| Abstract [eng] |
This study entitled „Political Elite Euroscepticism in the Central Europe: the Czech Republic Case“ analyzes effects of Europeanization of the Eurosceptic Czech political elite, focusing on the Europeanization of centre-right Eurosceptic Civic Democratic Party during Czech Republic‘s accession to the European Union period and Eropean Union membership period till the year 2009. The first part of the study considered the theorethical approaches of political elite Euroscepticism and Europeanization of political parties and party systems. For the evaluation of Euroscepticism level of the Czech political elite in general and especially in the case of the Civic Democratic Party, the main concepts has been discussed and adapted using Aleks Szczerbiak, Paul Taggart and Petr Kopecky, Cas Mudde existing studies about the Central and Eastern Europe political elite Euroscepticism. According to Robert Ladrech, five most important and interrelated areas in which research should be done on the phenomenon of Europeanization of political parties and their activities in the context of the European Union candidate and member states were revealed and later, dealing with the basic R. Ladrech‘s classification, there were assumed that potential Europeanization effect on parties and party systems could be divided to three main categories: programmatic elements (including the party rhetoric and voter mobilization in general sense), organizational elements (including internal party organizational changes and the formalization of cooperation with European-level parties) and potential changes in party systems, focusing on the format and competition changes (including the importance of „European“ issues and the potential „European“ cleavages impact on inter-party competition sphere). The second part of this study revealed common manifestations of Euroscepticism in the Central and Eastern European countries, as well as the Eurosceptic parties of the region were located and classified. In the third part, the previously identified Eurosceptic Czech political parties were discussed in more detail. The disclosure of the Czech political elite Euroscepticism origin was made more generally, presenting the detailed overview of the dynamics of the Civic Democratic Party till the Czech Republic's accession to the EU in the year 2004. The fourth part provides the test of the Eurosceptic Czech political elite, with special attention to the Civic Democratic Party, in order to make a verification or falsification of real influence of Europeanization on party or party system. In the research, level of Europeanization was assessed identifying changes in the parliamentary election programs, the party organization and in the Czech political system in general, in the time frame, which includes the Czech Republic‘s preparation for the EU accession and EU membership period to the year 2009. To conclude and taking into account the limited Europeanization impact on Czech party system and Civic Democratic Party, as in this study is presumed, it would be wrong to predicate about deepening Europeanization particularly within the Eurosceptic Czech political elite, which maintain their Eurosceptic position on the relevant EU development issues. Moreover, one of the most significant center-right Civic Democratic Party, despite its changing leaders and positioning in the office, firmly preserves its stable stance of „soft“ Euroscepticism“. |
