Demythologising the Czech Opposition Agreement Andrew Roberts Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 55, No. 8. (Dec., 2003), pp. 1273-1303. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0966-8136%28200312%2955%3A8%3C1273%3ADTCOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5 Europe-Asia Studies is currently published by Taylor & Francis, Ltd..
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EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES,
Carfax Publishing
Vol. 55, No. 8, December 2003, 1273-1303
Demythologising the Czech Opposition
Agreement1
ANDREW ROBERTS
FORMANY OBSERVERS OF THE CZECHPOLITICAL SCENE, 8 July 1998 Was ~0nfiIXlati0nof their worst fears. It was then, two weeks after parliamentary elections, that the largest party in parliament, the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), announced that it had signed what came to be known as the 'opposition agreement' with the Civic Democratic Party (ODs), the second largest party in parliament. The agreement stated that ODs would allow CSSD to govern alone as a minority government. In return, ODs would receive a number of parliamentary posts and the two parties would together adopt several constitutional amendments. The reaction of Czech political scientists and commentators was almost unanimously negative. President VBclav Have1 called the alliance 'unholy'. The head of the Christian Democratic Union (KDU-CSL), Josef Lux, believed the agreement to be unconstitutional and vowed to contest it in court. Commentators even likened it to the communist-era national front governments. More specific criticisms focused on its negative consequences for stability, democracy and the fate of important social and economic reforms. Even at the end of its four-year run, political observers remained almost as negatively disposed to the agreement as they were at the start. This article argues that the opposition agreement has been misinterpreted. In the first section I show that the opposition agreement was not an unusual political arrangement, as many claim, but rather a fairly typical minority government of the kind which occurs frequently in Western Europe. In the second section I demonstrate that the causes of the agreement are not to be found exclusively in the deficiencies of Czech political culture and the personal enmities of elites. Rather, the agreement was largely a product of rational decision making. Finally, I argue that the negative consequences of the agreement have been exaggerated. Whether we look at its effects on the quality of Czech democracy-as I do in the third section--or more substantive policy outcomes-as in the fourth section-the agreement was far from the tragedy as which it has been portrayed. ISSN 0966-8136 print; ISSN 1465-3427 online/03/081273-31 O 2003 University of Glasgow DOI: 10.1080/0966813032000141114
ANDREW ROBERTS What is it?
On the surface it appears that the Social Democratic government of 1998-2002 was simply a single-party minority government. It was a single-party government because the Social Democrats occupied all of the ministerial posts-with the exception of one that was held by an independent-and it was a minority government since they only controlled 74 of the 200 seats in the parliament. This corresponds with the common definition of minority government as one where the governing party or parties holds less than a majority of seats in parliament. However, for many observers this simple designation--one that applies to numerous governments around the world-did not fit the Czech case. They argued that there was something unique about this government. The word most frequently used to describe it is 'non-standard'. The predominant view was that CSSD and ODs formed a genuine coalition government. The political scientist Michal Klima, for example, called the government a 'hidden silent grand ~oalition'.~ In this view the government was what Strom has designated a formal minority or externally supported government. That is, the government was not really a minority because CSSD could consistently rely on the legislative backing of a support party, in this case ODs. What made the situation disturbing for many was that the parties tried to hide this cooperation and pass themselves off as rivak3 This perception is mistaken. In his study of minority governments Strom notes that in a trivial sense all minority governments have external support. Since they only control a minority of votes in parliament, they must pick up votes from other parties to take office and pass legislation. He thus offers a more substantive definition of external support in order to label a government a 'formal minority government' rather than a substantive minority government.3 Strom proposes two criteria: 'Any government is classified as externally supported that enjoys the parliamentary support of any party not represented in the cabinet if its support (1) was negotiated prior to the formation of the government and (2) takes the form of an explicit, comprehensive and more than short-term commitment to the policies as well as the survival of the g~vernment'.~ Does such a situation describe the opposition agreement? Though the opposition agreement was an explicit agreement negotiated prior to the formation of the government, it was far from explicit and ~ o m ~ r e h e n s i vThe e . ~ agreement itself was short. It consisted of only ten one-paragraph chapters (see Appendix for the complete text). Only one of these chapters dealt with policy or legislation. Chapter VII made vague commitments to a number of constitutional changes. More to the point, the agreement specifically stated that 'In the case of voting on individual laws (including the budget) the above-named parties are not bound in any way'. Compare this with what Strom adduces as a typical example of a formal minority government. After the 1981 elections in Israel, Menachem Begin's Likud Party and its coalition partners were four seats short of a majority. They were, however, able to secure the support of the Agudat Israel Party, which for religious reasons would not accept any cabinet posts. The agreement that Agudat Israel signed with Likud contained 83 clauses and pledged support for all elements of the government's policy agenda.7 This is a far cry from the Czech opposition agreement where ODs expressed support for hardly any part of the government's policy programme.
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
1275
It might be the case that the agreement simply masked real cooperation between the two parties. In fact this was not the case. O D s frequently voted against major government proposals. Important bills that did not pass owing to opposition from ODs included reform of the judiciary, the civil service, the police, healthcare, education and housing. Though the two parties did sign an addendum to the opposition agreement in January 2000 which committed CSSD to specific legislation, this addendum contained ODs, not CSSD policy commitment^.^ As such it was the reverse of the situation in a formal minority government where the support party pledges to vote for the government's proposals. If we look generally at voting patterns in parliament, we find that there was almost no correlation between the voting records of the two parties.9 As KrejEi & Soukenik find, CSSD voted most frequently with the Communist Party (KsCM), to a lesser extent with the centrist Christian Democrats (KDu-CSL), and only then with O D s and the right-wing Freedom Union (US). In contrast to a formal minority government, where the governing party finds consistent baclung in a support party, CSSD had to build ad hoc coalitions on each piece of legislation. And when they did build these coalitions they turned more frequently to KSCM and KDU-CSL than to ODs. It is true that there are certain issues where CSSD and O D s voted together, but no party was more distant from CSSD in spatial terms than ODs. Despite the considerable distance between the parties' voting records, it is still possible that CSSD and O D s teamed up to pass important legislation. Was this the case? If we look at the composition of winning parliamentary coalitions, we find in fact that O D s was the party least likely to be part of such coalitions (Table 1). KDu-CSL and US, closely followed by CSSD, were the two parties most likely to be part of parliamentary majorities (Table 2). O D s meanwhile came closest to being an anti-system party, voting against all other parties on 20% of laws connected with European integration, the prime 'system' issue."' As for claims that CSSD and O D s together hijacked the policy process, consider the fact that only nine laws (3% of all laws) were passed by the two parties alone against other parties.11 (These laws, however, included such significant legislation as constitutional amendments, the electoral law, the law governing the central bank and the law on telecommunications.) It appears then that the last Czech government was a typical example of a minority government. CSSD did not have the consistent support of any parliamentary party. Rather, it had to form ad hoc parliamentary majorities on almost every element of its legislative programme. It is even more clear that O D s and CSSD did not dominate the legislative process and definitely did not dominate the process in collusion against
TABLE 1
PARTICIPATION IN WINNING PARLIAMENTARY COALITIONS (R of laws)
All laws EUlaws
84.8 81.6
93.7 89.1
69.6 60.9
67.1 77.6
87.3
86.2
Source: Parlamentni Zpravodaj, www.parlarnenmi-zpravodaj.cz.
ANDREW ROBERTS TABLE 2 COMPOSITION OF WINNING PARLIAMENTARY COALITIONS (% of laws passed by coalition) Coalition
All laws
EU laws
All parties
All parties vs. Communists
Right + KDU vs. Left
All parties vs. ODs
All parties vs. ~ S S D
Left + KDU vs. Right
Opposition Agreement vs. others CSSD, KDU, US vs. ODs, KSCM
Left vs. others
CSSD, KSCM, ODs vs KDU, US
Note: Right = ODs and US; Left = CSSD and K S ~ MOpposition ;
Agreement = CSSD and ODs.
Source: Parlarnentni Zpravodaj, www.parlamentni-zpravodaj.cz.
other parties. Observers of the Czech political scene are mistaken in viewing it as anything other than a minority government and in seeing a hidden grand coalition. Causes Why did the opposition agreement arise? Conventional wisdom says that it represented a failure of the country's political elites. It is argued that in a normal polity party leaders would have been able to negotiate an explicit coalition government that would control a majority of seats in parliament. The failure of this to occur indicates that elites still cany heavy ideological and personal baggage from the communist era which prevents them from reaching mutually beneficial agreements. I argue instead that politicians have in fact behaved rationally or at least no differently than their Western counterparts would if faced with the same circumstances. Let me begin by describing the process of coalition formation.'"he winner of the elections in 1998 was the Social Democratic Party. However, they won only 74 of 200 seats in parliament and thus turned to other parties in order to build a majority coalition (Table 3). They were free to negotiate with the three parties to their right, the centrist Christian Democrats and the right-wing Freedom Union and ODs. The Communists to the left were considered out of bounds due to their continued adherence to Leninist symbolism if not ideology. CSSD, Milo5 Zeman, initially turned to the centrist Christian Democrats and tried TABLE 3
RESULTS OF ELECTIONS TO THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, 1998
Votes (%) Seats
11.0 24
32.3 74
9.0 20
Note: Parties are arrayed from left to right
8.6 19
27.7
63
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
1277
to induce them into a coalition. The Christian Democrats responded positively to this offer, but conditioned their acceptance on the participation or at least tacit support of the Freedom Union. This demand was not surprising. Without the Freedom Union CSSD and KDu-CSL would still have been six votes short of a majority. With them they would have controlled a comfortable majority of 113 out of 200 seats. The chairman of US and former dissident, Jan Rurnl, however, categorically refused to join any coalition with the left, citing pre-election promises to his party's voters. CSSD then tried to sweeten the pot by offering US four ministerial posts (dividing the cabinet in the proportion 2:1:1 rather than according to strength in parliament, which would have dictated the proportion 3.7:1:1) and a veto on legislation. When this offer was refused, CSSD offered to give up the premiership in favour of the leader of KDu-CSL, Josef Lux. Even this offer was refused.13 At the same time, negotiations took place over the possible formation of a right-wing coalition of ODs, US and KDu-CSL that would control 102 seats. Here conflicts between US and ODs spoiled negotiations. Freedom Union had formed when a group of deputies left ODs in December 1997 in protest at financing scandals and disagreements over policy. The defection of these deputies as well as of the Christian Democrats had led to the fall of the previous government and so ODs was hesitant to cooperate with either of the parties again. US for its part demanded that ODs members involved in the financing scandals, including its charismatic chairman Vhclav Klaus, resign and that no party have a majority of cabinet posts. ODs rejected both of these conditions. After two weeks of wrangling, the parties had achieved almost no progress on creating a majority coalition. There seemed to be no price at which US would enter a centre-left coalition with CSSD and its price for entering a right-wing coalition was too high for ODs. It was in this situation that CSSD and ODs announced what Klaus called the 'opposition agreement'. ODs MPs would leave parliament during the investiture vote, allowing CSSD to take power as a minority government. ODs in turn would receive key parliamentary posts and a promise of constitutional changes. To what extent did this result reflect the troubled nature of Czech politics? Should a majority coalition have formed under these circumstances? In the standard telling, the opposition agreement reflected both the extreme ideologisation and personalisation of Czech politics.14 On the one hand, a powerful strain of anti-communism prevented cooperation between right and left.15 On the other, personal enmities among leaders on the right prevented them from cooperating with each other. On top of this, an unhealthy interest in power for its own sake meant that ODs would forsake all of its programmatic commitments for a share in government. In all these ways an immature political culture reputedly prevented a viable majority government from forming and led to a dangerous and non-standard arrangement.16 While this explanation may capture part of the causes of the minority government, it neglects an underlying rationality to the process of government formation. It is difficult to measure whether Czech politics is overly affected by ideology or personal enmities, much less whether Czech political culture is generally immature. One way to counter these explanations is to show that the 1998-2002 government can be explained as a product of rational decision malung. This is precisely what Strom has done for minority governments in Western Europe. In fact, his explanation does a
1278
ANDREW ROBERTS
good job in accounting for the formation of a minority government in the Czech Republic. First, he Strom explains minority governments as a product of two cal~ulations.'~ notes that parties have long-term as well as short-term goals and that these goals may be in conflict. While participation in a government today brings many benefits in influencing legislation and distributing patronage, it also brings future costs. Incumbents, for example, generally lose votes in subsequent elections. In certain systems these future costs may be high enough to outweigh the current gains of joining a coalition. This calculation should be influenced by the competitiveness and decisiveness of elections. Competitiveness and decisiveness here refer to the consequences of elections for coalition formation and influence. Where elections are competitive and decisive, a party that participates in a coalition today could find itself completely marginalised after the next election, while a party out of power today could then find itself in the driver's seat. In such systems it may make sense to stay out of power now in the hope of more power and influence later. The second calculation is over the ability to influence policy. In addition to seeking office, parties are also motivated by the desire to influence legislation. Even in parliamentary democracies, parties that are not part of the executive can influence policy. The more that political institutions provide opportunities to influence the policy process from the opposition benches, the more likely it is that parties will choose to stay out of government. Minority governments thus form as a result of a rational calculation that a party can achieve its interests better outside government than inside. How well does this explanation account for the most recent minority government in the Czech Republic? First, it is clear that elections in the Czech Republic are competitive and decisive. As in most countries in Eastern Europe, there is fairly high volatility between elections. Indeed, parties can be part of a governing coalition and not enter parliament in the next electoral period, as happened to the Civic Movement (OH) in 1992 or the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) in 1998. This means that parties need to consider closely the costs of participation in a coalition since it may be a matter of life or death. In fact, the future electoral costs of participating in government in 1998 were particularly severe. The economy was entering a serious recession and it was clear that things were going to get worse before they got better. The new government also had to undertake a number of unpleasant policy tasks that previous governments had neglected. Most importantly, it had to begin privatising state-owned banks, which had kept the country's large industries afloat through soft loans. The Social Democratic minister Pave1 Rychetskf was not exaggerating when he called his party's government a 'suicide cabinet'." All parties were thus aware of the future electoral consequences of joining a coalition with ~ S S D .Indeed, as most commentators expected another round of early elections, the costs would be borne sooner rather than later. Staying out of government seemed like a prudent decision for smaller parties. There are good reasons why the Freedom Union felt these costs more severely than other parties. As the newest party on the political scene, US had had little time to
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
plant roots in society. Its membership was small and its electorate had only weak ties to the party.19 Participation in an unpopular government could wreak disastrous consequences for its future support. Moreover, voters who did support US were often hard-line anti-communists who saw any cooperation with the left, especially a left that had not proved its democratic credentials in government, as a betrayal of their ideals. Freedom Union then had good reasons to wony about joining the government. For ODs the potential gains of non-participation were even greater. By agreeing with CSSD to change the electoral law, ODs would ensure that the next elections would put it in control of any future coalition. In three elections ODs had maintained a loyal following of nearly 30% of the electorate. Under a more majoritarian electoral system this would ensure the party won close to a majority of seats in parliament. The benefit-the opportunity to rule alone in four years-seemed to outweigh the benefits of participating in either of two unwieldy coalitions that would have to implement painful reforms in the midst of a recession. The ODs decision to stay out of any coalition and allow CSSD to govern appears eminently rational. The second calculation that Strom refers to--the ability to influence policy from the opposition-provides another rational reason for staying out of government. Strom focuses his attention on parliamentary committees as the main means for influencing policy from the backbenches2' The more specialised the committee system is-that is, the greater the number of committees with fixed specialisations, the higher the correspondence of committees to ministries, the fewer committee assignments per legislator and the wider distribution of chairs among parties, the more it allows for opposition influence on policy making. The Czech Republic scores somewhat well on these variables. The Czech Chamber of Deputies has 14 standing committees with fixed areas of specialisation that correspond to a large degree with ministries. Legislators are fairly restricted in their committee memberships-126 MPs hold places on only one committee while 59 hold places on two committee^.^^ Though chairs are not distributed proportionally among all parties, there is a tradition of assigning chairs to the opposition.22 The opposition agreement also gave ODs a number of important parliamentary posts that added to its influence on policy. In sum, parties could exercise influence without joining the governing coalition.23 ODs took particular advantage of this influence to push CSSD towards a number of unpopular and painful reforms. In an extension to the agreement signed in January 2000, ODs forced CSSD to commit to several reforms which ODs itself had neglected. These included rent and energy deregulation, bank and industry privatisation, pension reforms and rapid adoption of EU laws. ODs was in the enviable position of controlling policy but escaping blame for it. Moreover, these reforms would make future governing easier for ODs as they could reap the long-term benefits. In sum, the formation of a minority government seems entirely reasonable. Though ideology and personality may have played a role in the decision of party leaders not to join a majority coalition, these leaders also had rational reasons for their nonparticipation. They reasonably believed that non-participation in a coalition would help them in future elections and would allow them considerable influence over policy.
1280
ANDREW ROBERTS
In fact, we might have expected the same outcome if such a situation had arisen in Western Europe. Strom points out that minority governments tend to occur in what he calls 'imperfect' two-party or two-bloc systems.24 Such a situation well describes the Czech Republic, whose party system is split between right-wing and left-wing blocs, but with possibilities of alternation marred by the extremist left-wing communists, who stand in the way of a left-wing majority government.25
EfSects on democracy Probably the most significant criticism of the opposition agreement is not of its nature or causes but of its untoward results. Some commentators have argued that the opposition agreement had dire consequences both for democratic processes themselves and for policy reforms. Though these claims are not always easy to test, it is still possible to bring some evidence to bear on these questions. In this section I look at the effects of the opposition agreement on democracy and in the next section I turn to its effects on policy.
Minority government The most general critique of the opposition agreement is that there is something inherently wrong with a minority government. Klima, for example, refers to the 'natural process of forming a minimal winning ~ o a l i t i o n ' .This ~ ~ idea has a long history. Majority governments are seen as the norm for parliamentary democracies and minority governments as an aberration. Yet a quick glance shows that minority governments are far from an aberration. Approximately one-third of all governments formed in Western Europe in the post-war era were minority governments and some countries, like the Scandinavian and English-speaking democracies, have had a particularly high per~entage.~'Moreover, these governments were not temporary expedients but, as I show in the next section, almost as durable as majority coalition governments. On other performance indicators minority governments have done almost as well. For example, they seemed to resign on more favourable terms than majority coalition^.^^ They were less likely to step down because of disunity or political defeat. As for the process of resignation, it was more likely to be voluntary than forced upon them by crisis or defeat. Finally, minority governments appeared to do better in subsequent elections than other forms of government, an indication that citizens did not judge them harshly.29 In fact, the performance of the Czech Social Democratic government confirms these regularities. Its resignation came only when it was constitutionally forced to call new elections and was not forced upon it by crisis or defeat. Moreover, CSSD performed extremely well in the elections of June 2002. Though it lost seats compared to 1998, it again finished in first place and was able to form a government. On these measures-and on others considered below-the last minority government did not perform badly.
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT Stability When the opposition agreement was announced, most observers of Czech politics believed that it bode poorly for stability. The two years preceding the agreement had seen an unstable minority government headed by ODs fall after a year and a half of its four-year term, only to be replaced by a non-partisan caretaker government which ruled until early elections could be held. Another minority government seemed to be a recipe for continued instability. This was only compounded by the fact that CSSD and ODs stood at opposite poles of the political spectrum and that the leaders of the two parties were widely perceived to detest one another. Most doubted that they could find a way to cooperate. It seemed clear that CSSD'S time at the helm would be measured in months rather than years and that another round of early elections would be around the comer. This prediction was not fulfilled. In fact, CSSD served out its entire electoral term. There was only one point when the government appeared to be in jeopardy. In autumn 1999 ODs withheld support for the government budget because CSSD had not yet proposed an amendment to the country's electoral law. After intensive discussions lasting several months, the two parties agreed in January 2000 on new terms for the opposition agreement which Klaus called the toleration patent.30 It should not have come as such a surprise that CSSD served out its term. As Strom points out, single-party minority governments tend to be quite stable.31Across a wide variety of European countries their duration is almost indistinguishable from majority coalitions. The real determinant of duration is not the majority or minority status of a government but whether it is a coalition or a single-party government. Single-party governments, whether majority or minority, last longer than coalitions. While majority coalitions last about as long as minority single-party governments (17.7 versus 17.2 months), single-party governments (whether majority or minority) last considerably longer than coalition governments (21.8 versus 15.8 months).32 If we would expect any government to be unstable it would be the minority coalition of 1996. And true to form this coalition did fall apart before serving half its term. Observers, however, should not have been very worried about the stability of the CSSD minority government and events proved their worries groundless.33By the end of the government most observers were praising it for bringing stability to the Czech political scene.34 Betrayal of voters Another criticism of the opposition agreement is that it did not represent the will of the voters.35 During their campaigns ODs and CSSD both categorically excluded cooperation with each other and claimed to represent divergent policy programmes. Klaus 'mobilised' voters against the left-his party's slogan was 'To the Left or with Klaus7-while CSSD'S leader Zeman promised to cleanse the country of Klaus's corrupt cronies. Were voters somehow shortchanged when the two parties found a way to cooperate? First of all, it is not clear that the parties did break their campaign promises. ODs did not enter a coalition with CSSD but simply allowed it to form a minority government. Should voters have reasonably expected ODs to do all that it could to
1282
ANDREW ROBERTS
sabotage a Social Democratic government? One might rather venture to praise the parties for their ingenuity in resolving a difficult situation. Moreover, rational voters should worry more about what a government does than with whom it cooperates. There is also a sense that voters got exactly what they voted for: a left-wing government with strings attached. The strings were the right-wing support the government would need to pass any legislation. If we follow election results from 1992 to 1998, we see, as in other Eastern European countries, the left growing in strength. Whereas in 1992 the left held 5 1 seats in parliament, this rose to 83 in 1996 and 98 in 1998. CSSD alone increased its total from 16 seats in 1992 to 74 in 1998. As the largest party in parliament and the only one to post significant gains, the Social Democrats in some sense had a mandate to rule. Yet their less than dominant position and the still strong position of the right (which after all controlled a majority of seats) seem to show that voters were not entirely comfortable with a left-wing government. A reasonable interpretation is that they wanted power to be divided. This in fact seems to be a pattern in Eastern Europe, where left-wing parties in their first term in power need to be accompanied by a right-wing watchdog.36 Indeed, the opposition agreement appears to correspond to Alesina & Rosenthal's theory of balancing.37 In a study of elections and policy making in the United States, they argue that voters try to balance different branches of government between Democrats and Republicans. They tend, for example, to vote for the party opposite the President in mid-term House and Senate elections. This happens because, while the parties are polarised, voters prefer moderate policies. Balancing branches of government is one way to achieve moderate policies. Though the Czech Republic lacks a division of powers like the United States, the opposition agreement essentially created just such a division. While CSSD controlled the government, it needed to form coalitions with opposition parties in order to pass its legislative programme. Moreover, by assigning important parliamentary posts to ODs, an additional element of balancing is introduced into the system. Alesina & Rosenthal argue that such balancing is common in parliamentary democracies where there are two polarised parties and a moderate electorate, a situation that well describes the Czech ~ e p u b l i c . ~There ' is thus a sense in which the opposition agreement was exactly what the voters wanted.
Public disillusionment It has been suggested that the cynicism and cartel-like behaviour of the two parties to the opposition agreement diminished public faith in democracy and produced rising distrust of both politicians and parties.39The supposed manipulation of the parliamentary system for the selfish aims of two parties was assumed to have lessened confidence in the institutions of parliament, government and political parties. The same disillusionment was said to turn voters away from mainstream parties and towards radical and extreme options or even towards non-participation. It is a simple matter to test these purported effects. Public opinion polls measured confidence in political institutions, support for extremist parties and intention to vote
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
* Ministers I I I 4 I I I I I 0 1 Apr-97 Oct-97 Apr-98 Oct-98 Apr-99 Oct-99 Apr-00 Oct-00 Apr-01 Oct-01
Source: www.stem. cz.
FIGURE 1. TRUSTIN INSTITUTIONS
(% of citizens with trust in given institution)
over the period of the opposition agreement. If allegations about public disillusionment were true, we should see corresponding trends in all of these variables. The results here are ambiguous. Though faith in government institutions seems to have been untouched by the agreement, recent elections indicate that voters have been affected. When asked whether they trusted parliament or government ministers, citizens had about the same level of trust in the Social Democratic government as in the previous Civic Democratic government (Fig. 1). These levels ranged between 30 and 40%, with the exception of a higher level at the start of its term-due to the honeymoon effect-and a lower level when the economy hit rock bottom. The same applies to citizens' evaluations of the work of parliament, the government, the party system and democracy itself, all of which are more or less stable (Figs 2 and 3). Though prior to elections in June 2002 it appeared that support for extremists remained low and intention to vote remained high, the actual elections were more
3772
+Government
..+..Prime Minister 4.5
I
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Jan-95 Jan-97 Jan-98 Jan-99 Jun-99 Jan-00 Jun-00 Jan-01 Jun-01 Jan-02 Note: Ratings from 1 to 5. 1 = Excellent, 5 = Unsatisfactory Source: www.stem.cz.
FIGURE 2. CITIZENS' EVALUATIONS OF INSTIKTIONS
I
ANDREW ROBERTS
--+-Party system 4.5
1
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Jan-95 Jan-97 Jan-98 Jan-99 Jun-99 Jan-00 Jun-00 Jan-01 Jun-01 Jan-02 Note: Ratings from 1 to 5. 1 = Excellent, 5 = Unsatisfactory. Source: www.stem.cz. FIGURE 3. CITIZENS' EVALUATIONS OF POLITICS
ambiguous. The one party that did considerably better than in previous elections was the Communists, who won an additional nine percentage points of the vote and gained 17 additional seats4' Part of this success was due to the low turnout in the elections. While 74% of eligible voters showed up for elections in 1998, only 58% went to the polls in 2002. While this low turnout and the success of the Communists indicate that the opposition agreement may have affected the public's faith in democratic politics, there are mitigating factors. The ruling Social Democrats did win the elections and now head a majority government composed of democratic parties. This suggests that voters were not so ill-disposed to the previous government. The far-right Republicans also received only 1% of the vote and did not enter parliament. Four-fifths of seats in parliament went to mainstream parties. In sum, there may be some validity to the charge that the opposition agreement has led to public disillusionment. The fact that all democratic parties lost ground and the Communists gained ground in the 2002 elections indicates that voters wanted a change but could not find a party that was sufficiently in opposition. Rather than desiring a return to communism, it is likely that many simply felt that either there were no choices left or the only choice was the one party that was incontrovertibly in the opposition. The effect moreover may have been produced by media criticism of the agreement. Muddying the political waters to the point where democratic choices were unsatisfactory to voters appears to be a serious-but probably only temporary-result of the opposition agreement.
Civil society Many commentators on Eastern European affairs worry about the state of civil society in these countries. Communist regimes had made considerable efforts to destroy any form of independent social organisation, and an important question after the revolutions was whether a democratic civil society could arise from this wasteland. The Czech Republic was particularly deficient in this respect because, unlike in Hungary and Poland, the regime had remained repressive until the very end. Scepticism on this score grew in the Czech Republic as the country's prime minister from 1992 to 1997,
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
1285
VaClav Klaus, was philosophically and practically opposed to civil society initiatives. Many commentators believe the opposition agreement has only exacerbated this problem.4' The main evidence for this assertion is the reaction of CSSD and O D s to a variety of civil initiatives that arose during the four years of the agreement. The first of these, Impuls 99, was formed in the summer of 1999 as a vehicle to cultivate civil society and fight against politicians' attempts to ignore it. Its declaration was initially signed by over 4,000 influential citizens. The second was more direct in its name and its message. The movement 'Thank You, Leave Now' was organised by student leaders of the Velvet Revolution on its tenth anniversary and called for the heads of the main parliamentary parties to resigx4* Finally, in December 2000 a movement arose in protest at the appointment of the new general director of Czech Television, who was perceived as a tool in the hands of Zeman and Klaus. CSSD and O D s reacted coldly to all of these movements. In general, they refused to acknowledge their leaders as valid negotiating partners and heaped scorn on them. In their view, citizens disgruntled with the established parties should found new ones rather than demonstrating on the street. This reaction, along with the large support the movements drew-in the latter two cases they were able to amass five-figure crowds on Wenceslas Square-led many commentators to bemoan the lack of influence of civil society in the country. Yet there is another side to the story. Though these initiatives were able to draw large crowds, none was able to sustain its support for any length of time. All three movements were virtually dead within a month of their founding, attesting to lukewarm public support for them. Thank You, Leave Now's first demonstration was attended by between 50,000 and 80,000 citizens, while its second garnered just 500. In the case of Impulse 99 and Thank You, Leave Now, the movements lacked concrete policy recommendations and their organisers were unwilling either to form a political party or engage in concrete tasks like lobbying or serving as public watchdogs." In the case of Czech Television, several sources believe that claims about government influence were overplayed and that the movement was closer to an industrial action led by employees afraid for their jobs.44 Though these movements fizzled out, in one respect civil society did gain influence under the opposition agreement. Specifically, trade unions, which had been all but ignored during the Klaus governments, now found a willing ear in the Social Democratic government. Though relations between the two were not always rosy, CSSD was committed to restoring the tripartite institutions that Klaus had tried to dismantle. Relations between unions and the government were close enough for a union leader to be named Minister of Finance in 2001. There were other ways in which civil society became more influential under the opposition agreement. The Social Democrats were finally able to create an ombudsman's office for the protection of citizens against the state and were also the driving force behind a law enabling referenda to be called. O D s objected to both laws. A freedom of information law passed in May 1999 similarly gave citizens more resources to monitor their government. As evidence that these changes had some effect, public opinion polls show that citizens' belief in their ability to influence public policy rose significantly over the term of the government (Fig. 4).
