Central Committee by the Congress. We can observe a general tendency of more pro-European parties according greater representation to MEPs in their supreme bodies than the parties with sceptical or reserved stances. MEPs are consulted on questions needing EU expertise, but only in ODS do MEPs serve as occasional agenda-setters. Indeed, the EU agenda is generally elaborated by the institutions that deal with foreign policy issues within the parties; CSSD alone has created a special sub-committee working under the committee of foreign affairs and preparing the party's stances on EU matters. Two factors limit the impact of MEPs. First, parties that reserve ex officio positions within central party bodies have too few EU specialists; indeed, the real power of MEPs in CSSD, KDU-CSL and the Green Party was limited owing to poor performance in the 2004 EP elections. Second, the position and importance of MEPs is based more on the previous political career of particular individuals. Trans-national Aspects of Europeanization - Relations of Czech Parties to Euro-parties53 Since the 1990s, Czech political parties have tried to build new links to euro-parties driven in part by ideological affinity, and also by the potential advantages of co-operation. EU enlargement opened the way for Czech political parties to become fully fledged members of European party federations and EP groups. Looking at the distribution of Czech political parties among euro-parties, the situation is similar to most Western European countries. At the time of writing, KDU-CSL, ODS and European Democrats' MEPs belong to the EPP-ED group, ČSSD belongs to PES, the Communist MEPs to GUE-NGL, and one deputy belongs to the IND/DEM group. The relations of Czech relevant parties to euro-parties differ, however. CSSD is a fully-fledged member of PES, KDU-CSL is a member of EPP, and the Greens belong to EGP without being represented in the EP. Both the Social 532 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS Democrats and Christian Democrats are very loyal to their euro-parties as far as programmatic proximity and behaviour in the EP are concerned. However, programmatic proximity could be observed at least since the mid-1990s in both cases,54 so virtually no Europeanization in this respect could be observed in the period slightly before and after the Czech Republic's entry into the EU. KSCM is an observer at the Party of the European Left (PEL) and a member of GUE-NGL, having a relatively strong position in both groups thanks to its success in national and European elections. KSCM tries to be active inside the PEL structures and promotes the expansion of PEL to the whole European continent. This is a clear outcome of the party's eurosceptic position. European questions, however, play only a minor role as far as domestic electoral mobilization and the political performance of the Czech Communists are concerned, so we can again assume that entering euro-party structures has had virtually no impact on KSCM's Europeanization. The most interesting case remains the Civic Democrats. ODS belongs to the EPP-ED group, but has considered joining the Alliance for a Europe of Nations group, and it followed the British Conservatives in becoming part of the European Democrat sub-grouping of EPP, mainly because of ODS's different (that is, non-federalist) views on European integration.55 However, it is worth stressing that in various policy areas ODS's programme is fully compatible with the EPP.56 Links with euro-parties, EP groupings (or both), therefore, had no significant impact on Czech parties in the period under review. By the year 2000, all relevant Czech parties were clear in respect of their European party federations' links, although these were formalized into full membership only with accession. Concluding Remarks 57 Following the items listed in the introductory essay to this collection, we can conclude the survey of the impact of direct Europeanization on Czech political parties and party system as follows. First, in formal terms, the role of European specialists has increased within party decision-making processes in comparison with the 1990s. Most new party rules recognize in some way the existence of such specialists. With the exception of KSCM, the governing bodies of all Czech political parties include an EU specialist, but the position is not always occupied because, for example, some parties do not have an MEP. Generally, we can assess the role of European policy specialists in Czech relevant parties as being on a medium level of impact. Second, as far as power distribution within the parties is concerned, we can observe no clear outcomes of potential Europeanization of the power THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 533 structure. A partial explanation could be found in the cartel-like