The early months of 2014 have been marked with two important
elections in two of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries. Both have been first order elections with very high stakes. Slovak presidential election was to be a test of Robert Fico’s risky maneuver, his attempt to capture the presidential office from amidst his PM mandate. Hungarian legislative election was to decide whether Viktor Orban’s unprecedented 2010 triumph would be reaffirmed
or not. One of these electioans has been characterized by astonishing result continuity (in comparison to the previous election), while the other one by a fundamental change. Contraintuitively, however, this article aims to show that it is Hungary, the country displaying election outcome stability, which
has actually been undergoing a party system change. And, conversely, in case of Slovakia, the country with a seemingly discontinuous election outcome, it would be at least premature to envisage a fundamental party system change.This article, obviously, goes beyond a narrow 2014 comparison of two single
electoral events where, moreover, two different types of elections took place. It sets the current stories into context, i.e., analyzes both party systems, compares their differing logics and offers some tentative explanations for their divergent dynamics of development. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
Podle recenzenta se volby v Československu do zastupitelských orgánů v době od potlačení pražského jara 1968 do demokratické revoluce 1989 na první pohled jeví jako formální rituál, avšak autor ve své důkladně empiricky založené práci ukázal, že plnily řadu důležitých funkcí, byť jiných než v demokratickém státě. Zachytil společné rysy i odlišnosti jednotlivých volebních aktů, odehrávajících se v pětiletých cyklech, a prozkoumal související aktivity bezpečnostních složek. V rámci výkladu o volbách přitom popsal důležité aspekty fungování komunistického režimu, všímal si různých forem odporu proti němu a vylíčil také příběhy obyčejných lidí, které se nějakým způsobem vázaly k volbám. Sedmdesátá a osmdesátá léta představil ve své knize z nového úhlu a nemálo přispěl k jejich lepšímu poznání., According to the reviewer, the elections to representative bodies in Czechoslovakia between the suppressionof the Prague Spring in 1968 and the democratic revolution in 1989 may at first sight seem to be a formal ritual. However, the author´s empirically well-founded work "All Communists to the polls!" Elections in Czechoslovakia in 1971-1989 as a phenomenon of society, politics and state security demonstrates that they had a number of important functions, albeit different from those in a democratic state. The author captured common features and differences of different election acts taking place in five-years cycles, and examined related activities of security forces and elements. In his account of the elections, he described impotant aspects of the operation of the Communist regime, noticed different forms of the opposition against it, and also mentioned stories of ordinary people which were somehow related to the elections. He presented the 1970s and 1980s from a different angle, making a substantial contribution to better knowledge of the period., [autor recenze] Petr Anev., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy