The Czech Republicans 1990-8: A populist outsider in a consolidating democracy

The chapter examines the Czech Repulicans (the SPR-RSČ) , a radical right-wing party represented in the Czech parliament between 1992 and 1998, as a case study of party-based oppositional outsider populism in a consolidating democracy. It traces the origins and development of the party, then examines the populist nature of the party's radical right appeals in the 1990s and the implicit understanding of democracy these contained. It concludes by evaluating the Republicans’ impact on the development of Czech democracy and assessing the extent to which it has left a legacy in contemporary Czech politics

Blue velvet: The rise and decline of the new Czech right

In Comparative terms, the Czech centre-right (principally the Civic Democratic Part - ODS - of Václav Klaus) represents an intermediate case between those of Hungary and Poland. Although Klaus's ODS has always been a large, stable and well-institutionalized party, avoiding the fragmentation and instability of the Polish right, the Czech centre-right has not achieved the degree of ideological and organization concentration seen in Hungary. A number of factors are commonly used to explain party (and party system) formation in the region in relation to the Czech centre-right. These include both structural-historical explanations and 'political' factors such as macro-institutional design, strategies of party formation in the immediate post-transition period, ideological construction and charismatic leadership. In fact, both the early success and subsequent decline of the Czech right were rooted in a single set of circumstances: (1) the early institutionalization of ODS as the dominant party of the mainstream right; and (2) the right's immediate and successful taking up of the mantle of market reform and technocratic modernization. © 2004 Taylor and Francis Ltd

Getting the right right: Redefining the centre-right in post-communist Europe

Existing literature on the centre-right in Eastern and Central Europe is small and fragmentary, in contrast with the voluminous, detailed and often sophisticated comparative literatures on the Left and the Far Right in the region. A review and synthesis of the existing literature suggests the possibility of a definition of the Right and Centre-Right in the region, which can both accommodate its diversity and provide a shared framework for analysis. The Centre-Right should be understood as neither an atavistic throwback to a pre-communist past nor a product of the straightforward assimilation of Western ideologies. Rather, it is a product of the politics of late communism, domestic reform, European integration and post-Cold War geopolitical realignment, which has powerfully reshaped historical influences and foreign models. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd

Effects of different footwear on landing forces from a grand jeté in trained dancers

The Grand Jete movement is a popular leap elevation movement used in ballet, modern, contemporary and jazz dance. The move involves taking off from one foot and landing on the other foot reaching the highest point possible in the air and lifting legs to a split position. Dancers may perform many grand jetes in a single routine. The aim of this study was to investigate whether footwear used by dancers can reduce the vertical impact forces caused by landing from high leaps. The study was approved by the university’s ethics committee and informed consent was given by ten highly-trained dancers (age mean 23.1, s=1.6 years; height 1.64, s=.08 m; mass 57.7, s=5.2 kg). The participants all performed a grand jete in three different footwear conditions: bare feet, jazz shoes and dance trainers with shock absorbing properties. Landing forces were recorded using a Kistler force plate sampling at 1000 Hz. Peak impact force was determined as the maximum vertical force occurring during the first 0.07 s of contact. Statistical analysis consisted of repeated measures ANOVA. Maximumforce during the landing phase decreased from 4.00 BW (s=0.72) in the barefoot condition to 3.95 BW (s=0.69) in the jazz shoes condition and 3.58 BW (s=0.68) in the trainers condition (F2,9=2.5, P=0.108, Z2=0.22, power=0.44).Higher impact peak and loading rate values were found in the barefoot condition compared to the shodconditions, with the trainers showing the lowest values. However, there were no significant differences between the footwear conditions for impact peak force(F2,9=0.50, P¼0.616, Z2=0.05, power=0.12),time-to-peak impact force (F2,9=0.44 , P=0.653, Z2=0.05, power=0.11), or loading rate to the poin of maximum vertical force (F2,9=0.53, P=0.597, Z2=0.06, power=0.12). The results showed lower maximum landing forces, impact peak force and loading rates in the dance trainers compared to the barefoot and jazz shoes conditions. Although the values were not significantly different, the small difference between footwear conditions may prove important with the onset of fatigue during a routine. Dancers should train to develop safe landing techniques when performing barefooted

Food Security and the Federal Minimum Wage

This working paper, by William M. Rodgers III, Hanley S. Chiang, and Bruce W. Klein, estimates the extent to which increases in the U.S. federal minimum wage in October 1996 and September 1997 improved the ability of households to be food secure -- that is, to purchase for their members an adequate supply of nutritional and safe foods. First, the authors show that the two increases significantly altered the hourly wage distribution of householders (principal person in a household). The shifts were greatest among household heads that are minority, single parents, and household heads with no more than a high school diploma. Even after controlling for the link between the 1990s economic expansion and food security, the October 1996 and September 1997 increases in the federal minimum wage raised food security and reduced hunger, particularly in low-income households where householders had completed no more than a high school degree or were a single parent

Fluctuation Scaling, Taylor’s Law, and Crime

Fluctuation scaling relationships have been observed in a wide range of processes ranging from internet router traffic to measles cases. Taylor’s law is one such scaling relationship and has been widely applied in ecology to understand communities including trees, birds, human populations, and insects. We show that monthly crime reports in the UK show complex fluctuation scaling which can be approximated by Taylor’s law relationships corresponding to local policing neighborhoods and larger regional and countrywide scales. Regression models applied to local scale data from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire found that different categories of crime exhibited different scaling exponents with no significant difference between the two regions. On this scale, violence reports were close to a Poisson distribution (α = 1.057±0.026) while burglary exhibited a greater exponent (α = 1.292±0.029) indicative of temporal clustering. These two regions exhibited significantly different pre-exponential factors for the categories of anti-social behavior and burglary indicating that local variations in crime reports can be assessed using fluctuation scaling methods. At regional and countrywide scales, all categories exhibited scaling behavior indicative of temporal clustering evidenced by Taylor’s law exponents from 1.43±0.12 (Drugs) to 2.094±0081 (Other Crimes). Investigating crime behavior via fluctuation scaling gives insight beyond that of raw numbers and is unique in reporting on all processes contributing to the observed variance and is either robust to or exhibits signs of many types of data manipulation

The new right in the new Europe? Unravelling the ideology of 'Czech Thatcherism'

The remarkable success of Vaclav Klaus and the 'Thatcherite' right in the Czech Republic was an exception in post-communist Eastern Europe. Explanations for its success have usually focused on policy performance, fixed historical legacies or generalized understandings of post-communism, but have largely ignored the role of ideology. However, despite differences of context, 'Czech Thatcherism', like its British precursor, can be seen in Gramscian terms as an innovative, populist right-wing ideology linked to a hegemonic project of social transformation. This article traces the importation of Anglo-American neo-liberal and conservative ideas by intellectual counter-elites under the communist regime. It then examines the 'revolutionary conservatism' formulated by the Czech Right after 1989, focusing on its discourse of post-communist transformation and attempts to ground imported New Right ideas in the Czech context. Finally, the article considers the ideological tensions within 'Czech Thatcherism' and discusses alternative Czech readings of conservatism