Referendum in theory and practice: the history of the Slovak referendums and their consequences

This article deals with the theory and practice of Slovak referendum. Special aim is concentrated on referendum in 1997 (held on NATO accession and on the direct election of the president of the Slovak Republic). Generally speaking referendums brought with a lot of problems. Their outcome was polarization of society and political elite. All Slovak referendums were unsuccessful (with the exception of last referendum – euro referendum in 2003). Concerning the consolidation of Slovak democracy referendums had a negative impact

The Funding of the Political Parties in Slovakia

Parties are essential components of a political system, since they provide access to the decision-making process for the citizens. In democratic society they have to execute some basic functions (e.g. interest aggregation, articulation and representation). For this they need material and financial resources. In the recent year funding of the parties must deal with growing expensiveness on the one hand, and on the other with bribery and corruption (which can seriously damage citizens’ confidence in the democratic system). Even the most democratic countries have from time to time problem with this unacceptable social phenomena. And it is more important to avoid it in transition countries and in so-called “new democracies” – as central and east European countries, where the democracy is not stabile enough. In this article we focus on the case of Slovakia. We try to outline party finances system and analyse financial resources structure. There are two main models of parties financing, one based on private finances and second based on public resources. Apart from serious defects in laws (still present in Slovak legislation), the main problem of parties financing in Slovakia is growing rate of public party subvention (what can negatively affect parties’ independence on the state) and reducing number of party subjects, which participate on it

International Negotiation in the Council of the European Union

Negotiation is an important part of international relations when it covers the interaction among the states as its actors. Basically, we distinguish distributive bargaining and integrative problem-solving as two main approaches (or sets of strategies) in negotiation. Problem-solving seems to be more valuable in recognizing more effective solutions, but at the same time it is harder to adopt it. The main goal of this article is to find out which approach is typical for negotiation between member states of the European Union. By identifying the key determinants (level of politicization, nature of the question under negotiation, influence of sub-national and supranational actors, and interest cleavage) for the decision on the selection of an appropriate strategy, we argue that the context of the EU negotiation enables the identification of integrative solutions in a sufficient way

Referendum in theory and practice: the history of the Slovak referendums and their consequences

This article deals with the theory and practice of Slovak referendum. Special aim is concentrated on referendum in 1997 (held on NATO accession and on the direct election of the president of the Slovak Republic). Generally speaking referendums brought with a lot of problems. Their outcome was polarization of society and political elite. All Slovak referendums were unsuccessful (with the exception of last referendum – euro referendum in 2003). Concerning the consolidation of Slovak democracy referendums had a negative impact.This article deals with the theory and practice of Slovak referendum. Special aim is concentrated on referendum in 1997 (held on NATO accession and on the direct election of the president of the Slovak Republic). Generally speaking referendums brought with a lot of problems. Their outcome was polarization of society and political elite. All Slovak referendums were unsuccessful (with the exception of last referendum – euro referendum in 2003). Concerning the consolidation of Slovak democracy referendums had a negative impact