party organization, which depends decisively on state resources, both political and material (financial). The Europeanization of Czech political parties' internal party structure is thus rather limited and the scope of the impact remains low. Third, European issues were and are used by Czech political parties as a tool for mobilizing voters and for purposes of inter-party competition. Comparison of the 2002 and 2006 parliamentary elections, however, demonstrates clearly that the relative importance of EU-related issues has dropped dramatically. In 2002, the EU belonged to the most-invoked issues, demonstrating medium to high levels of electoral campaign Europeanization. Four years later, however, the importance of these issues sank to a low level when Czech parties employed EU issues rarely, and usually in conjunction with other themes. Fourth, party programmes tend to display somewhat ambiguous tendencies regarding the prominence of EU-related issues, but in general there has been a quantitative increase in the employment of these issues, while their relative weight is quite heavily dependent on the views held by a party. In other words, the effects of EU-related issues have grown to be a standard part of the Czech parties' programmes; however, there is no sign that these issues may produce influences other than those constituting a referential framework for domestic politics. Fifth, party federations and groupings play no significant role as carriers of Europeanization, which can be primarily explained by two factors. First, all significant Czech parties had established stable connections to euro-parties by 2000, so there was no reason for them to modify any of their strategies or policies to achieve such an aim. Second, almost none of the Czech parties consider their participation in a party federation so crucial as to model its policies along the lines set out by the federation. The only exception is KDU-CSL, which explicitly refers to the EPP programme as one of the major sources of its own inspiration. Finally, other signs of direct Europeanization could be seen in the fact that after the 2002 parliamentary elections, the pro-EU stances of coalition parties helped to bridge important ideological gaps between Social Democrats, on the one hand, and Christian Democrats and Union of Freedom, on the other. This tendency was not confirmed after the 2006 election because the ODS, somewhat reserved in its attitude to the EU, created a coalition government with the strongly pro-European KDU-CSL and the Greens. We can conclude either that there is no substantial influence of Europeanization on the Czech political parties and their system, or at best that an obvious ambiguity in the relevance of European issues can be observed. The crucial point is that no EU-related issue constitutes an area of real interest for the Czech electorate, therefore political parties do not feel a strong need to 534 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS voice these issues. Although there were attempts by Freedom Union to build a party image on the basis of its stance towards the EU and European integration, these attempts invariably failed to attract a substantial number of voters for the party. In essence, there are two ways in which EU-related issues are employed: either as referential points for the domestic political agenda, or in a very particular way, as part of the broader discussion of specific issues within the domestic socio-economic arena which is partially influenced by Czech membership of the European Union. So far, Europeanization has had no serious impact on the crucial features of the party politics in the Czech Republic: the format and mechanics of the party system have remained intact; party organizations partially incorporate changes incurred by the Czech membership of the EU, but in an insignificant way; and, while some changes in party programmes are traceable, these tend to display at least an ambiguous, and to some extent even a downgrading, tendency concerning their relevance, and definitely do not create or reflect any significant cleavage. In this context, an intriguing point made by Cabada should be emphasized: the strong impact of Europeanization in the 58 Czech Republic can be observed in the field of policy. However, even when parties play important roles in creating and developing various policies, governments are more substantial actors in their practical implementation and any impact of Europeanization is likely to be more discernible in the governmental agenda, or even in the public arena. Also, Cabada notes, we can discuss Europeanization in the field of politics (power relations), but such a discussion is likely to be to some extent normative.59 Here, it should be added that, while we do not think any normative inclination must be