Czech Journal of Political Science

Houman A. Sadri, Conflict and Cooperation in the South Caucasus Region: From Theory to Policy, Lanham, MA: Lexington Books, 2024.

2026-01-08T10:56:27+01:00

Is Friedrich Merz the Leader Germany Needs?

2025-10-21T18:38:54+02:00

This study investigates how a traditional political party, the German CDU, responds to the increasing public demand for charismatic leadership. By analyzing the leadership of Friedrich Merz through the framework of plebiscitary leader democracy, the research highlights how the CDU navigates the balance between intra-party authority and broader electoral appeal. This qualitative study seeks to explore the perceptions, ideas, and priorities of key party politics stakeholders. The chosen method is a semi-structured interview. The findings reveal that Merz has successfully positioned himself within the party by excelling in the four competition values of plebiscitary leader democracy: meritocracy, peaceful conflict resolution, integration, and repoliticization. His election through the CDU’s first-ever all-member vote marks a departure from previous elite-driven selection processes, granting him a strong internal mandate. However, the study also underscores the challenge of translating intra-party dominance into national electoral success.

Who’s to Blame? Elites and Enemies in Political Party Manifestos – The Case of Poland (2001–2023)

2025-12-10T12:27:17+01:00

This article examines the actors subjected to criticism by Polish political parties between 2001 and 2023. It also assesses whether a relationship existed between the degree of anti-elitism or enemy discreditation in party manifestos and a party’s position within the political system or its ideological orientation. Elites were conceptualized as actors occupying a vertical relationship with "the people," whereas enemies were characterized by a horizontal opposition. Five types of elites were identified: political, international, state, symbolic, and economic. Similarly, enemies were classified into five categories: geographical, legal, political, economic, and cultural. The article drew inspiration from the populism studies, particularly in its conceptualization of anti-elitism and the construction of enemies per se. Moreover, proposed was an approach that treated anti-elitism and enemy construction not as binary attributes, but as variable and gradable dimensions that could evolve over time—even within the same political parties—and were not exclusive to parties typically labelled as populist. The analysis was based on 42 political party manifestos of parties that had surpassed the 3% threshold in Polish parliamentary elections between 2001 and 2023.

A Wolf without Teeth: Electoral Manifestos of the Populist Radical Right Party SPD in the Czech Local Elections

2025-11-21T13:25:40+01:00

Populist radical right parties often position themselves at the edges of the political spectrum, particularly at the national level, where they adopt strong nationalist, anti-immigration, and anti-elitist stances. However, these positions often lose relevance at the local level. Local governments have limited power over migration, local elites are embedded within their communities, and broader political frameworks remain unchangeable. This article examines how the Czech radical right party Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) operates locally in the 2018 and 2022 municipal elections. By manually coding 188 electoral manifestos from 141 municipalities, it shows considerable variation in the party’s local strategies. In some municipalities, manifestos contain no signs of populism or radical stances on immigration and nativism. In others, the SPD constructs “the people” and “the elite” in a populist way and adopts clear anti-immigration and nationalist positions, illustrating the diverse nature of its local-level strategies.