Elected Affinities: Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic 9781503625372

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elected af finities

Elected Affinities Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

KEVIN DEEGAN-KR AUSE

stanford university press stanford, california 2006

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2006 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Deegan-Krause, Kevin. Elected affinities : democracy and party competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic / Kevin Deegan-Krause. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8047-5206-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Democracy—Slovakia. 2. Political parties—Slovakia. 3. Democracy— Czech Republic. 4. Political parties— Czech Republic. 5. Comparative government. I. Title. jn2240.a91d44 2006 320.9437⬘09⬘049 — dc22 005017983 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper. Original Printing 2006 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 Typeset by G&S Book Services in 10/12.5 Palatino.

For my parents

Contents

List of Figures List of Tables

ix xi

Preface and Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

xiii

xvii

Democracy amid Division 1 The Accountability Gap 22 Accountability and Institutions 76 Institutions, Voter Attitudes, and Issue Divides Issue Divides, Factors, and Actors 177 Slovakia Is Everywhere 225

Notes

245

References Index

317

287

128

Figures

1.1. Model of difference, divide, and cleavage

14

3.1. Centralization and organization of parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1996 93 3.2. Attitudes of HZDS deputies in Slovakia’s parliament toward firmhand rule, 1994, according to deputy’s subsequent relationship to party 95 3.3. Electoral and intraparliamentary volatility in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990 –2000 98 3.4. Political party system size in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990 –2000, according to the methods of Sartori and Taagepera and Laakso 100 3.5. Relative sizes and positions of the largest and second-largest parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990 –2000 102 3.6. Attitudes of parliamentary deputies toward firm-hand rule in Slovakia and the Czech Republic by party, 1994 108 4.1. Mean preference of party supporters for firm-hand rule in Slovakia, 1991–99 138 4.2. Mean preference of party supporters for firm-hand rule in the Czech Republic, 1990 –98 139 4.3. Positions of major political parties on the sympathy-derived political spectrum in Slovakia, 1992 –99 142 4.4. Positions of major political parties on the sympathy-derived political spectrum in the Czech Republic, 1992 –97 143

x Figures 4.5. Attitudes toward firm-hand rule among supporters of governing parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, averaged for each government, 1990 –2000 144 4.6. Mean levels of correlation between government support and preference for firm-hand rule in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990 –2000 145 5.1. Support for HZDS among supporters of and among opponents of firmhand rule in Slovakia, 1990 –2000 187

Tables

3.1. Organizational characteristics of parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1996 84 3.2. Centralization characteristics of parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1996 92 4.1. Attitudinal differences between survey respondents in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1992 –96 150 4.2. Correlation between attitudes and positions on the one-dimensional party spectrum in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1992 –96 152 4.3. Multivariate regressions on attitudinal determinants of individual position on the one-dimensional party spectrum in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1992 –96 162 4.4. Multivariate regressions on attitudinal determinants of individual position on the one-dimensional party spectrum in Slovakia, 1992 –99 163 6.1. Hypothesized relationships among issue divides in sixteen postcommunist countries during the 1990s 234

Preface and Acknowledgments

it is fitting that a book about divisions should begin with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia seemed to confirm yet again the disheartening conclusion that it is easier to separate than to join together. On the other hand, the split gave each half of the former country (especially the Slovak half) more freedom to determine its own future. Only from the rather narrower perspective of the researcher did the breakup offer unmixed blessings, creating nearly perfect conditions for a comparative study of politics in two new governments that seemed at the time to be moving in quite different directions. This new development added to the already-strong appeal of a place whose riches—for the researcher if not always for the inhabitant—included a remarkable array of political, economic, and cultural divisions and a history of involvement in nearly every form of government and economic system known to modern Europe. In retrospect, it seems natural that this work should focus on division, but its course actually followed a series of detours— encounters with the surprising and unexplained—that shifted it away from Václav Havel and civil society and toward the more unsavory but more interesting and influential figures of Vladimír Mecˇiar and Václav Klaus. From there the trail led to the study of political parties, election results, public-opinion polls and, ultimately, to societal divisions that continued to shape (and to be shaped by) Slovak and Czech politics. This course of research took me to places I never expected to see, to parliaments and protest rallies, to bridges and dams, to mountaintops and (reluctantly) caves, and most revealingly, to the offices and living

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Preface and Acknowledgments

rooms of hundreds of people from both countries and from all sides of the various divisions. The people I encountered in Slovakia and the Czech Republic unfailingly offered me strong coffee (or other drinks stronger still) along with strong opinions about how the countries’ new democratic institutions worked and how they might work better. I am particularly indebted to the innumerable employees of state agencies, political parties, universities, and research institutions who patiently endured my questions and went out of their way to narrow the gaps in my understanding. Among these are some of the finest and kindest scholars I have ever met, and without their help this book would not have been possible. I am deeply thankful for the assistance of Vladimír Krivy´, Darina Malová, Zdenka Mansfeldová, Lubomír Brokl, Sonˇa Szomolányi, Zora Bútorová, Martin Bútora, Michal Klíma, Ol’ga Gyrfásˇová, Grigorij Mesezˇnikov, Klára Vlachová-Plecitá, Eva Maierová, Tomas Maier, and many others at Comenius University, Charles University, the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and the Institute for Public Affairs. I have also benefited over time from the assistance of Americans abroad in the service of governmental or nongovernmental organizations, including Lindsay Lloyd, Jan Surotchak, Tom Skladony, Scott Thayer, Ralph Johnson, and most especially Pat Antonietti, Adrian Harmata, and Ron and Eileen Weiser, who have been unfailingly generous in sharing their expertise and their hospitality. I must also extend my heartfelt thanks to the academic community, most especially to the political science faculties of the University of Notre Dame and Wayne State University. Among many exceptional people at those institutions, three stand out: Jim McAdams, Scott Mainwaring, and Brad Roth. As the director of my dissertation, Jim provided the perfect balance of challenge and support and he continued to do so even when I was no longer in his charge; Scott and Brad called me to the highest standard of scholarship and in the process demonstrated an equally great measure of friendship. A wider circle of colleagues and friends have played an instrumental role in the production of this particular book, and I am thankful to those who have lent me their thoughts and inspiration at various stages of this project, including Carol Skalnik Leff, Sharon Wolchik, Anna Grzymaia-Busse, Herbert Kitschelt, Hilary Appel, Karen Buerkle, Michael Coppedge, Sharon Fisher, Robert Fishman, Tim Haughton, Karen Henderson, Juliet Johnson, Charlie Kenney, Jeff Kopstein, Paul Kubicek, Radek Markowski, Martha Merritt, Paula Pickering, Sherrill Stroschein, Gábor Tóka,