1286
-
ANDREW ROBERTS
Development of democracy 1 1 II --*-Influence on public affairs
I
1
Note: Ratings from 1 to 5. 1 =Excellent, 5 =Unsatisfactory. Source: www. stem. cz.
FIGURE 4. CITIZENS' EVALUATIONS OF POLITICS
Here again, then, there is ambiguity. It is true that the partners to the opposition agreement were unnecessarily dismissive of civil society. Yet that same civil society may have focused too much on attacking individuals rather than concrete policies. Moreover, if we focus on actions rather than words, we see that the Social Democratic government did provide the basis for more civic participation than its predecessors.
Denigration of parliament
Among the most frequent targets of criticism of the opposition agreement is its effect on the policy-making pro~ess.'~Instead of making policy on the floor of parliament, where it is open to public view, the opposition agreement, it is claimed, removed all important decisions to private meetings between the two parties to the agreement.46 Rather than functioning as an arena of deliberation, parliament became a rubber stamp for decisions made elsewhere. In addition to weakening citizens' faith in democracy-a criticism I have addressed above-such decision-making processes reputedly went against the essence of parliamentary democracy. This criticism, shared by numerous political commentators, misunderstands the nature of parliamentary democracy. In parliamentary democracies decisions are commonly made by party leaders in the cabinet and then sent to the assembly for a formal rubber stamp. Parliament usually does not initiate its own legislation or amend bills sent by the government. This process is slightly more open in countries where coalition governments are the norm but even there most legislation still comes out of ministries, not parliament. The assembly becomes important mainly in division of power systems like the United States. In such systems ad hoc coalitions must form in the assembly because there are different configurations of power in each branch of government. Strong parliamentary committees are another institution which enhances the role of parlia-
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT TABLE 4 SIGN~F~CANCE OF PARLIAMENT IN PROPOSING LEGISLATION
Government bills MP bills Other bills MP bills (%)
1993-96
1996-98
1998-2002
250 185
113 104 2 47
466 285 28 37
43
Sources: LukaS Linek & Petra Salamounovl (eds), The Parliament of the Czech Republic, 1993-1998: Factbook (Prague, Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 2001); Miroslav Korecky & Ondiej Bilek, 'SnCmovna byla t o v h o u na zikony', Lidove' Noviny, 10 May 2002.
ment by giving MPs more power to influence legislation and propose their own alternatives. The Czech constitutional system has little division of powers.47Though the country has a senate and a president, they have the power only to delay, not to veto.48 I have discussed the Czech committee system above and found it to have some though not overwhelming power. Given this arrangement, it is not surprising that parliament would not be the main arena for proposing or altering legislation. The point here though is that the lack of legislation originating in parliament depends not on elites but on institutions. The opposition agreement and Czech political culture cannot be blamed for this. More importantly, there is little evidence that the Czech parliament has become weaker under the opposition agreement. If we look at one specific measure of the influence of parliament on legislation, we see little change over three legislative terms. The percentage of total bills proposed by MPs has remained fairly constant at between 37 and 47% (Table 4). While the percentage was slightly lower under the Social Democratic government, the total number of bills was considerably higher. Many commentators had a more specific criticism of the opposition agreement. Paragraph VIII of the agreement stipulated that either of the parties to the agreement could request consultations on important policy issues before they were debated in parliament. This was viewed by some as a violation of the spirit of democracy. In practice, however, it is not clear how often this option was utilised or whether it would not have been utilised without the agreement. Even if consultations were a frequent occurrence, the voting results cited above show that they had little effect on the fate of legislation. Few bills were passed with the exclusive support of CSSD and ODs. There is further a sense in which the opposition agreement has made parliament a more important forum than it was during the years of majority government." While CSSD has prepared some legislation in consultation with ODs--e.g. constitutional changes-much of it was prepared in concert with other political parties. Such coalition building was absent during the ODs-led government from 1992 to 1996, when government proposals were assured of a parliamentary majority. Because it could not rely on the support of ODs, CSSD was often forced to accept the amendments of parliamentary deputies.
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ANDREW ROBERTS
In their assessment of negotiations over the 1999 budget, for example, Carey et al. find evidence of a 'traditional legislative l ~ ~ r o l lThis ' . ~ indicates ~ to them that the legislature was not a rubberstamp for government proposals and was beginning to play a more important role in Czech politics. As they put it, The events surrounding the 1999 budget underscore the importance of the Czech Chamber as an arena for policy bargaining. During the initial period of majority government under Klaus, consultation among national party leaders, executive officials, and parliamentary club leaders-all within the governing coalition-produced decisions that were fairly routinely ratified in the Chamber . .. In contrast, the current period of minority government is stimulating coalitional flexibility and improvisation, which, in turn, increases the prominence of the legislature.51
As confirmation of this trend, in its Accession Report for the year 2000 the European Union praised 'more effective collaboration between the government and parliament'.52 Finally, it is not clear that it is necessary for parliament to be a strong forum for decision making. It has long been conventional wisdom that strong governments are necessary for adopting unpopular reforms. While this conclusion has been questioned recently, few have suggested that parliament is a better forum for law making than cabinets, especially in transitional societies.53
Constitutional changes The only policy commitment of the opposition agreement was to change the constitution to 'more clearly define the powers of constitutional organs, the procedure of their installation, and in harmony with the constitutional principles of the Czech Republic strengthen the significance of the outcome of the competition of political parties'. This vague formulation meant two concrete changes: a more majoritarian electoral system and a limitation of presidential powers. Though these changes did not ultimately become law, the attempt to introduce them aroused considerable criticism. Both were seen as unfairly advantaging the parties to the opposition agreement and hurting Czech democracy.54 I argue here that in fact these moves were more ambiguous. For O D s the more important change was the adoption of a new electoral law. Though the opposition agreement committed the two parties to passing the law within 12 months-testimony to fears about the government's s t a b i l i t y - - C S ~ ~was hesitant to make any proposal in its first year in power.55 The reason was clear: after a brief honeymoon its popularity dropped rapidly. A new electoral law of the sort proposed by O D s might eliminate the Social Democrats from parliament altogether. This reluctance on the part of CSSD led O D s to put a new deadline of October 1999 on the change. When CSSD did not meet this deadline, O D s threatened not to approve the budget and thus bring down the government. After extensive negotiations, the two parties signed a so-called toleration patent extending the opposition agreement and binding CSSD to passing an electoral law by 31 July 2000 in exchange for O D s voting for the budget.56 The new electoral law was approved by the government in March 2000 and passed
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT TABLE 5 SIMULATION OF 1998 ELECTIONS UNDER DIFFERENT ELECTORAL RULES
CSSD ODs
KSCM KDU-CSL US Quad
Seats in new system with Quad coalition
Vote (%)
Seats in current system
Seats in new system
32.31 27.74 11.03 9.00 8.60 19.05
74 63 24 20 19 39
103 83 5 6 3
88 70 2
-
40
-
-
Source: Klima, Kvalita demokracie v ceske' republice a volebni inieny'rsht (Prague, Radix, 2001). p. 114.
by parliament in May 2000. It would have increased the number of districts from eight to 35 and lower the average number of seats per district from 25 to 5.7. It also proposed a more majoritarian formula-d'Hondt in place of Hagenbach-Bischofffor translating votes into seats. The effect of the law would be to significantly reduce fragmentation in the assembly. Rerunning the 1998 election with the new system would have virtually eliminated the three smaller parties represented in parliament (Table 5). Indeed, this risk led the Freedom Union and the Christian Democrats to join forces with two smaller parties in what became known as the Quad Coalition and later simply the Coalition Party. In that form the parties would have won the same number of seats under the new law. The law, however, was never put into practice. President Havel brought a complaint to the Constitutional Court that the law conflicted with the Constitution's provision for a 'system of proportional representation'. The court upheld his complaint and struck down the change in district size. Regardless of the outcome, the attempt to change the electoral law was widely decried as anti-democratic. Comrnentators portrayed it as an attempt to ban small parties and restrict political competition. Others simply argued that it was unfair to change the rules in the middle of the political game. It was further suggested that changes in the electoral law should only be adopted by consensus of all parties after thorough deliberation of the alternatives. In some sense these criticisms were surprising. The main opponents of the change-the president, VBclav Havel-were on record as supporting a more majoritarian electoral system. During the writing of the Czech constitution Havel had come out in favour of a system where voters elected individuals instead of parties.57 He believed this would produce stronger bonds between citizens and politicians and allow more effective monitoring of the actions of politicians. The proposed reform would have done exactly that. Nevertheless, both Havel and the Freedom Union criticised the move. Were these criticisms justified? In the first place we should note that there was nothing illegal or procedurally incorrect in the attempt to change the electoral law. Like many constitutions, the Czech constitution makes only loose provisions for the form of elections. It stipulates a system of proportional representation and guarantees the 'free competition of political parties'. The proposed change in the electoral law
ANDREW ROBERTS
would have maintained a system of proportional representation-there would still have been approximately six MPs per district as opposed to one in a pure majoritarian system. Indeed, the system would have been about as proportional as other systems generally considered PR. According to the United Nations-sponsored Administration and Cost of Elections Project, 'Most scholars agree, as a general principle, that district magnitudes of somewhere between three and seven seats per district tend to work quite well' .58 A more tricky question is whether the change violated democratic norms. For many political scientists the electoral law should be a nearly unchangeable part of the constitutional order. In fact, however, there has been an active debate over the virtues of constitutional rigidity in transition countries. Holmes & Sunstein, for example, have argued that precisely these countries should have more flexible constitutions. Because the constitutional framework is chosen in haste under non-ideal circumstances, Holmes & Sunstein believe that amendment procedures should be less demanding than in established democracies so that these polities will have another opportunity to get the institutions right. Indeed, Poland adopted just such a provisional constituti~n.~~ What about the virtues of this electoral law? On one hand, opponents of the law argued that the aim was clear: to eliminate smaller parties from political competition. This would have deprived citizens of a degree of choice and made the system less representative. CSSD and ODs, however, countered with the argument that with a large portion of the political spectrum occupied by 'extremist' parties, there was little space to allow the replacement of governments, a sine qua non of democracy. Indeed, under current arrangements it is difficult for the left to form a majority government. Supporters of the new law could also argue that a majoritarian system would have allowed citizens to monitor and form bonds with their representatives more effectively. Voters would have needed to follow only six MPs rather than 25. Both sides have legitimate arguments, and it is difficult to come down definitively on one side or the other. Regardless of the law's virtues, can we raise doubts about the process by which it was adopted? Was it illegitimate for the parties to the opposition agreement to change the law in a way which would increase their power? Here it is worth considering similar changes in the electoral law in other democratic countries. Were they the result of a consensus of all political parties or did they arise out of the struggle of parties to increase their power?60 A recent issue of the International Political Science Review was devoted to exactly this question. In the words of the issue's editor, 'If there is a single message from this special issue, it is that electoral systems are rarely designed, they are born kicking and screaming into the world out of a messy, incremental compromise between contending factions battling for survival, determined by power politics'.61 In another contribution to the issue, Dunleavy & Margetts add that 'electoral systems are a key focus of preference-shaping behaviour by established political parties and elites, which actively maintain institutional arrangements that maximise their access to state power'.62 The process of changing the Czech electoral law was no exception to these c o n ~ l u s i o n s This . ~ ~ does not mean that it was right, but it does show that it is not unusual in established democracies.
