Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2011, 47(1): 89-114 | DOI: 10.13060/00380288.2011.47.1.05

The Civic Democratic Party and the Ascendancy of the Professional Party Organisation in Czech Democracy in the 1990s

Magdaléna Hadjiisky
Groupe de Sociologie Politique Européenne, Université de Strasbourg

This article focuses on the emergence of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). It attempts to trace the party's origins in several possible, coinciding factors that in the Czech Republic led not just to the establishment of ODS, but also to the institutionalisation of professional party organisation as such. On the one hand, the article points to the significance of interactions between the various groups within Civic Forum (OF), where the group around Václav Klaus asserted the 'standard model' of party competition. On the other hand, it questions the simplifying theory of ODS as a party of 'economists' and on the contrary shows that its success depended not so much on its economic vision as on the existence of an important group of post-normalisation 'technocrats', who after 1989 provided an anchoring for this vision among Czech regional elites. Their crucial support for professional party organisation stemmed from the absence of any other method of self-legitimisation, something which, by contrast, former dissidents were able to rely on, as were defenders of the model of political organisation that did not envision the existence of other political parties.

Keywords: Civic Democratic Party, Civic Forum, political parties, Czech Republic.

Published: February 1, 2011Show citation

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Hadjiisky, M. (2011). The Civic Democratic Party and the Ascendancy of the Professional Party Organisation in Czech Democracy in the 1990s. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 47(1), 89-114. doi: 10.13060/00380288.2011.47.1.05.
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