Preface and Acknowledgments

xv

Mariano Torcal, Martin Votruba, Jason Wittenberg, and most especially John and Simona Gould and Zsuzsa Csergo, whose lives and careers have become so closely intertwined with mine. Mistakes are my own, but they are far fewer in number thanks to the efforts of a large number of manuscript reviewers, some of whom are included in the list of names above and some of whom remain anonymous. In its journey from ungainly manuscript to printed volume, the book has benefited immensely from the proofreading assistance of Mary Fulmer and the unfailing grace and precision of Amanda Moran and her colleagues at Stanford University Press. Although this book raises doubts about purely economic explanations of Slovak and Czech politics, there would have been no book at all without generous economic support from a variety of sources, including the University of Notre Dame and Wayne State University and grants from Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute, the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX)—with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Information Agency, and the U.S. Department of State, which administers the Russian, Eurasian, and East European Research Program (Title VIII)—and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. In addition to dispersing stipends, Nora Hlozˇeková and her staff at the Fulbright Commission of Slovakia provided invaluable support and guidance. I also want to acknowledge the hard work and generous assistance of the administrative staffs at Wayne State, at Notre Dame, and at the University of Michigan’s Center for Russian and East European Studies. Finally and fundamentally, I am grateful to the extended family of relatives and friends who together created the kind of community in which it was possible for me to undertake a large and difficult project. Above all, I thank my wife, Bridget, and our children, Elena and Peter. Concern for their welfare is the best possible reason for thinking and writing about the abuse of political power. Fear about the future, however, cannot match the hope they inspire for the new beginning “guaranteed by each new birth” (Arendt 1973, 479).

Abbreviations

Abbreviation

Translation

Name in Source Language

ADSR

Alliance of Democrats of the Slovak Republic

Aliancia demokratov Slovenskej republiky

BIS

Security and Information Service

Bezpecˇnostní informacˇní sluzˇba

ˇ SSD C

Czech Social Democratic Party

Ceská strana sociálne demokratická

DS

Democratic Party

Demokratická strana

DU

Democratic Union

Demokratická únia

EAJ

European Association of Judges

ESWS

Coexistence

EU

European Union

FIDESZ

Hungary’s Youth Democrats

Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége

G3S

Federation of Young Democrats

Grémium tretieho sektora

HSD–SMS

Movement for SelfAdministered Democracy– Society for Moravia and Silesia

Hnutí za samosprávnou demokracii–Spolecˇnost pro Moravu a Slezsko

HSL’S

Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party

Hlinkova slovenská l’udová strana

HZDS

Movement for a Democratic Slovakia

Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko

Együttélés-SpoluzˇitieWspólnota-Souzˇití

xviii Abbreviations IMF

International Monetary Fund

KDH

Christian Democratic Movement

Krest’anskodemokraticke hnutie

ˇ SL KDU–C

Christian Democratic Union–Czech People’s Party

ˇM KSC

Communist Party

Krˇest’anská a demokratická ˇ eskoslovenská unie–C strana lidová ˇ ech Komunistická strana C a Moravy

LSU

Liberal Social Union

Liberálneˇ sociální unie

MK

Hungarian Coalition

Magyar Koalíció

MKDM

Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement

Magyar Kereszténydemokrata Mozgalom

MKP

Party of the Hungarian Coalition

Magyar Koalíció Pártja

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

OAS

Organization of American States

ODA

Civic Democratic Alliance

Obcˇanská demokratická aliance

ODS

Civic Democratic Party

Obcˇanská demokratická strana Obcˇanské fórum

OF

Civic Forum

OSCE

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

SDK

Slovak Democratic Coalition

Slovenská demokratická koalícia

SDL’

Party of the Democratic Left

Strana demokratickej l’avice

SIS

Slovak Information Service

Slovenská informacˇná sluzˇba

SNS

Slovak National Party

Slovenská národná strana

SOP

Party of Civic Understanding

Strana obcˇianskeho porozumenia

ˇ SPR–RSC

Assembly for the Republic– Republican Party of Czechoslovakia

Sdruzˇení pro republiku–Republikánská ˇ eskoslovenska strana C

Abbreviations STV

Slovak Television

Slovenská televízia

SV

Common Choice

Spolocˇná vol’ba

UN

United Nations

US

Freedom Union

Unie svobody

VPN

Public Against Violence

Verejnost’ proti násiliu

ZRS

Association of Workers of Slovakia

Zdruzˇenie robotníkov Slovenska

ZS

Green Party

Strana zeleny´ch

xix

elected af finities

chapter

Democracy amid Division

1

czechoslovakia ended in the instant between 1992 and 1993, and a new dividing line cut across the center of the European continent from Austria to Poland. Fences and checkpoints appeared along cultural boundaries, and relations between Slovaks and Czechs moved from the realm of party politics to the realm of diplomacy. In a period of fluid international borders, Slovak and Czech leaders chose to resolve political tensions by redrawing the map, creating separate and independent countries instead of finding another solution for their regional disputes. Rare, however, is the political dispute that can be resolved simply by carving up a state along the line of conflict. Political antagonists are usually stuck with one another, and what then? This book is about the political conflicts that the dissolution of Czechoslovakia did not solve. It is about the divisions that emerged, deepened, and recombined within the newly independent countries of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. For this inquiry, the split of Czechoslovakia provides a unique starting point because the two successor states developed sharply contrasting patterns of political division, despite considerable similarity in most other realms. Slovakia not only experienced pervasive divisions over the role of nationalism and the value of democracy but veered between extremes on these issues in such a way as to put the country’s democratic institutions at risk. The Czech Republic experienced equally sharp divisions between political opponents but little variation in the functioning of its democratic institutions.