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
1291
The second major change in the country's constitutional structure that CSSD and ODs wanted to introduce was a limitation of the powers of the presidency. Though commonly viewed as a weak presidency because it is indirectly elected and holds no veto on legislation, in fact the Czech president holds a number of significant powers.64 The president has the power to name the head of the central bank and constitutional court justices without consulting parliament and has relative freedom in whom to entrust with government formation after an election. CSSD and ODs planned to limit these powers by either taking them away from the president completely or conditioning them on parliamentary approval. Since these powers are specified in the Czech constitution, changing them required constitutional amendments. Such amendments require 315 majorities in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Though CSSD and ODs initially controlled enough seats in both chambers of parliament to pass amendments, they lost their constitutional majority in the Senate after the November 2000 elections. As a result they were unable to strip the presidency of these powers. Nevertheless, there was considerable criticism of the attempt to limit the president's powers. For many observers the changes seemed to give too much power to parliament and remove important checks and balances from the political system. Indeed, it is likely that these amendments were motivated by the desire of ~ S S D and ODs to increase their own power. Yet there are also legitimate reasons to support them. The powers assigned to the Czech presidency are fairly unusual. This is not because they are held by the president, but because they are held by a non-elected president who is not responsible to any constituency. While it may not seem problematic to entrust these powers to an individual with the moral credit of VBclav Havel, they could be abused by his successors, particularly if they are leaders of political parties, as is likely to be the case. There are two solutions to this problem. Either the president can be made directly elected or these powers can be transferred in part or in whole to elected officials in parliament. The Quad Coalition has pushed for the former approach, while CSSD and ODs opted for the latter. Neither of these attempts has yet succeeded, but both seem preferable to the current arrangement. It is difficult to decide which proposal would be more advantageous. The clearest evidence to emerge from Eastern Europe is that powerful presidencies tend to be detrimental to reform.65 This seems to support the CSSD and ODs proposal. Yet, while a directly elected president would be more powerful, the office would still be relatively weak. In sum, as with changes in the electoral law, changes in presidential power are more ambiguous than critics allege and they cannot be unequivocally rejected as negative.
Effects on policy The policy outputs of the last government are perhaps its most significant legacy. They are also the hardest to assess. Not only are policy outputs notoriously hard to measure, but even if they can be measured it is hard to pinpoint their causes. Nevertheless, observers of the Czech political scene have tried to attribute a variety
ANDREW ROBERTS TABLE 6 LEGISLATIVE PRODUCTION
Laws proposed Laws passed Length of term (months) Laws passedlmonth
1993-96
199698
1998-2002
435 259 42 6.17
219 114 24 4.75
779 465 48 9.69
Sources: LukaS Linek & Petra Salamounov6 (eds), The Parliament of the Czech Republic, 1993-1998: Factbook (Prague, Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 2001); Miroslav Koreckf & Ondfej Bilek, 'SnBmovna byla t o v h o u na zikony', Lidove' Noviny, 10 May 2002.
of policy failures to the opposition agreement. Yet the fact that the two are concurrent does not mean that one caused the other. It is necessary to show mechanisms linking the agreement to specific outcomes. In this section I consider the policy achievements and failures of the Social Democratic government and assess whether they can be plausibly linked to governing arrangements. An initial worry about the opposition agreement was whether it would lead to any policies at all. Many observers expected paralysis as the Social Democrats would not be able to find enough votes to pass any of their legislative programmes. Indeed, these expectations were initially confirmed. In December 1999 the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes wrote that 'The situation on the political scene in 1999 can be described very succinctly-absolute paralysis'.66 At the start of their term the Social Democrats seemed more interested in settling scores and fortifying their position than undertaking serious ref~rrn.~' However, responding to poor ratings from the EU and criticism on the domestic front, the government was able to make a complete about-face. When we look at the total number of laws passed we find that over its entire term the Social Democratic government has been the most productive of the country's three governments (Table 6). While these data are not conclusive because not all laws are alike and because much of the legislation passed in 1998-2002 was uncontroversial adoption of the EU Acquis, they still provide prima facie evidence that the CSSD government was not a do-nothing one.68 Turning to more concrete policy areas, the government's most important task was probably economic policy. Here we see both pluses and minuses. The Social Democrats took the reins of government in the midst of a severe recession. Growth was negative and unemployment was rising quickly. The cause of this recession appears to be a combination of excessively tight monetary policy and lack of industrial restructuring. The latter is widely attributed to the policy of funneling soft loans to inefficient industries through state-owned banks. By the end of the CSSD government the economy had turned around (Table 7). In 2001 it was growing at a rate of between 3 and 4% annually and unemployment had stabilised and even fallen slightly from its high of 10%. Inflation had also been reduced substantially from near 10% to around 3% and foreign direct investment in the country jumped dramatically.
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT TABLE 7 BASICECONOMIC INDICATORS
GDP growth Unemployment Inflation Governmentbalance
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
0.1 3.5 20.8 0.5
2.2 3.2 9.9 -1.1
5.9 2.9 9.1 -1.4
4.8 3.5 8.8 -0.9
1.0 5.2 8.5 -1.7 -
1998 - 2.2
7.5 10.7 -2.0
1999
2000
-0.8 9.4 2.1 -3.3
3.1 8.8 3.9 -4.9
2001
3.5 -
4.9 -9.2
Note: 2000 figures are estimates and 2001 figures are projections. Source: EBRD Transition Report 2001 (London, EBRD, 2001).