necessarily related to Europeanization in the field of politics, it cannot be precluded. These references to the importance of policy and to the role of governments should make us pay at least passing attention to a major question: why we should expect that there would be any Europeanization? It is in the policy field that expectations arise; but policies, although they are in many cases presented by parties in their preliminary stage, are in practice modified and implemented by governments, so these expectations are related to parties only indirectly. In other words, there is a kind of confusion. While we may expect major effects following from EU membership, such a position is based on our perception of governmental policies, which are derived from parties, but obviously remain different. As parties have to compromise their opinions in governmental coalitions, they still can stick to their original beliefs in their programmes, which makes them less susceptible to the possible impact of Europeanization. As Paul Lewis says, EU outcomes are pursued indirectly through governments rather than parties.60 Moreover, seen from the parties' viewpoint, we can make use of Tim Haughton and Marek THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 535 Rybář's comment in their contribution to this collection that for parties, Europe is just 'another tool in the toolbox', or a tool of standardization. There is some Europeanization of Czech party politics, but it is indirect rather than direct, implemented through governments rather than parties, more instrumental than substantial, and it refers more to policy than to politics. Given that expectations stem from the policy field, whereas our analysis of parties falls within the area of politics, it seems clear that these areas allow for very different functionality and are consequently difficult to compare. In other words, we tend to expect a different Europeanization from the one that parties experience in practice. At best, therefore, we can speak of 'weak' Europeanization in which the impact of direct Europeanization on Czech parties and the party system is very limited. Moreover, it does not seem very likely that there will be a relevant increase of Europeanization in the near future. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This essay was prepared as part of the project Political actors in the process of Europeanization and internationalization of the political environment of the Czech Republic of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Czech Republic (code 1J 002/04-DPI). The authors wish to thank Ms Zuzana Votrubová for her extremely helpful assistance in collecting materials and undertaking their analysis. NOTES 1. See Vít Hloušek and Lubomír Kopeček, 'Cleavages in the Contemporary Czech and Slovak Politics: Between Persistence and Change', East European Politics and Societies, Vol.22, No.3 (2008), pp.518-52. For general introductions to the issue of the Czech party system see Břetislav Dančák and Vít Hloušek, 'Czech Republic', in Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (ed.), Parties and Democracy (Bonn: Bouvier, 2007), pp.195-217; Kevin Deegan-Krause, Elected Affinities: Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006); and Petr Kopecký, 'The Rise of Power Monopoly: Political Parties in the Czech Republic', in Susanne Jungerstam-Mulders (ed.), Post-Communist EU Member States: Parties and Party Systems (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 125-45. 2. Geoffrey Pridham, Designing Democracy: EU Enlargement and Regime Change in Post-communist Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005), pp. 19-20; see also Frank Schim-melfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier (eds.), The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2005). 3. There is a vast body of literature using the term Europeanization: see Agnes Batory's contribution to this collection. 4. Simon Hix and Klaus H. Goetz, 'Introduction: European Integration and National Political Systems', West European Politics, Vol.23, No.4 (2000), pp.1-26 (pp.3-9). 5. Robert Ladrech, 'Europeanization and Political Parties: Towards a Framework for Analysis', Party Politics, Vol.8, No.4 (2002), pp.389-403 (pp.396-400). 6. See Elisabeth Carter, Kurt Richard Luther and Thomas Poguntke, 'European Integration and Internal Party Dynamics', in Thomas Poguntke, Nicholas Aylott, Elisabeth Carter, Robert Ladrech and Kurt Richard Luther, The Europeanization of National Political Parties: 536 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS Power and Organizational Adaptation (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 1-27 (pp.9-15). 7. See Nicoló Conti, 'Domestic Parties and European Integration: The Problem of Party Attitudes to the EU, and the Europeanisation of Parties', European Political Science, Vol.6, No.2 (2007), pp. 192-207. 