Socio-economic Protest in the Czech Republic on the Background of Tripartite Negotiations
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The rise of socio-economic collective action and protest often indicates a failure of social dialogue and negotiations among influential interest groups or their restricted access to the decision-making process. In the Czech Republic, this process is represented by the tripartite body, including representatives of the trade unions, employers, and government officials, initially instituted in the 1990s to prevent social conflict during the "transformation period" after the collapse of the Communist regime. In this paper, I present an analysis of communication patterns in a unique corpus of approx. 200 structured records and textual materials from plenary sessions of The Council of Economic and Social Agreement of the Czech Republic. By applying theoretical framework and concepts from social movement studies, the research assesses communication patterns utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to explore the main topics, framings, and grievances discussed by the representatives in specific periods (2000–2022). Particular emphasis is given to how the structure of the dialogue and its content have been affected by the economic crises and changes in the government. The research also aims to compare the analysis with data from a dataset of protest events in the Czech Republic between 1989 and 2022 to examine if and how Tripartite negotiations are reflected in the quantity, character, and thematic content of the Czech socio-economic protest. Since public protest is perceived as the last form of repertoire to exert influence, this paper aims to address the communication patterns that precede its organization to explore their mutual dynamics. |
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