Can we attribute this turnaround either to government policy or to the opposition agreement? First, we should note that it is the central bank-as in most economieswhich probably deserves the most credit for the recovery (as well as some of the blame for the preceding recession). Yet the government did begin to address longer-term economic problems that had stalled growth. The ambitious programme of privatisating all of the large state-owned banks certainly helped investor confidence and set the stage for restructuring. This was a step that ODs had ignored for years. That CSSD pushed ahead with it is some indication that the two parties were not joined at the hip. The same goes for regulation of financial markets, which had been neglected by previous governments and definitely improved under the Social Democrats. These steps were undoubtedly positive. In fact, to some degree they can be attributed to the opposition agreement. The toleration patent forced on CSSD by ODs in January 2000 committed the government to continued privatisation. At the same time, there were more troubling moves. Under CSSD the budget deficit increased dramatically from 1-2% to approximately 10% of GDP. This deficit may have contributed to short-term growth, but its long-term effects were dubious. Even the IMF began warning the country to do something about its ballooning deficit.69Can we attribute these deficits to the opposition agreement, as many observers have done?70 In fact, one of the main causes of budget deficits were the hidden deficits that ODs had built up in the mid-1990s. Their policy of funneling soft loans to industries meant that the country's banks accumulated huge losses." When CSSD began privatising these banks, their losses had to be assumed by the state and entered the state budget as an enormous expenditure. The World Bank estimated that in 1998 the hidden fiscal deficit was 4.9% of GDP compared with a reported budget deficit of 1 . 4 % . ~ ~ These deficits, combined with rising spending and falling revenues connected to the recession, meant that any government would have been saddled with large deficits. At the same time, a plausible case can be made that the opposition agreement did contribute to the defi~it.'~ True to their ideology, the Social Democrats did pursue a programme of increasing social expenditures and committed themselves to several large industrial projects. The Minister of Industry spoke of a 'big bang' of government investment. The opposition agreement may have contributed to these deficits
1294
ANDREW ROBERTS
because it prevented ODs from exercising adequate pressure on CSSD to reduce expenditures. ODs could not vote against the budget because failure to pass it would ultimately bring down the g~vernment.'~ The opposition agreement may thus bear partial but not complete responsibility for rising indebtedness. While the economy is always at the forefront of policy making, an equally important policy area for the Czech Republic is European integration. Here the achievements of CSSD were more apparent. In the mid-nineties, the ODs government had thumbed its nose at the EU. Though ODs was committed to entering the EU, it frequently criticised the Union and its policies as being too socialist and an excessive infringement on national sovereignty. Klaus even went so far as to say that the EU had something to learn from the Czech Republic. This rhetoric changed under the Social Democrats. The government became more EU friendly and appointed a minister in charge of integration. This friendliness was reflected in more positive EU evaluations. While the last years of the Klaus government were marked by negative assessments and even indications that the Czech Republic was not assured of accession in the first wave, the Social Democratic government quickly righted its course and put the country back near the top. This trend can be documented in EU accession reports. Commenting largely on the policies of the Klaus government, the EU noted in 1998 that 'the Czech Republic made only limited progress in the overall approximation process'.75 Though the Social Democratic government started slowly-its progress in 1999 was deemed 'not satisfactory'-by 2000 the EU report evaluated the country more positively. It remarked: 'The majority of the priorities of the Accession Partnership have been addressed though the efforts made thus far should be built upon in order to meet more fully the set objectives'. And by 2001 we read that 'The large majority of Accession Partnership priorities have been addressed and overall satisfactory progress has been achieved in meeting them'. The Czech Republic is the equal of its neighbours in closing chapters of the EU Acquis. A more general impression of policy outcomes can be found in the ratings of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Each year the EBRD evaluates all of the transition countries in a number of reform areas. Though not comprehensive, these data do provide some indication of the successes and failures of the government. According to the EBRD ratings, there is no policy area where the Social Democratic government experienced backsliding, and in three of the nine cases where improvement was possible it succeeded in improving the country's scores.76 This contrasted with the previous government, which had not improved the country's scores in any area. Most significantly, it put enterprise restructuring back on track and considerably improved the banking sector. If we look at these same indicators for Hungary and Poland over the same period we find about the same rate of improvement in Poland (in three of nine categories) and slower improvement in Hungary (in one of nine ~ a t e g o r i e s ) . ~ ~ One of the more serious criticisms of the opposition agreement is that it has bred corruption within g ~ v e r n m e n tCritics . ~ ~ alleged that CSSD and ODs agreed to divide up government offices among themselves and refrain from criticism and oversight of abuses. The Social Democrats, for example, devoted considerable effort
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
1295
to placing their supporters on the boards of directors of publicly owned companies. The most damning evidence of rising corruption comes from the Czech Republic's worsening position in Transparency International's ratings of corruption across the world. Between 1998 and 2001 the Czech Republic dropped from 37th to 47th place in the ~ o r l d . ' ~ Did corruption actually increase and did it increase as a result of the opposition agreement? We can raise some doubts about both questions. While the scores of the Czech Republic did fall, given the large standard deviations on the scores, it is not clear that the drop is statistically significant. Moreover, Transparency International's corruption scores depend on perceptions of businessmen. At the same time as the Czech Republic was perceived as increasingly corrupt, a prominent American businessman was waging a very public campaign-including full page advertisements in the New York Times-against business practices in the country.80 His allegations, however, concerned practices instituted by the Klaus government, not by the Social Democrats. It is probable that this single campaign had a major effect on perceptions of corruption. Further, the Social Democratic government was the first to make the battle against corruption a top policy priority. Indeed, disgust with corruption contributed to the Social Democrats' victory in elections. Though their 'clean hands' campaign was judged a failure, the government's attitude towards corruption was the diametric opposite of that of the ODs Prime Minister, VBclav Klaus, who had famously claimed that there was no such thing as dirty money. Paradoxically, by drawing attention to corruption, the Social Democrats may have affected perceptions of the degree of corruption in the country. A final caveat is that over the same period Poland experienced an equivalent drop in scores on corruption without the benefit of an opposition agreement. Nevertheless, even if the Social Democrats can be acquitted of some of the more serious charges, they can still be indicted for failing to substantially improve transparency. As with any government, there is much to criticise in the work of the Social Democrats. Key reforms of the judiciary and civil service were considerably delayed before they were ultimately passed. A number of policy areas remained unchanged, despite a desperate need for reform. Important though arguably flawed government proposals in the areas of education, housing and healthcare were all rejected by parliament. At the same time, the government failed to deal with excessively generous social benefits and the growing burden of the pension system. Rather than attributing these failures to the opposition agreement, I would turn to more prosaic circumstances. On one hand, CSSD had to pay off supporters who had been neglected under previous governments. This is a natural part of democratic governance, but may have been exaggerated under the Social Democrats because the party had never held power before. In the same vein, we need to remember that before 1998 CSSD had no experience of governing.8' All of its ministers were new to their jobs. Rather than blaming their false steps on intrigues connected with the opposition agreement, they are more likely to have been due to pure inexperience. Indeed, the government's legislative proposals were frequently criticised for being ill-prepared. This also explains why the government became more adept at passing legislation as its time in office increased.
ANDREW ROBERTS
Conclusion Over the past four years the opposition agreement has been the demon that has haunted Czech politics. It is typically spoken of in tones of disgust and antipathy. I have tried to demonstrate in this article that Czech fears of the negative causes and consequences of the agreement are exaggerated. While the agreement was far from perfect, evidence suggests that the Social Democratic government that ruled from 1998 to 2002 was a fairly typical minority government and that the reasons for the agreement's origins and its consequences for Czech political life are not as pernicious as was often assumed. In this conclusion I address two questions: what is the larger significance of the Social Democratic government of 1998-2002 and why have Czech commentators evaluated the opposition agreement so negatively? I would first turn to the general significance of the fact that the Social Democrats took power. A number of political scientists have pointed to the importance of changes of government in transition societies. Hellman, for example, finds that transition countries which have changed governments most frequently perform best on a variety of indicator^.'^ He attributes this to the fact that beneficiaries of one government's policies try to preserve their advantages and put a halt to additional reforms. Just such a constellation seemed to characterise the Czech Republic under successive right-wing governments. A new government with a new set of supporters is necessary to break this logjam and that is just what the Social Democratic government provided. In a comparison of the Czech Republic and Poland, Orenstein adds another element to this account.83 He points to the fact that governments tend to be committed to certain ideologies and approaches which make it difficult for them to correct their mistakes. Only a new government with a different ideology and without a cornmitment to past policies can fix these mistakes. Here again the Social Democratic government fits the bill. Writing in 1999, Saxonberg saw a larger significance in the new government. In his view, it was important not just for policy but also for Czech democracy itself. In the Czech Republic, the election of a new government represents an important landmark. Ever since the 'velvet divorce', the country has had only centre-right governments. Moreover, Czech voters are probably the most anti-communist in the entire region. Under these circumstances, the advent of a Social Democratic government has special significance. Zeman's government need not be particularly successful. As long as the Social Democrats rule without either democratic institutions or the economy collapsing, it will be a major victory for democracy, demonstrating to Czechs that the world will not end if the opposition comes to power. This insight should help foster the tolerance necessary if a democratic political system is to function properly.8" In fact, the government was far more successful than Saxonberg's minimum. As a consequence, the left is no longer looked at with fear and the two poles of the political spectrum have become more balanced. Given these positive assessments of the government, how are we to make sense of the negative opinion of most Czech political commentators? I would first point to the inexperience of Czechs with parliamentary democracy. The consequence is a belief
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
