Public Affairs Party in the Czech Republic: Business Firm Party or Populism’s New Clothes?
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The paper deals with an interesting newcomer at political map of the Czech Republic – the Public Affairs party. One of the surprising moments after the 2010 parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic has been success of the Public Affairs launching an interesting although rather populist campaign bringing the issue of corruption and replacement of “political dinosaurs”. Despite remarkable elements of protest politics, the Public Affairs became a member of government coalition soon after and they remain in this position till today despite some political affairs concerning the leadership of the party. The most important among them has been the scandal concerning direct connection of the party and private security agency ABL directed formerly by chairman of the Public Affairs party Vit Barta. The main question of the paper thus will be to what extent we can apply the model of business firm party to the Public Affairs or whether it fits better to more traditional patterns of Central European populist politics. As a second important topic of the paper, the Public Affairs party will be compared with other populist parties in the Czech politics and selected similar parties in other Central European countries. |
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