<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This article compares three technocratic cabinets that were appointed in the Czech Republic. Its aim is to determine to what extent the cabinets can be understood as a failure of political parties. The article outlines the concept of party failure. It argues that patterns of party failure can be found in all cases. However, in the last case—the technocratic cabinet of Jiří Rusnok—party failure was only partial and indirect; its technocratic cabinet cannot be interpreted as resulting from an inability of the parties to form a partisan cabinet, but rather it resulted from the president’s imposition of a technocratic cabinet. This imposition took place against the will of the parliamentary parties that sought to form a cabinet composed of party politicians immediately or following early elections.</abstract>

Three Technocratic Cabinets in the Czech Republic: A Symptom of Party Failure?

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In the article, the authors address certain recent political developments in two former communist countries, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. They focus on the rise of personalized politics, i.e. the type of political conduct that is driven predominantly by the personal character of political leaders (much more than by programs and ideologies). Specifically, the authors look at the weak political partisanship in East-Central Europe as one of the key factors triggering person-based politics. They find that personalized leadership has divergent consequences for political life in a democratic polity. It is very effective in mobilizing mass support as well as in overcoming many organizational obstacles. However, its influence on the quality of the democratic process is questionable.</abstract>

The Rise of Person-Based Politics in the New Democracies: The Czech Republic and Slovenia

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Electoral accountability is considered the mechanism through which voters hold governments responsible for their performance. Questioning the traditional approach of economic voting theory, the article focuses on the influence exerted by the political context—comprehensively considered as government clarity of responsibility, availability of governing alternatives, electoral formula, and freedom of the media—on the accountability mechanism in eleven countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using individual and aggregate data collected after the 2014 European Elections by the European Election Study (EES), the present article analyses this process in its double dimension of answerability and enforcement (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_pce-2016-0012_ref_051_w2aab2b8b6b1b7b1ab1ac51Aa">Schedler 1999</xref>). Our findings suggest that voters’ ability to express discontent with economic performance in new European democracies is strongly influenced by specific characteristics of the political context. A stable and cohesive government as well as a free media system, in particular, seem to facilitate performance voting in the region.</abstract>

Much More Than Economy: Assessing Electoral Accountability in the CEE Member States

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This article analyzes terrorism against the Roma in Europe. It identifies acts of terrorism in violence that targets the largest stateless nation on the continent and categorizes this terrorism according to current research methods. Focusing on events in both Western and Eastern Europe, the article analyses and compares the most significant terrorist acts against the Roma of recent years. It concludes that anti-Romani terrorism is heterogeneous in terms of tactics, strategies, and ideological justification, yet can usually be subsumed into the broadly conceived category of far-right terrorism. The variety of attacks suggests that terrorist acts are an offshoot of the broad spectrum of anti-Romani activity, and are influenced by contemporary trends in inter-ethnic violence.</abstract>

Anti-Romani Terrorism in Europe

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This article explores the performance of ANO 2011 and Dawn of Direct Democracy—two new subjects of the post-2013 Czech party system—in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament. Programs and statements of both movements are analyzed in order to determine whether a link exists between protest and populist characteristics on one side and Euroscepticism on the other side.</abstract>

Czech Protest Movements in the 2014 European Parliament Elections

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Politics in Central Europe

 POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE publishes original, double-blind, peer-reviewed manuscripts that provide scientific essays focusing on issues in comparative politics, policy analysis, international relations and other sub-disciplines of political science, as well as original theoretical or conceptual analyses. The essays should contribute to a broad understanding of the region of Central Europe.  The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 