that many aspects of Czech political life are unique and 'nonstandard', rather than common manifestations of democratic politics. Second, I would point to the Czech experience with communism. While other East Central European countries experienced a thaw in the 1970s and 1980s, the Czechoslovak regime was totalitarian to the very end. The consequence is that what Kitschelt calls the regime divide-the resentment of anti-communists for the left-is The ancien regime also gave much stronger in the Czech Republic than el~ewhere.'~ birth to a dissident movement that saw the world in strict moral terms and developed a vision of anti-political politics. Fears of power politics and unholy alliances-the bread and butter of Czech communism-are thus much stronger than in neighbouring c~untries.'~ If there is a message here for Czech political scientists, it is that they should not mistake appearances for reality. While the opposition agreement may have had an ugly face, it is not clear that it was responsible for the country's problems. Rather than focusing on the form of government, commentators would be wise to direct their criticisms to actual policies. This means not focusing on personalities or alliances but on specific policy shortcomings. What is needed is better schools, courts and civil servants, not necessarily better coalitions. Northwestern University
'
I would like to thank Milada Anna Vachudovi and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments. Michal Klima, Kvalita demokracie v eeske' republice a volebni inienfrstvi (Prague, Radix, 2001). See also Jiii Pehe, 'Ceski republika v zajeti opoziEni smlouvy', in Vytunelovana demokracie (Prague, Academia, 2002), p. 278, or the interview with Vklav Have1 in Lidove' Noviny, 24 May 2002. Klima and Pehe are two of the country's most prominent political scientists and frequent commentators in newspapers and magazines. Though the two are cited frequently below, numerous other scholars and commentators could be found sharing their opinions. I have focused on Klima and Pehe because they tend to state clearly and persuasively what other commentators express less well. 'It is unclear why the parties went to the trouble of signing a public document and inventing the term 'opposition agreement' if they truly wished to hide their cooperation. I should note that such formal minority governments are exceedingly rare. Strom finds only 14 cases out of 125 minority governments and of 345 total governments in post-war Western Europe (1945-1987); see Kaare Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 62. Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule, p. 62. Coalition agreements signed by parties which did sit in government in 1992 and 1996 were far more explicit. According to Kopeck$, 'the [I9921 agreement became an important point of reference in all coalition negotiations. It set the basic rules for, and provided a battle ground in, a number of conflict situations that arose'. The 1996 agreement was even more explicit; see Petr Kopecky, Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics: Party Competition and Parliamentary Institutionalization (Burlington, VT, Aldershot, 2001), p. 109. Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule, p. 101. Many of these policy commitments were not fulfilled. Hana KrejEi & Karel Soukenik, 'Prostorovt modely politickt konkurence: analyza PSP CR', www.psp.cz/docs/vote/stat/info/lndex.html This study used a modified version of the Poole-Rosenthal D-NOMINATE method which analyses the positions of parties rather than individual legislators. l o These voting figures show that the Communists are not the anti-system threat they are perceived to be. " Klima objects that 'even if the support party permanently voted against the government proposals, it will still be a support party which in the end is responsible for the contingent acceptance of such a proposal. Primary in this respect is the commitment to guarantee the government its existence. In the case of a fundamental disagreement the support party can at any time cancel the
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asreement and bring about the fall of the "unwanted" government' (Klima, Kvalita demokracie v Ceske' republice a volebni infenyrstvi, p. 21). This argument is mistaken in two respects. First, it is a very trivial sort of support which keeps a government in power but prevents it from passing legislation. No government can survive for long without producing legislation. Further, it is wrong to claim that by ending the agreement ODS can trigger the fall of the government. In order for a vote of no-confidence to pass, it needs to be supported by a majority of votes in parliament. ODs only controls 63 seats. If ODS were to renounce the opposition agreement, it is possible and even likely that either (a) CSSD would win a no-sonfidence yote with the explicit or tacit (they could simply walk out of parliament) suppoft of KSCM, KDU-CSL or US deputies or (b) no party would propose a vote of no-confidence and CSSD would continue to build ad hoc coalitions. l 2 For more on this process see Steven Saxonberg, 'A Ney Phase in Czech Politics', Journal of Democracy, 10, 1, 1999, and Klima, Kvalita demokracie v Ceske' republice a volebni inienjrstvi, pp. 18-19. l 3 Some believe that Rum1 hoped that neither CSSD nor ODS would be able to form a majority government and that Have1 would give his party the opportunity to form a government. It is not clear what viable government he could have formed. l 4 See KLima, Kvalita demokracie v Ceske' republice a volebni infenv'rstvi, pp. 24-25, 32-33. 15 See for example Anna Grzymala-Busse, 'Coalition Formation and the Regime Divide in New Democracies', Comparative Politics, 34, 1, October 2001. l 6 In addition to political culture, two other explanations for the formation of minority governments are frequently proposed in the literature. One suggests that they are the product of political crisis or instability. Yet this explanation finds little support in Western Europe, where minority governments are common in stable and unstable polities alike. Though the June 1998 elections in the Czech Republic were premature and had been preceded by a caretaker government, it is hard to argue that the country was wracked by crisis. Even the most pessimistic observers expressed few doubts about the country's commitment to democracy and civil unrest was minimal. A second explanation focuses on characteristics of the party system. Commentators have speculated that minority governments are more likely to form where the party system is either highly fragmented or highly polarised. Strom has tested these hypotheses in Western Europe and found that they do not account for minority governments. The Czech Republic was neither highly fragmented-nly five parties sat in parliament-nor highly polarised-the Communists held only 24 of 200 seats. Polarisation provides a better explanation for the minority government that ruled from June 1996 to December 1997. In that parliament the far-right Republicans and the far-left Communists controlled 20% of the seats in parliament. The consequence was that the only viable majority governments were grand coalitions including the two largest parties; see Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule, pp. 10-16, 62-68. " Ibid., pp. 68-74. In fact, the party's popularity dropped rapidly after taking office. l 9 See Klha VlachovB, 'Party Identification in the Czech Republic: Inter-Party Hostility "and Party Preference', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 34, 4, 2001, pp. 479499. KDU-CSL voters, by contrast, had very strong ties to their party, which meant that the party could better survive partici ation in an unpopular government. The same goes for ODs. "Strom. Minority Government and Majority Rule, p. 73. 21 The reason that some MPs are allowed to hold places on two or more committees is that without such a provision the governing coalition would frequently not be able to control a majority in all committees. For it to control a majority in all committees with single membership, the coalition would need to hold at least 130 of the 200 seats in parliament and probably more since several MPs would presumably hold ministerial posts. 22 In the 1998-2002 goyernment committee chairs were distributed in the following manner: ~SSD-5; O D S - 6 ; KDU-CSL-2; US-1. Vice-chairs were distributed in the following way: CSSD-23; ODs-20; K D U - C S L - ~ ;US--4; KSCM-1. 23 For more on the committee structure in the Czech Republic see John M. Carey, FrantiSek Formanek & Ewa Karpowicz, 'Legislative Autonomy in New Regimes: The Czech and Polish Cases', Legislative Studies Quarterly, XXIV, 4, November 1999; Petra RakuSanovB, 'Role a postaveni vlbofi PoslaneckC sn6movny Parlarnentu CR v obdobi transformace', Politologicky' casopis, 2001 1, and Kopecky, Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics, pp. 118-132. 24 Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule, pp. 238-241. 25 Abdul G. Noury & Elena Mielcova, 'Roll Call Voting in a Multiparty Parliament: The Case of the Czech Parliament', Working Paper, Free University of Brussels, Belgium, 1997, show that parliamentary voting in the Czech Republic is highly ideological and one-dimensional on a left-right axis. In fact, the one-dimensionality is even higher than in the US Congress; see Keith Poole &
THE CZECH OPPOSITION AGREEMENT
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Howard Rosenthal, 'D-NOMINATE After 10 Years: A Comparative Update to Congress: A Political Economic History of Roll Call Voting', Legislative Studies Quarterly, XXVI, 1, 2001, pp. 5-30. 26 Klima, Kvalita demokracie v Ceske' republice a volebni inieny'rstvi, p. 23. 27 In the seven democracies of East Central Europe 3 1% of governments are minority ones; see Jean Blondel & Ferdinand Miiller-Rommel (eds), Cabinets In Eastern Europe (New York, Palgrave, 2001), p. 195. 28 Strom, Minority Government and Majoritv . Rule, pp. - - 117-123. 29 Ibid., pp. 123--127. 3"or the text of the agreement see Lidove' Novinv. ,. 27 Januarv 2000. The term was borrowed from the toleration patent issued by Austrian Emperor Joseph I1 in 1781 to extend religious freedom. 31 Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule, pp. 115-1 17. 32 Ibid., pp. 116. 33 There was also stability within the government; 22 ministers served in 14 ministries for an average term of 30.5 months. This compares favourably with the first ODs majority government, when 20 ministers served in 14 ministries for an average duration of 33.6 months (author's calculation). "On the third anniversary of the opposition agreement the daily Lidove' Noviny invited five political scientists to comment on the pluses and minuses of the agreement. All five praised it for bringing stability (Lidove' Noviny, 11 July 2001). 3 3 e e Pehe, Vytunelovana demokracie, p. 279. Havel has also expressed this view. In the run-up to the 2002 elections many commentators criticised parties for not ruling out any possible coalition partners. This contrasts, for example, with the situation in the United States, where signs of bipartisanship are usually welcomed. 36 The Hungarian Socialists won an absolute majority of seats in 1994 and still formed a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats. 37 Alberto Alesina & Howard Rosenthal. Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995). 38 Strom notes more generally that minority governments tend to be centrist (Strom, Minority Government and Majority Rule, p. 78). 39 See Klima, Kvalita demokracie v ceske' republice a volebni inieny'rstvi, p. 28. Most pre-election polls did not predict this result. Surveys of public opinion indicated that the Social Democrats and ODs would finish far ahead of the other parties and close to each other. The Communists were almost unanimously predicted to finish fourth, behind the Coalition Party. 'I Pehe, Vytunelovana' demokracie, pp. 282-283. j2 For more on this movement see Kazi Stastna, 'Youth Biedermeier It Ain't', Jan Culik, 'A Repeat of November 1989?' and Andrew Stroehlein, 'If the Dinosaurs Leave', all in Central European Review, 6 December 1999, www.ce-review.org. 41 Among Impuls's more concrete recommendations were more rapid integration into the EU, a public debate about the amount of redistribution of wealth, and the development of a legal culture. Other demands included creating a more friendly society and strengthening the spiritual potential of the younger generation. 44See Andrew Stroehlein, 'Made-for-TV Revolution', Central European Review, 8 January 2001, and Jan Culfk, 'The Death of Czech Public Service Television', Central European Review, 15 January 2001. 45 Pehe, Vytunelovana' demokracie, pp. 263, 279. 46 Martin PotbEkek, 'Osrn Mchd sthtni sprhvy', Lidove' Noviny, 18 May 2002, by contrast, claims that parliament is too powerful because it has unlimited powers to debate and amend government legislation. j7 For a comprehensive account of the Czech parliament up to 1996 see Kopeck$, Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics. 4"oth can be overruled by a simple majority in the Chamber of Deputies. David Stark & Laszlo Bruszt, Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Properq in East Central Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998), believe, perhaps mistakenly, that even in these early years Czech institutions placed strong constraints on executive authority and led to more deliberative and consensual policy making than in Hungary. 50 Carey et al., 'Legislative Autonomy in New Regimes', p. 598. 5 1 Ibid. 52 'Enlargement Strategy Paper: Report of Progress towards Accession by Each of the Candidate Countries', p. 37. This document can be found at www.mz.v.c7/EU/en/docs/index,html. '3 Stark & Bruszt, Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe.