2

Democracy amid Division

Unexpected Puzzles When Czechoslovakia split in two, nobody expected much from Slovakia. Many who studied Central and Eastern Europe believed that “muddling through” was probably the best Slovakia could expect, given an inefficient system of production and strong nationalist and authoritarian inclinations that threatened to drag the country down to the level of its counterparts in the Soviet east or the Balkan south. The Czech Republic inspired far more confidence. Observers confidently predicted that its long democratic history, civic tradition, and rapid economic transformation would soon raise the country to the level of its neighbors in the West. Events of the mid-1990s offered little cause to doubt these predictions. The Czech “miracle” had begun to fade, but the country’s move toward democracy and markets appeared solidly under way. Slovakia, however, was a mess. It had become a country of stagnation, corruption, and even political violence. In 1997 and 1998 a series of rapid political and economic shifts in both countries called the predictions into question. The Czech Republic faced an economic slowdown compounded by erratic and scandalridden politics, while in Slovakia the victory of opposition parties not only halted the country’s political decline but restored enough international credibility to qualify for membership in the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Both Slovakia and the Czech Republic began the twenty-first century with functioning— albeit flawed— democratic institutions. Neither country was a miracle; neither was a basket case. How did Slovakia’s democratic development fall so far behind the Czech Republic’s and then suddenly catch up? This is not a simple story of two countries with two different outcomes but of two countries with two different kinds of outcome: one country experiencing relative continuity, the other experiencing rapid change. The challenge posed by the cases of Slovakia and the Czech Republic is to find a single explanation that can account for both the divergence of the two countries’ paths and their subsequent reconvergence. Fortunately, the two cases offer certain advantages that greatly simplify the process of comparison. The geographic proximity and the long period of common political institutions produced a number of commonalities that help simplify the process of tracking down an explanation. The natural experiment produced by Czechoslovakia’s dissolution

Democracy amid Division

3

makes the comparison of Slovakia and the Czech Republic exceptionally useful for testing certain hypotheses. The story of Slovaks and Czechs points beyond itself to a more general understanding of the democratization process and offers certain unique insights into why some democracies falter and others succeed—and why some falter and then succeed. The divergence and surprise reconvergence of the Slovak and Czech trajectories reveal two significant limitations of contemporary inquiry into political questions. The first limitation involves the competing roles of underlying conditions and individuals in shaping political outcomes. It is striking that no matter what happened in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, some scholars interpreted the outcome as an inevitable result of deeper social or cultural forces. As the two countries’ paths drifted apart during the early 1990s, scholarship focused on the deep cultural and economic differences that would invariably promote Czech success and Slovak failure. As the two countries began to reconverge, scholarship focused instead on the underlying commonalities of the economic structures and cultural forces facing Slovakia and the Czech Republic. According to these new accounts, experiments with authoritarian leadership were merely a brief deviation from Slovakia’s traditional Western orientation and relatively modern economic infrastructure, whereas the Czech Republic’s early success was little more than a public relations victory that disguised a communist inheritance little different from that of Slovakia or any other country in the region. It is possible, of course, that early analyses were simply wrong, that the early differences were ephemeral, and that the underlying cultural and structural forces merely took some time to emerge. It is more likely, however, that the flaw lay in analysts’ emphasis on inevitability. Models of structural or cultural continuity lacked appropriate mechanisms for thinking about political difference or change in the two countries, and change therefore forced a constant revision of the inevitable. The other limitation revealed by the Slovak and Czech cases is quite a bit more specific, but still important because it concerns the understanding of democracy. Despite obvious differences in political development between Slovakia and the Czech Republic during the mid1990s, common procedural definitions of democracy failed to record significant differences. Any exploration of the broader questions must begin with a more precise specification of the ways in which Slovakia differed from the Czech Republic.

4

Democracy amid Division

Democracy and Institutional Accountability In the spring of 1997, a journalist from Slovakia’s main opposition newspaper declared that “those in power have crossed and every day distance themselves further from the Rubicon dividing civilized and democratic countries from countries with authoritarian, even dictatorial regimes” (Kotian 1997, 5). This view rested on strong evidence. In the year leading up to this statement, Slovakia experienced bomb attacks against opposition political figures, expulsion of deputies from Parliament, and tampering with the questions on a public referendum. Yet in the fall of the following year, the very same opposition figures who had mourned “the burial of democracy in Slovakia” (Press Agency of the Slovak Republic [hereafter TASR] 1997b) won a striking electoral victory and succeeded in establishing a coalition government with a larger majority than any of its predecessors. Something had indeed gone wrong in Slovakia’s democracy in the mid-1990s, but it was something less extreme than death and resurrection. The participants in Slovakia’s politics may have overstated the change (and with it the degree of difference between Slovakia and the Czech Republic), but the standard methods of political scientists overestimated the similarity. When scholars tested Slovakia and the Czech Republic against widely used “minimalist” definitions that place extremely high emphasis on free and fair elections and the prerequisites for such elections, they found little difference between the two countries (Kopecky´ and Mudde 2000). Minimalist definitions of democracy— especially those derived from Dahl’s “polyarchy” 1—focus primarily on the conditions necessary for a political system to be “responsible to the preferences of all its citizens” (Dahl 1971, 2). Because the inhabitants of Slovakia faced no more significant barriers to citizenship or the electoral franchise than did their counterparts in the Czech Republic, and because both Slovaks and Czechs retained most freedoms of association, information, and expression, it actually took some effort to make a scholarly claim that Slovakia was less of a democracy than the Czech Republic.2 The absence of an accurate, standard measure for Slovakia’s plight led observers to introduce new concepts of their own. Leff (1996) analyzed Slovakia’s democratic system as a “dysfunctional democracy,” and others have attempted to emphasize the idiosyncratic aspects of Slovakia’s political system, labeling it “Mecˇiarism” after the country’s longtime premier Vladimír Mecˇiar (Williams 1998; Fish 1999; Baer 2001). Nor is