8. Peter Mair, 'The Limited Impact of Europe on National Party Systems', West European Politics, Vol.23, No.4 (2000), pp.27-51 (pp.27-37); Peter Mair, 'Parties and Party Systems' (2006), available at: , accessed 13 June 2009. 9. Ladrech, Europeanization and Political Parties, pp.393-5; Robert Ladrech, 'The Europeani-zation of Interest Groups and Political Parties', in Simon Bulmer and Christian Lequesne (eds.), The Member States of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp.317-37 (pp.331-3); Mair, 'The Limited Impact of Europe', pp.48-9; Mair, 'Parties and Party Systems', pp.5-12. 10. Roman Chytilek and Jakub Šedo, 'Party System Stability and Territorial Patterns of Electoral Competition in the Czech Republic', in Vít Hloušek and Roman Chytilek (eds.), Parliamentary Elections and Party Landscape in the Visegrád Group Countries (Brno: CDK and ISPO, 2007), pp.23-35 (pp.26-7); Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp.125-9. 11. Pavel Saradin, 'The Influence of the Strong Bi-polarization', in Pavel Saradin and Eva Bradová (eds.), Visegrád Votes: Parliamentary Elections 2005-2006 (Olomouc: Palacký University, 2007), pp.13-37 (pp.14-5). 12. For detailed analyses of Czech parties see Sean Hanley, The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and Right-wing Politics, 1989-2006 (London and New York: Rout-ledge, 2007); Pavel Pšeja and Lubomír Kopeček, 'Czech Social Democracy and its Cohabitation with the Communist Party: The Story of a Neglected Affair', Communist and Post-communist Studies, Vol.41, No.3 (2008), pp.317-38; Pavel Pšeja, 'Holding the Ground: Communism and Political Parties in the Post-Communist Czech Republic', in Uwe Backes, Tytus Jaskulowski and Abel Polese (eds.), Totalitarismus und Transformation. Defizite der Demokratiekonsolidierung in Mittel- und Osteuropa (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), pp. 135-54. 13. There are clear parallels here with the Estonian case: see Sikk's contribution to this collection. 14. Maxmilián Strmiska, 'The Czech Multipartism in the Late 1990s: Some Remarks', Středoevropské politické studie, Vol.2, No.2 (2000), pp.1-6, available at: , accessed 13 June 2009; and Maxmilián Strmiska, 'The Czech Party System: A Few Observations on the Properties and Working Logic of the Czech Party Arrangement', in Hloušek and Chytilek (eds.), Parliamentary Elections and Party Landscape, pp. 107-15 (p. 113); Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, pp. 131-84. 15. See also Hloušek and Kopeček, 'Cleavages in the Contemporary Czech and Slovak Polities'. 16. However, the anti-EU stance was not central to Communist Party campaigning: see Lubomír Kopeček and Jakub Šedo, 'Czech and Slovak Political Parties and their Vision of European Integration', Středoevropské politické studie, Vol.5, No.l (2003), pp. 1-10 (pp.2-4). 17. Jaroslav Petřík, 'Postoj politických stran k EU ve volební kampani 2002 - Česká republika' ['Stance of Political Parties to the EU in Electoral Campaign 2002 - The Czech Republic'], in Jakub Šedo (ed.), Evropská otázka ve volebních kampaních [The European Question in Electoral Campaigns] (Brno: HPS, 2003), pp. 11-37 (pp.13-4). 18. US merged with a small party called Democratic Union (Demokratická unie: DEU), becoming US-DEU. 19. Jakub Šedo, 'Role Evropské unie a jejího rozšíření ve volební kampani' ['The Role of the European Union and its Enlargement in Electoral Campaigns'], in Šedo (ed.), Evropská otázka ve volebních kampaních, pp.126-39 (pp.126-33). 20. Klára Plecitá-Vlachová and Mary Stegmaier, 'The Chamber of Deputies Election, Czech Republic 2002', Electoral Studies, Vol.22, No.4 (2003), pp.772-8 (p.775). THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 537 21. Eva Bradová, Marek Migalski, Andrász Rácz and Pavel Šaradín, 'EU and Visegrád: The Foreign Policy Consequences of the Elections', in Šaradín and Bradová (eds.), Visegrád Votes, pp.188-209 (p.200). 22. Most Czech parties, however, included EU issues in their manifestos in general chapters devoted to foreign (and in some cases even security) policy: see Vlastimil Havlík, 'Evropská dimenze české politiky. Srovnání voleb do Poslanecké sněmovny v letech 2002 a 2006' ['European Dimension of Czech Politics: Comparison of 2002 and 2006 Chambers of Deputies Elections'], in Dalibor Caloud, Tomáš Foltýn, Vlastimil Havlík and Anna Matušková (eds.), Volby do Poslanecké sněmovny v roce 2006 [Elections to the Chamber of Deputies in 2006] (Brno: CDK and ISPO, 2006), pp.26-41 (pp.29-34). 23. Havlík, 'Evropská dimenze české politiky', pp.34-6. 24. The Accession agreement was signed in 1993 and the Czech Republic's membership application was submitted three years later. 25. A notable exception can be seen in the case of KSČM, which presented a very different vision of European integration and assumed a very cautious attitude towards the process: see Iveta Frízlová, Michaela Kozlová, Ondřej Málek and Jaroslav Švestka, 'Vliv evropeizace na české politické strany' ['Influence of Europeanization on Czech Political Parties'], Working Papers of International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University, No.20 (2006), pp.13-5, 18; and KSČM, Program KSČM do Poslanecké sněmovny PČR 2006 [KSČM's Election Manifesto for the 2006 Election to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic] (2006), p.16, available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008. 26. For an account of the developments related to party programmes that occurred in this period, see Havlík, 'Evropská dimenze české politiky', pp.26-41 (pp.36-9). 27. Tim Haughton and Marek Rybář, 'A Change of Direction: The 2006 Parliamentary Elections and Party Politics in Slovakia', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.24, No.2 (2008), pp.232-55. 28. The manifestos considered in this article are: ČSSD, Člověk na prvním místě. Volební program 2002 [People First: Election Programme 2002] (2002), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; ČSSD, Otevřenost novým výzvám — věrnost tradici [Open to New Challenges, Loyal to Tradition] (2004), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; ČSSD, Jistoty a prosperita. Volební program ČSSD [Certainty and Prosperity: ČSSD's Election Manifesto] (2006), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; KDU-ČSL, Křesťanskodemokratická politika pro 21. století [Christian-Democratic Politics for the 21st Century] (1997), in authors' archive; KDU-ČSL, Dáme věci do pořádku. Programové prohlášení Koalice [Setting it Right: Coalition's Programmatic Statement] (2002), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; KDU-ČSL, Volební program [Election Programme] (2006), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; KSČM, Program KSČM pro volby do PS PČR v roce 2002 [KSČM's Election Manifesto for the 2002 Election to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic] (2002), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; KSČM, Naděje pro Českou republiku [Hope for the Czech Republic] (2004), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; KSČM, Program KSČM do Poslanecké sněmovny PCR 2006; ODS, Politický program ODS [Political Programme of the ODS] (1995), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; ODS, Volební desatero [Electoral Decalogue] (2002), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; ODS, Společně pro lepší Život. Volební program 2006 [Together for a Better Life: 2006 Election Manifesto] (2006), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008; Strana zelených, Volební program 2002 [Green Party Election Programme 2002] 538 JOURNAL OF COMMUNIST STUDIES AND TRANSITION POLITICS (2002), in authors' archive; Strana zelených, Vize ekologické demokracie [Visions of Environmental Democracy] (2003), in authors' archive; Strana zelených, Kvalita života {Green Party: Quality of Life] (2006), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008. 29. Keywords employed for this purpose are as follow: Europe, European, all-European, EU, Union, pro-European, integration, euro, Euroregions, Eurofederalist. Moreover, institutions and actions such as Galileo, eEurope, Europol or European Court of Human Rights are also taken into account. 30. Jan Zahradil, Národní zájmy v reálném svété [National Interest in the Real World] (2000), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008. 31. Jan Zahradil, Petr Plecitý, Petr Adrián and Miloslav Bednář, Manifest českého eurorealismu [Manifesto of the Czech Euro-realism] (2001), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008. 32. ODS, Volební desatero [Electoral Decalogue] (2002). 33. Frízlová et al., 'Vliv evropeizace na české politické strany', p. 10. 34. It is interesting to note that this programme is the oldest of all programmes under consideration; the second oldest is KDU-CSL's programme from 1997; all others date from well after 2000. 35. KSČM, Program KSČM do Poslanecké sněmovny PCR 2006. 36. The 2002 programme assumed a very unusual structure, rejecting the traditional division into topical chapters and presenting instead members of an imaginary family declaring their wishes. 37. Established in 1998, the other members of the Coalition were ODA, US and DU; it was dissolved in 2002. 38. However, the most pro-European voices within the Coalition were heard from US. 39. KDU-ČSL, Volební program [Election Programme] (2006), p. 82. 