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ANDREW ROBERTS
'"ee Klima, Kvalita demokracie v CeskC republice a volebni inienyrstvi, p. 120, and Pehe, Vytunelovand demokracie, pp. 286281. For a description of this process see Klima, Kvalita demokracie v ceske' republice a volebni inienv'rstvi, pp. 108-122. *'The agreement signed on 14 January 2000 included five chapters. The first concerned the budget, the second a number of neo-liberal reforms, the third communication between the two parties in parliament, the fourth the new electoral system and the fifth preparations for entry into the Euro ean Union. For the full text see LidovC Noviny, 27 January 2000. Vklav Havel, Dismrbing the Peace (New York. Knopf, 1990). pp. 1 6 1 7 . Evidence of his influence on the initial electoral law was the adoption of a system of preferential voting that allowed voters to change the ordering of candidates on the party list. 58 See www.aceproject.org. District magnitude is the key factor in determining the proportionality of an electoral system. Large district sizes are advised for countries with a high degree of ethnic heterogeneity or where local factors play an important role. Neither of these conditions characterises the Czech Republic. See also Arend Lijphart, Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twen Seven Democracies, 1945-1990 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1994). " ~ e eStephen Holmes & Cass Sunstein, 'The Politics of Constitutional Revision in Eastern Europe', in Sanford Levinson (ed.), Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995). For the opposite view, that constitutions should be rigid, see Joel Hellman, 'Constitutions and Economic Reform in Postcommunist Transitions', East European Constitutional Review, 5 , 1, 1996. "We may want to restrict ourselves to changes from more proportional electoral laws to less proportional ones. It is only these changes which restrict political competition and it is only in these cases that we would expect a minority of parties to bias the system in their own favour. Klima compares the Czech experience unfavourably to the British experience where parties have tried to form a consensus to adopt PR. The comparison is flawed in two ways. First, Britain has not yet adopted a PR system. Second, a change from majoritarian to PR voting will necessarily appeal to a large number of small parties and give the appearance of consensus. 61 . Pippa Norris, 'Introduction: The Politics of Electoral Reform', lntemational Political Science Review, 16, 1, 1995, p. 4. In Eastern Europe, eight countries-Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia-have raised the electoral threshold specifically to exclude parties from parliament. Poland additionally decreased district size to accomplish the same goal. 62 Patrick Dunleavy & Helen Margetts, 'Understanding the Dynamics of Electoral Reform', lntemational Political Science Review, 16, 1, 1995, p. 12. 63 We should remember that maintaining an electoral system is also evidence of an interest in preserving political power. "Many scholars of Eastern Europe have tried to measure the power of presidencies in the region. The Czech Republic scores in the bottom half of all these measures; see Christian Lucky, 'Tables of Presidential Power in Eastern Europe', East European Constitutional Review, 3, 1 1993, pp. 81-94, and Timothy Frye, 'A Politics of Institutional Choice: Post-Communist Presidencies', Comparative Political Studies, 30, 5, October 1997. For a dissenting view see Jan MachiEek, 'Ceskg prezident je silnq', LidovC Noviny, 5 January 2002, or Pehe, Vytunelovana demokracie, pp. 292-293. 65 Timothy Frye & Simon Commander, 'The Politics of Post-Communist Economic Reform', Transition Report 1999 (London, EBRD, 2000). 66 Cited in Kazi Stastna, 'Swimming or Sinlung', Transitions Online, www.to1.c~. 67 See Vladimir Jirinek & Bohumil PeEinka, Proti blbC nulade' (Brno, Barrister & Principal, 1999). 68The government was successful in passing 80% of its legislative proposals; see www. parlamenmizpravodajcz. 69 The overall level of debt, however, remained within reasonable bounds at approximately 20% of GDP. The Maastricht criteria for admittance to EMU permit a maximum debt of 60% of GDP and a maximum annual deficit of 3% of GDP. 70 Pehe, Vytunelovand demokracie, p. 282. " In 1998 bad loans were estimated at 29% of all loans, three times the level in Hungary and Poland; see 'Czech Republic: Annual Report 1998', www.to1.c~. 72 Czech Republic: Toward EU Accession (Washington, DC, The World Bank, 1999). p. 38. 7' A considerable literature has assessed the effect of government type on fiscal policy. While the first studies found that minority governments tended to run higher deficits or failed to reduce high deficits, later research suggested just the opposite. For a recent summary of this work see Takayuki Sakamoto, 'Effects of Government Characteristics on Fiscal Deficits in 18 OECD Countries, 1961-1994', Comparative Political Studies, 34, 5 , June 2001.
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74 Of the four budgets passed by CSSD, ODs supported the last three. The Christian Democrats and Communists joined with the Social Democrats to pass the first budget. 75 These reports can be found at www.mzv.cz/EU/en~en/docs/index.html. 76 These areas are 'Governance and Enterprise Restructuring', 'Banking Reform and Interest Rate Liberalisation' and 'Electrical Power'. " This may be partially attributed to the fact that the Czech Republic initially had lower scores than Hungary and Poland in several categories. 78 The editor of the news weekly Respekt famously claimed; 'The government lost its fight with corruption as evidenced by data from Transparency International and the corrupt behaviour of its ministers, beginning with the youngest Biezina and ending with the oldest Gregr'. This statement prompted a lawsuit-later withdrawn-from the government that the Prime Minister hoped would bankrupt the magazine. See Pehe, Vytunelovana' demokracie (p. 280) for an argument explicitly linkin corruption to the opposition agreement. "A poll by the newspaper Lidove' Noviny indicated that 48% of Czechs believed that corruption had increased during the term of the Social Democratic government. These perceptions may suffer from some of the deficiencies I mention below; see 'Korupce v eesku', Lidove' Noviny, 25 April 2002i0 The businessman was Ronald Lauder. He claimed that he had been deprived of his investment in the private television station Nova. For an equivalent argument that explains the policy failures of the 1994 American Congress when Republicans controlled the House of Representatives for the first time after a 40-year hiatus see Richard Fenno, Learning to Govern: An Institutional View of the 104th Congress (Washington, DC, The Brookings Institution Press, 1997). 82 Joel Hellman, 'Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions', World Politics, 50, 2, January 1998, pp. 203-234. 83 Mitchell Orenstein, Out of the Red: Building Democracy and Capitalism in Postcommunist Euro e (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2001). Saxonberg, 'A New Phase in Czech Politics', p. 105. Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslaw Markowski & Gabor Toka, PostCommunist Party Systems: Competition, Representation, and Inter-Par@ Cooperation (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999). Klima frequently criticises the two parties' 'power conception of politics' or their 'powerbased alliance'; see Klima, Kvalita demokracie v Ceske' republice a volebni inien)irstvi, p. 22.
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Appendix Complete text of the opposition agreement
Preamble. The above-named parties, aware of the danger of political instability and in the interest of preserving basic democratic principles, aware of the responsibility given them by voters, aware of the responsibility for securing long-term stability in the Czech Republic and for continuing the economic and societal transformation begun in 1989, and aware further of their responsibility for the global standing of the Czech Republic, conclude among themselves this agreement for the formation of a stable political environment in the Czech Republic. This agreement sets out the procedural issues of the relations of the parties to the agreement.
I.
The above-named parties commit themselves to respect the right of the party which emerged
victorious in elections to form a government and will express this respect by the non-
participation of MPs of the second party during the vote of confidence in the government.
11.
The above-named parties commit themselves to respect the right of the party which finished
second in the elections to be the opposition to this government and further respect the resulting
position defined in the following points.
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ANDREW ROBERTS
ILI.
The above-named parties commit themselves to respect the right of the opposition party to
occupy the chairmanships of both chambers of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and will
express this respect by voting for the candidates proposed by the opposition party.
IV.
The above-named parties commit themselves to proceed through mutual agreement in the
installation of the organs of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.
v. The above-named parties commit themselves to respect the right of the opposition parties to hold the positions of the leading organs of the Chamber of Deputies (the Commission for Oversight of the Intelligence Service, the Commission for Oversight of Military Defence Intelligence), the Chairmanship of the Budget Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and the Presidency of the Supreme Audit Office either directly or by means of a non-party member nominated by the opposition party. VI. The above-named parties commit themselves during the course of the electoral term of the Chamber of Deputies not to raise a vote of no-confidence in the government nor to utilise constitutional channels leading to the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and if such proposals are raised by another political subject they will not support them by vote. In the case of voting on individual laws (including the budget) the above-named parties are not bound in any way.
VII. The above-named parties commit themselves to present within 12 months of signing this agreement a proposal of such amendments to the Constitution of the Czech Republic and other laws that more clearly define the powers of constitutional organs, the procedure of their installation, and in harmony with the constitutional principles of the Czech Republic strengthen the significance of the outcome of the competition of political parties. VIII. The above-named parties commit themselves on the basis of the request of the chairman of these parties or the parliamentary chairmen of these parties to consultations over the means of resolving foreign policy and domestic policy issues before their debate in the Parliament of the Czech Republic, bearing always in mind stability, prosperity and the global stature of the Czech Republic.
IX.
The above-named parties will commit themselves for the duration of this agreement not to form a coalition or agreement with a third political party which would mean the admittance of this party to the government or would lead to the replacement of the holder of any of the posts specified by this agreement. They further commit themselves to not form a lasting agreement with a third party on voting in the Parliament of the Czech Republic and further not to propose a non-party member as a member of government without preliminary consultation.
X. This agreement is revocable in the case of violation of any of its points. In the case that one of the parties comes to the conclusion that the agreement is not fulfilled in its main points and
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that there arise reasons for its revocation, it will request the calling of reconciliation proceedings to which each of the parties delegates three fully empowered representatives. The aim of the reconciliation proceedings is to achieve a resolution of the controversy while preserving the validity of the agreement. The appropriate organs of both political parties will debate proposals for resolution arising in the reconciliation proceedings and will accept a final opinion with which it will first acquaint the second party to the agreement. Source: Lidove' Noviny, 10 July 1998. Translation by the present author.
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Coalition Formation and the Regime Divide in New Democracies: East Central Europe Anna Grzymala-Busse Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 1. (Oct., 2001), pp. 85-104. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-4159%28200110%2934%3A1%3C85%3ACFATRD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 23
Legislative Autonomy in New Regimes: The Czech and Polish Cases John M. Carey; Frantisek Formanek; Ewa Karpowicz Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4. (Nov., 1999), pp. 569-603. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0362-9805%28199911%2924%3A4%3C569%3ALAINRT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 25
D-Nominate after 10 Years: A Comparative Update to Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll-Call Voting Keith T. Poole; Howard Rosenthal Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1. (Feb., 2001), pp. 5-29. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0362-9805%28200102%2926%3A1%3C5%3ADA1YAC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6
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Understanding the Dynamics of Electoral Reform Patrick Dunleavy; Helen Margetts International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique, Vol. 16, No. 1, The Politics of Electoral Reform. La politique de la réforme électorale#. (Jan., 1995), pp. 9-29. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0192-5121%28199501%2916%3A1%3C9%3AUTDOER%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O
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