Democracy amid Division

5

Slovakia the only case that lacked a clear diagnosis. Fortunately, research derived from democratization in other parts of the world offers some of the necessary tools. New concepts, such as “delegative democracy” (O’Donnell 1992), “illiberal democracy” (Zakaria 1997), and “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky and Way 2002), emphasize both the role of elections and the behavior of elected leaders in the period in between. The “poly” in Dahl’s “polyarchy” applies primarily to the number of competitors for elected office, and it is electoral competition that provides a motive for political responsiveness (O’Donnell 1994; Zakaria 1997).3 The motivation is imperfect, however, and may not have much effect on the actions of leaders who lack interest in reelection or who possess confidence in the support of the electorate. The conditions of polyarchy alone do not preclude a regime of serial monarchy, in which leaders have free reign from one election to the next with little immediate restraint on their use of power in the interim. The old question of mutual restraint among political institutions—a chief concern of Aristotle, Locke, Montesquieu, and Madison—has returned to prominence in the study of late twentieth-century democratization in the works of Linz and Stepan, Huntington, O’Donnell, and many others. O’Donnell, in particular, offers a useful framework for understanding the role of institutional restraints in his work on the concept of accountability.4 O’Donnell distinguishes between two forms of accountability: the “vertical” accountability of leaders to citizens through the electoral process and the “horizontal” accountability among various political institutions. The potential for imprecision in this spatial metaphor has led others to refer to the “vertical” accountability as “electoral” and “horizontal” accountability as “institutional.” 5 Although the principles of electoral accountability are well defined in Dahl’s polyarchy and other minimalist definitions of democracy, the principles of institutional accountability must be distilled from a much newer and less systematic body of literature (O’Donnell 1998; Schedler 1999a). Nevertheless, scholars on accountability agree implicitly or explicitly on four main conditions: • Codification: Institutional constraints are codified in clear, formal rules.6 • Oversight: Violations of institutional constraints can be detected with available means.7 • Sanction: Violations of institutional constraints result in meaningful sanctions.

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Democracy amid Division

• Independence: The rules and personnel responsible for maintaining institutional constraint do not depend solely on the institution under scrutiny.8

The more closely institutions adhere to all four of these conditions, the more difficult it becomes for political leaders to exercise arbitrary power or encroach into the domains reserved for other institutions. These conditions must be understood in context. As Schedler notes, accountability is a “modest” concept that exists by definition only in realms of relative control and incomplete information. The very modesty of the concept introduces ambiguity because different institutions may disagree on appropriate institutional relationships. An oversight committee’s demand for “appropriate disclosure” might be seen as “inappropriate meddling” by the government ministry that is under scrutiny; an executive agency’s allegations of “legislative usurpation” may be touted by members of parliament as “long overdue restructuring.” For this reason it is necessary to look at accountability issues with close attention to the balance of the overall political system. Institutions— particularly legislatures and executives—may expand their own power without necessarily undermining institutional accountability, but changes must not place any institution out of the reach of others. The failure to maintain institutional accountability has severe consequences. O’Donnell (1994) notes that a political system that depends only on electoral restraints can “hardly be less congenial to the building and strengthening of democratic political institutions” (62). Huntington (1996), likewise, notes that “future threats to democracy” will most likely come not from coups or revolutions but from “political leaders and groups who win elections, take power, and then manipulate the mechanisms of democracy to curtail or destroy democracy” (8). He cites as one of the most serious threats the “executive arrogation, which occurs when an elected chief executive concentrates power in his own hands, subordinates or even suspends the legislature, and rules largely by decree” (9). Linz and Stepan (1996b) reach similar conclusions. Framing the question within their larger concern for the process of democratic consolidation, they argue that “a democracy in which a single leader enjoys, or thinks he or she enjoys, a ‘democratic’ legitimacy that allows him or her to ignore, dismiss or alter other institutions . . . is not likely to result in a consolidated democracy unless such discretion is checked” (19 –20).9 Even if electoral accountability can persist without some institutional restraint on leaders, the absence of such restraints is likely to produce other undesirable results.10 Zakaria (1997) raises the issue in the form of a rhetorical question, asking readers to “consider where you would

Democracy amid Division

7

rather live, Haiti, an illiberal democracy, or Antigua, a liberal semidemocracy?” (29). In recommending Antigua over Haiti, Zakaria emphasizes that institutional restrictions on elected and appointed leaders help prevent states from becoming unduly centralized and “predatory” (32), and thereby play a role in safeguarding liberties and in helping to encourage “successful economic reform policy” (33). The distinction between institutional and electoral accountability is thus essential for understanding how the path taken by Slovakia differed from that of the Czech Republic during the 1990s. During the mid1990s, Slovakia’s majority coalition systematically dismantled the institutions that were intended to hold it accountable. These efforts began first with the institutions that stood within reach; each encroachment enabled (and sometimes required) the next. Infringement on electoral accountability—violations of the minimal standards necessary for polyarchy— did not come until later and remained incomplete. In the Czech Republic, violations of institutional accountability never constituted a systematic pattern, and the country’s electoral accountability did not come under such severe threat.

Factors, Actors, and Divisions A precise understanding of how the Slovak and Czech political outcomes differed makes it possible to ask the even more consequential question of why. Explanations of the differences in Slovak and Czech politics during the 1990s come from many quarters. Some focus closely on the countries themselves, whereas others draw on broader regional or thematic explanations, and still others offer useful metaphors and other analogies. As in the social sciences generally, the answers cluster into several sets of explanations, focusing on distinctive cultural factors, on underlying socioeconomic and geographic structures, and on specific political and social institutions and elites. All these approaches contribute to an understanding of the Slovak and Czech cases, but each falls short in some way. Attention to political divisions—labeled variously as cleavages, differences, and divides— offers a more complete answer, one that builds on the strengths of cultural, structural, institutional, and individual approaches without suffering from their weaknesses.