40. If we measure these values in long-term programmes, we discover that the leader - surprisingly enough - is KSČM (764), closely followed by ČSSD (784), ODS (988), KDU-CSL (1,118) and the Greens (1,780). While these data are difficult to compare because of dramatically different dates of publication, ranging from 1995 to 2004, the order of parties closely corresponds to that for the 2006 election. Most strikingly, we can see the Green Party, allegedly a strong supporter of the EU, is in all cases saying the least about the EU. 41. For the purpose of this essay we consider the governments headed by Vladimír Spidla, Stanislav Gross and Jiří Paroubek respectively (all of them are members of ČSSD, period 2002-6). Moreover, we also analyse the government headed by Mirek Topolánek (ODS, established after the 2006 election). 42. However, all other governments were headed by ČSSD, while that formed after the 2006 election is dominated by ODS. 43. Frízlová et al., 'Vliv evropeizace na české politické strany', p.36. 44. Dančák and Hloušek, 'Czech Republic', pp.213-6. 45. Thomas Poguntke, Nicholas Aylott, Robert Ladrech and Kurt Richard Luther, 'The Europeanization of National Party Organizations: A Conceptual Analysis', European Journal of Political Research, Vol.46, No.6 (2007), pp.747-71. 46. The following text is based on parties' materials (statutes etc.) and on qualitative research undertaken during autumn 2007; this research included structured interviews conducted with Jan Zahradil (ODS), Libor Rouček (ČSSD), David Macek (KDU-ČSL), Ondřej Liška (SZ), and Kateřina Konečná (KSČM). 47. In the case of ODS, there is no explicit definition of the MEPs' role in the statute: ODS, Stanovy Občanské demokratické strany [Statues of the Social Democratic Party] (2003), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008, p.8. However, at the time of writing, four MEPs were members of the ODS National Executive Board, and Jan Zahradil (chair of the ODS group in the EP) belongs to the ODS National Governing Board. The chair of ODS MEPs belongs ex officio to the THE PARTY SYSTEM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 539 governing board (supreme executive body of the party), in a manner similar to the chairs of ODS clubs in the Czech Senate and the House of Deputies. 48. The Greens, however, subsequently amended the party rules twice (in December 2004 and September 2005): see SZ, Stanovy Strany zelených [Statutes of the Green Party] (2005), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008. MEPs who are party members are automatically delegates to the national congress. The question of the influence of 'European' delegates is nevertheless only hypothetical because no Green MEP was elected in the 2004 EP elections. 49. ČSSD, Stanovy České strany sociálně demokratické [Statutes of the Czech Social Democratic Party] (2007), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008, p.15. 50. KDU-ČSL, Stanovy Křestanské a demokratické strany — Československé strany lidové [Statute of the Christian and Democratic Union—Czechoslovak People's Party] (2005), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008, p.3. 51. European Commissioner Vladimir Spidla belongs to the ČSSD as well, but he plays no role within the party leadership. 52. KSČM, Stanovy komunistické strany Čech a Moravy [Statute of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia] (2004), available at: , accessed 13 Nov. 2008. 53. This section is derived from comparative research on new member states' parties within the structures of euro-parties: Vít Hloušek and Petr Kaniok (eds.), Evropské politické strany po východním rozšíření Evropské unie [European Political Parties after the Eastern Expansion of the European Union] (Brno: International Institute of Political Science, 2007). 54. See Dančak and Hloušek, 'Czech Republic', pp.201, 208-10. 55. ODS is member of the IDU/EDU. Especially in the period before Topolánek took the position of the party leader (2002), there was a strong eurosceptical wing within the ODS represented by, for example, Jan Zahradil. The opinions on the EU presented by these politicians were similar to the stances of British conservatives of the Thatcher era. 56. Vít Hloušek, Petra Jarošová and Petr Kaniok, 'Evropská lidová strana (Evropští demokraté)' ['European People's Party (European Democrats)'], in Hloušek and Kaniok (eds.), Evropské politické strany, pp.27-52 (p.52). 57. Tim Haughton, 'Driver, Conductor or Fellow Passenger? EU Membership and Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe', in this collection. 58. Ladislav Cabada, 'Česká politika a perspektiva evropeizace - několik úvah' ['Czech Politics and the Perspective of Europeanization: Some Reflections'], in Břetislav Dančák and Vít Hloušek (eds.), Parlamentní volby 2006 a česká politika [Parliamentary Election in 2006 and Czech Politics] (Brno: MPU MU, 2006), pp.136-44 (pp.141-2). 59. Ibid. 60. Paul Lewis's comments on the 'Beyond Europeanization?' panel at the European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, Pisa, 6-8 Sept. 2007.