Culture Cultural explanations of shifting Slovak and Czech political outcomes face certain built-in limits because they explain differences between

8

Democracy amid Division

countries more easily than change within countries. Accounts of the deep differences between Slovaks and Czechs have a long history and exert a powerful influence on those who study the two countries (Kusy´ 1995). Cultural explanations played a particularly important role during the 1990s because all cultural indicators appeared to point in the same direction, toward Slovak failure and Czech success (Baer 2001): • Religiosity: Many scholars identified a long-standing historical relationship between religiosity—particularly Roman Catholicism— and the rejection of democracy (Elster, Offe, and Preuss 1998; Huntington 1992; Putnam 1993). Slovakia’s significantly higher levels of churchgoing and religious belief cast doubts on Slovakia’s ability to democratize as successfully as the Czech Republic (Baer 2001; Hrib 1998). Slovakia’s experience of wartime authoritarian rule by Roman Catholic clergy appeared to confirm these tendencies (Nedelsky 2001b). • Nationalism: Observers commonly describe Slovaks as more “nationalist” and “separatist” than their Czech counterparts (Kusy´ 1995), who saw themselves as having risen above nationalist feelings (Pynsent 1994). Other scholars directly identify nationalism as the unique factor that kept Slovakia from reaching the stable democracy enjoyed by its neighbors (Carpenter 1997; Ulcˇ 1996). • Authoritarianism: Scholars describe the political inclinations of Slovaks as “traditional” (Carpenter 1997), “populist” (Ulcˇ 1996), and “communist” (cited in Kusy´ 1995) and suggest that habits of political moderation, such as constitutionalism, were “almost entirely alien to [Slovaks’] social understanding” (Elster, Offe, and Preuss 1998, 301–2). A wide range of observers describe the political culture of the Czech Republic as democratic and civic.

With such a heavy cultural burden, it is remarkable that Slovakia could have begun the process of democratization at all, much less have undertaken the kind of transformation that returned it to democracy and made it quickly eligible for NATO and EU membership. In each of these three areas, however, the cultural explanations fail to explain important shifts in the development of democracy in the two countries. Surveys of public opinion hold some clues to understanding why the cultural differences are not what they seem. Polls show a significant gap between conventional wisdom about Slovak and Czech cultural differences and the rather similar attitudes actually expressed by Slovak and Czech survey respondents (Krause 1998a). Surveys evoke few broad differences of opinion between Slovaks and Czechs. These differences depend heavily on recent circumstances (Whitefield and Evans 1999)

Democracy amid Division

9

and, furthermore, prove to be very small when compared to the full range of opinion difference from across the region as a whole (Whitefield and Evans 1995; Smeltz et al. 2000). Cultural similarities between Slovaks and Czechs may help account for the two countries’ later reconvergence, but this merely displaces the problem because culture cannot explain the initial divergence. In either case, standard cultural approaches do not do well at explaining the swings in Slovakia’s political outcomes between 1992 and 1998 as compared with the more stable development of the Czech Republic. The overall preferences of Slovaks for democracy or institutional accountability simply did not shift in ways that corresponded to the country’s significant political changes during the same period.

Structures Like culture, underlying socioeconomic structures help explain some— but only some— of the political developments in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. As with cultural explanations, structural accounts tend to be consistent with either the early divergence of the two countries or the later reconvergence, but not both. Scholars have long posited a causal connection between economic and democratic outcomes (Lipset 1959; Dahl 1971), and more recent analyses link the endurance of democracy to affluence, positive economic performance, and reductions in income inequality (Przeworski et al. 1996). By these criteria, the early differences between Slovaks and Czechs should come as little surprise. Slovakia began its independent existence with less wealth and less apparent economic potential than the Czech Republic did. Early forecasts about the Slovak and Czech economies almost invariably contrasted Czech prosperity with Slovak economic collapse and ensuing political chaos (Economist 1993b). Such hypotheses, however, cannot easily account for the two countries’ later reconvergence because Slovakia maintained roughly the same economic pace as the Czech Republic and did not at any point suddenly leap ahead (World Bank 1998, 198 –99; Sˇvejnar 2000). Other analyses of the role of underlying structures use a more historical approach. Two ambitious multiauthor works—Kitschelt et al. (1999) and Elster, Offe, and Preuss (1998)—acknowledge the complex interaction between socioeconomic legacies and institutional developments but ultimately attribute the most explanatory power to experiences of socioeconomic modernization during the late nineteenth and early

10

Democracy amid Division

twentieth centuries and to subsequent development during the communist period. In so doing, these authors relegate Slovakia to a second tier along with Romania and Bulgaria and do not anticipate the political turnaround that Slovakia achieved in the late 1990s. Another set of socioeconomic accounts explains the later similarities, but not the initial differences. These later accounts emphasize the relatively small size of overall economic differences between the two countries, particularly when measured against the great variation within the region as a whole. Although Bunce (2000) focuses primarily on other explanatory variables, she nevertheless identifies Slovakia’s early “democratic deficits” to be an “interesting exception” in the light of the country’s position in “the upper economic tier of the region” (706 –7). Kopstein and Reilly’s structural explanation emphasizes Slovakia’s geographic proximity to the West (measured as distance from Berlin or Vienna) as a factor that favored the country’s democratization (Fish 1999; Kopstein and Reilly 2000). Without recourse to other factors, however, these approaches do not explain how Slovakia managed to find itself on the brink of authoritarianism in the mid-1990s or how it managed to recover its balance. Slovakia oscillated between authoritarian and democratic poles during the 1990s even though its relative economic position (and the distance between Bratislava and Vienna) remained quite stable. Like common cultural accounts, most structural explanations can account for one period of Slovak and Czech democratization, but not for both.

Institutions and Elites Institutional explanations do a better job of accounting for the changes that occurred in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but these approaches prove insufficient in other ways, providing too little attention to the ways in which organizations and leaders were rooted in society. In one area, the question of institutions is nearly moot. An extensive scholarly literature demonstrates the ways in which democracy depends on appropriate institutional design, but the formal institutions of Slovakia and the Czech Republic differed little during the 1990s. The two new countries adopted extremely similar constitutions with many features derived directly from the common institutions of the Czechoslovak state, including parliamentary government and straightforward proportional representation with a moderate electoral threshold (Elster 1988; Kopecky´ 2001). The establishment of an upper legislative house in

Democracy amid Division

11

the Czech Republic in 1996 and a directly elected presidency in Slovakia in 1999 had relatively minor effects, and the institutional changes occurred only after the most significant of the events discussed in this book. Other institutions of the two countries remained similar as well. These included nearly all the institutional variables that political scientists commonly use to explain democratic success or failure: associational density, party system fragmentation, volatility, institutionalization, and the results of the first postcommunist elections.11 Differences in these indicators were simply too small to have a major effect, and they did not change over time in parallel with the two countries’ political trajectories. A few significant differences did emerge between the two countries’ party systems, however. Slovakia and the Czech Republic differed in the combination of party centralization and party organization, and in the mix of programmatic and charismatic incentives used by political parties (Henderson 2002; Kopecky´ 2001; Malová 1995b; Mansfeldová 2003). Party leaders also played an important role, one that reflects O’Donnell and Schmitter’s (1986) emphasis on the significance of contingent decisions in times of transition. Although the presidency of Czech playwright and former dissident Václav Havel gained worldwide visibility (Meyer 1990), Havel ultimately played a relatively minor role in comparison to that of two other individuals: Václav Klaus, premier of the Czech Republic from 1992 until 1998, and Vladimír Mecˇiar, premier of Slovakia for three nonconsecutive terms between 1990 and 1998 (Szomolányi 1994b; Leff 1996; Saxonberg 1999). In a sophisticated comparison of Slovak and Czech politics, Kopecky´ (2001) spells out the crucial role of Klaus, Mecˇiar, and other party leaders. These leaders, however, did not make history as they chose. They exerted a strong and seemingly independent influence on political outcomes but depended heavily on their parties and on their voters. Kopecky´’s elite-oriented analysis acknowledges the strong, sustained coherence between the views of leaders and those of their supporters. Likewise Bunce (2000), who argues that “new democracies, at least in the post-Socialist world, seem to be most threatened when they are led by a figure who is widely viewed as the liberator and leader of the nation and therefore as the builder of the state” (711), also notes the ambiguous role of elites as both the source of “deliberate action in highly contingent circumstances” and “the by-product of larger social forces” (708). The tension between contingent action and underlying forces allows no easy resolution, but some analytical frameworks do a better job

12

Democracy amid Division

than others. Most cultural and structural accounts of Slovak and Czech politics lack flexibility to explain change, and most institutional and elite accounts need deeper roots in society. A better approach to understanding Slovakia and the Czech Republic—and many other countries as well— depends on an alternative framework, one that makes a comprehensive link between cultural and structural factors and institutional actors by focusing on how they oppose or reinforce one another on divisive social and political questions.

Difference, Cleavage, and Divide Division holds the key to explaining the full range of Slovak and Czech political outcomes during the 1990s. Cultural and structural legacies and institutional alternatives are not monolithic wholes but contain within themselves a range of positions. Political outcomes depend not only on the pressure of the whole but also on the interaction of the parts. Attention to division is evident even in some purely structural and cultural approaches: structural accounts have focused on class division and conflict since the time of Marx; more recently, cultural approaches of the sort promoted by Laitin (1988) focus not on “values that are upheld” but instead as “‘points of concern’ that are debated” (589). The most prominent contribution, however, is undoubtedly that of Lipset and Rokkan’s 1967 “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments.” As modified by subsequent generations of scholars, this framework holds important keys to a comprehensive explanation of the different Slovak and Czech paths and the paths of many other new democracies. Types of Division. Lipset and Rokkan (1967) helped establish division as a legitimate object of study and introduced a typology of four key conflicts— cleavages—that have shaped European politics over the past five hundred years: church against state, center against periphery, agriculture against industry, and worker against owner. Lipset and Rokkan offer no explicit definition of the term “cleavage,” though Zuckerman (1975) suggests that the authors use the term to refer to “conflict groups based on perceptions of association in opposition to other such groupings among large segments of a population” (234). In 1970 Rae and Taylor offered a more explicit classificatory scheme, identifying three specific types of division as cleavages: ascriptive or “trait” cleavages, such as race or caste; attitudinal or “opinion” cleavages, such as ideology or, less grandly, preference; and behavioral or “act” cleavages,

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13

such as those elicited through voting and organizational membership (1). In 1990 Bartolini and Mair listed a similar set of characteristics in their analysis of the effects of cleavage on electoral stability: The concept of cleavage can be seen to incorporate three levels: an empirical element, which identifies the empirical referent of the concept, and which we can define in social-structural terms; a normative element, that is the set of values and beliefs which provides a sense of identity and role to the empirical element, and which reflect the self-consciousness of the social group(s) involved; and an organizational/behavioral element, that is the set of individual interactions, institutions, and organizations, such as political parties, which develop as part of the cleavage. (215)

Bartolini and Mair make the clear distinction that their definition of cleavage involves all three of these differences. They emphasize that “cleavages cannot be reduced simply to the outgrowths of social stratification; rather, social distinctions become cleavages when they are organized as such. . . . A cleavage has therefore to be considered primarily as a form of closure of social relationships” (216). This definition possesses a certain intuitive advantage because it acknowledges that although differences appear everywhere, their significance increases the more they overlap with other kinds of differences and produce coherent “sides” in a political conflict. In 1995 Knutsen and Scarbrough developed this threefold distinction into a triangular framework linking “structural variables,” “value orientations,” and “party support” (494). Their framework, however, involves implicit arrows of causation that are not necessary for this explanation and neglects the question of nonpoliticized relationships between structure and value. Figure 1.1 builds on this framework, clarifying the relationships in a spatial manner and offering a standardized terminology. The model builds from simplicity toward complexity. Adapting the terminological conventions of Knutsen and Scarbrough, and Bartolini and Mair, the model first distinguishes among three categories of “difference” that stand at the outer corners of the triangular framework in Figure 1.1. • Structural difference involves characteristics that may also be referred to as “sociostructural” or “empirical” by Bartolini and Mair (1990, 215) and as “ascriptive,” “trait,” or “demographic” by Rae and Taylor (1970, 1). These differences may involve groups with more or less rigid lines of demarcation (gender, ethnic groups, and social classes) or a relatively smooth continuum with no obvious lines of demarcation (income distribution or education level). In practice,

14

Democracy amid Division

Institutions

Attitudinal difference

Institutions

Attitudes

Attitudes

Structures

Structures Institutions

Position divide

Attitudes

Issue divide

Structures

Full cleavage

Institutions

Structural difference

Institutional difference Attitudes

Structures

Census divide figure 1.1. Model of difference, divide, and cleavage.

analysts often operationalize this difference through an array of demographic questions about gender, place of residence, occupation, primary language, and other similar questions found in publicopinion surveys and censuses. • Attitudinal difference involves characteristics that may also be referred to as “norms,” “beliefs” (Bartolini and Mair 1990, 215), “opinions” (Rae and Taylor 1970, 1), and “values” (Knutsen and Scarbrough

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15

1995, 497). Even more than structural differences, attitudinal differences are likely to exhibit a continuous distribution rather than clearly distinct positions. Assessments of attitudinal difference almost always depend on surveys of public attitudes, using Likert scales or semantic differentials, though occasionally attitudes are derived from other types of questions or coding of open-ended responses.12 • Institutional difference involves characteristics that may also be referred to in terms of voting and organization (Bartolini and Mair 1990, 215) or “behavior” and “acts” (Rae and Taylor 1970, 1). Institutional difference most often refers to choices among political parties, and its measurement takes the form of election results or surveys of party choice, which may include choices among multiple parties or levels of sympathy for individual parties.

Any of these three differences alone may or may not produce a significant impact. The impact grows dramatically, however, when all three differences become aligned in such a way that members of a particular demographic group tend to share the same attitudes and prefer the same political parties. Only then, say Bartolini and Mair (1990), is it possible to speak in strict terms of a “cleavage,” because a combination of all three differences is needed for the necessary degree of closure. In addition to introducing a degree of clarity to the problem of division, this definition also lends itself to common methods of quantitative measurement through censuses, opinion surveys, and election results. If used rigidly, however, this definition can lead to significant oversights because it does not formally address questions of persistence and importance that are central to other notions of cleavage (Dahl 1966; Zuckerman 1975; Whitefield 2002). The alignment of structural, attitudinal, and institutional differences undoubtedly contributes to the permanence and political significance of a division, but it is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. A usable framework must address the question of division without sacrificing the clarity provided by Bartolini and Mair or adopting a long-term, historical view that discourages attention to recently established democracies. One answer is to look more closely at the conceptual no-man’s land that lies between simple, one-dimensional “differences” and full, three-dimensional “cleavages.” The combination of only two types of difference falls short of the holy grail of “full cleavage,” but in many circumstances proves more useful for political analysis. Research in this intermediate realm has not languished, but scholarly attention has tended to focus on the existence of “full” (a description often conflated

16

Democracy amid Division

with “real”) cleavage rather than the causes and consequences of “partial” cleavages. The absence of consistent terminology for this intermediate realm has also fragmented scholarly dialogue and prevented scholarship on these questions from reaching critical mass. Recent political science literature is full of references to issue dimensions, competitive dimensions, political cleavages, potential cleavages, and political divides, each of which refers to some form of pairwise combination of structural, attitudinal, or institutional difference.13 On the relatively easier topic of terminology, Knutsen and Scarbrough (1995) come the closest to a systematization of the intermediate realm with their references to “values voting” (a relationship between value orientation and choice of political parties without a strong basis in structural variables) and “structural voting” (a relationship between structural characteristics and choice of political party without a basis in values). The framework presented in Figure 1.1 adopts the term “divide,” which implies something more than mere difference but something less than cleavage. (It would be no less accurate to employ a method of “diminished subtypes” and refer instead to “partial” cleavages, but the resulting terminology can become cumbersome.) Within the category of divides there are three possible combinations: • Position divides combine structural and attitudinal differences, such as the connection between factory employment and redistributionist sentiments. Such links may create a wide and enduring split in society. Without a behavioral component, however, such as labor unions or labor parties, the divide may yield little conflict and even less change. Because these divides are, by definition, not politicized, political scientists tend to view them as somehow incomplete. Mainwaring (1999) refers to “salient social cleavages without clear party expressions,” and Bolliger and Bernath (2003) use the phrase “potential cleavages.” It is more appropriate (if slightly more cumbersome) to label these as “structural-attitudinal” cleavages or “noninstitutional” cleavages. The term “position divide” is simpler, however, and “position” carries connotations both of structural location and of attitude. • Census divides combine structural and institutional differences, such as the connection between caste membership and voting for exclusively caste-based parties. If the members of a group can agree on questions of identity and formulate corresponding demands, this divide can develop into a full cleavage. However, such divides can also lose their significance if political entrepreneurs emphasize attitudinal factors that cut across group and party lines. Referred to by Knutsen and Scarbrough (1995) as “structural voting” and by Evans

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17

and Whitefield (2000) as partisan “social divisions,” the phenomenon can also be labeled as “structural-institutional” cleavage or “nonattitudinal” cleavage. The term “census divide” offers a simpler alternative that follows the usage of Horowitz (1985) regarding “census” elections in which social groups vote unanimously for a particular party. • Issue divides combine attitudinal and institutional differences, such as social-democratic party preference among those with redistributionist sentiment. These divides may have immediate effect but may not endure from one election to the next because they lack roots in society. In fact, observers often refer to such cleavages as “political cleavages” to distinguish them from “social cleavages” that involve ties to particular social groups. These correspond as well to the “issue dimensions” of Lijphart (1999), the “political divides” and “competitive dimensions” of Kitschelt et al. (1999), the “value cleavage” and “value voting” of Knutsen and Scarbrough (1995), and the partisan “ideological divisions” of Evans and Whitefield (2000). The proliferation of terms for this important concept suggests the need for a certain degree of standardization (or at least conscious use of existing terminology). Although “attitudinal-institutional cleavage” or “nonstructural” cleavage would be appropriate, the term “issue divide” is already in limited use and reflects Lijphart’s usage of “issue” to refer to the connection between attitudes and party choice.

A clear differentiation among difference, divide, and cleavage is important not only out of purely academic interest but because divisions really matter in shaping domestic politics. Consequences of Division. The consequences of particular kinds of division have remained surprisingly understudied. Having defined and classified cleavages, Bartolini and Mair (1990) used the definition primarily in their effort to explain political volatility. Despite considerable attention to various types of division (Berglund, Hellén, and Aarebrot 1998; Lawson, Römmele, and Karasimeonov 1999; Tucker 2002), only a few have employed these concepts to explain broader political phenomena (Mainwaring 1999; Torcal and Mainwaring 2000). A significant exception in scholarship on postcommunist Europe is Kitschelt’s (1992) influential speculation about the likely configuration of cleavages in postcommunist democracies and his subsequent claim that “the dimensionality and configuration” of a party system may be “a critical element of democratic ‘consolidation’” (Kitschelt 1994, 1). Another exception, Elster, Offe, and Preuss’s 1998 Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies, devotes nearly fifty pages over two chapters to cleavages in Central and Eastern Europe.

18

Democracy amid Division

Yet even these works undervalue the role of divisions in shaping the course of democratization. Both Kitschelt (1999, 2001) and Elster, Offe, and Preuss (1998) ultimately fall back on structural factors of socioeconomic modernization to explain changes in postcommunist Europe and thus miss the possibility of political change of the sort that occurred in Slovakia during the late 1990s. Their oversight is unfortunate because a close study of division can explain certain aspects of democratization in ways that other methods cannot. This approach, instead of seeking to explain the victory of one side or the other, seeks to understand the nature of the differences between the sides. Although it may not precisely identify winners and losers, it may do a better job of identifying the range of plausible outcomes and allow for the possibility of rapid change in cases of closely matched adversaries. Furthermore, differences in divisions at various levels can also explain how two similar settings produce different outcomes, just as a tree cut crosswise differs markedly from one split from root to branch. In the case of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, an understanding of the prevailing divisions helps resolve the two central puzzles that surround their political development: How could the two countries differ so significantly in their institutional accountability when the cultural and structural factors were so similar? And how could Slovakia undergo such a rapid reversal without a substantial change in those factors? The answer is that leaders and voters in Slovakia fought about different issues than did their counterparts in the Czech Republic (Evans and Whitefield 1994, 1998; Kopecky´ 2001; Krause 1996a, 2000). Slovaks fought more vehemently about democracy, and the opposing sides became so sharply defined that it is perhaps not surprising that the oscillations could be so great. As the 1998 reversals in Slovakia confirmed— and the minor shifts in Czech politics echoed—political outcomes depended not only on what elites and voters thought but also on how they took sides. Origins of Division. Because divisions play an independent role in shaping outcomes, it is especially important to figure out where they come from. Scholars disagree strongly about whether the Lipset and Rokkan (1967) approach allows a top-down, leader-driven account of cleavage formation or insists on a bottom-up account that relies on structure and culture. Although the largest contingent of researchers has focused on the role of socioeconomic and cultural roots, a small but increasingly influential group of scholars has concentrated instead on the role of political parties and political leaders.

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The concept of cleavage, with its origins in the study of minerals, frequently lends itself to structural approaches. Some cleavage-based understandings of the origins of political alignments resemble the geological model of the interplay among continental plates, pushed over or under other plates in a struggle that is beyond human control and that becomes apparent only in occasional earthquakes. Much work on cleavages reflects this sense of geological inevitability, in which long-standing socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious differences determine the longterm framework for political alignments. During the second half of the twentieth century, the circumstances of politics in advanced industrial democracies have done little to promote an alternative view. In many Western European countries the endurance of particular relationships among cleavages and the apparently stable set of political alignments affirmed structural accounts and discouraged interest in alternative explanations. Recent work on alignments in postcommunist democracies follows in this tradition, explaining divisions on the basis of economic structures from the precommunist period (Kitschelt 2001) or in a broader range of underlying cultural and economic differences (Evans and Whitefield 2000; Whitefield 2002). Other studies of cleavage in newly emerging democracies offer a competing position. Scholars of political divisions in Latin America and the postcommunist sphere frequently draw upon elements in Lipset and Rokkan (1967) that emphasize the role of political parties as “essential agencies of mobilization” in political conflicts (4). This tradition, pioneered by Sartori (1969), has emphasized the malleability of underlying conflicts in the hands of political parties and their leaders. Torcal and Chhibber (1997) argue that “the emergence of social class as a salient political conflict resulted from strategic choices made by [party] elites” (50), and Mainwaring (1999) emphasizes “elite and state shaping of the party system from above” (55). Scholars of postcommunist Europe have found similar relationships. Zielinski (2002) notes the importance of political initiatives by party leaders in creating divisions, and Kopecky´ (2001) attempts to account for the divergence of Slovakia and the Czech Republic on the basis of elevated divisions among Slovak elites. The divisions that shaped politics in Slovakia and the Czech Republic did not simply reflect the ever-changing rivalries of the powerful, nor did they simply mirror age-old societal differences. The divides that sent Slovak and Czech politics along separate paths emerged as political leaders chose political strategies that they thought would appeal to voters. Underlying economic and cultural divides limited the options,

20

Democracy amid Division

of course, but leaders in Slovakia faced a broader and more complicated set of fractures and retained a degree of choice that they could use to advance other political goals, most notably the elimination of institutional accountability.

Unfolding the Story Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with their complex combination of national, economic, and constitutional questions in the midst of sweeping political change, offer a remarkable opportunity to probe deeply into the interaction among forces that shape political outcomes. It is fortunate that the developments in these two relatively small countries, with their solid research infrastructure and their approachable political leaders, offer much more than simply good examples of postcommunist transition and consolidation. The next five chapters build on one another, moving from the abuse of power by particular governments to the institutional framework that made such abuse possible to the partial cleavages shaping institutional development. Finally, the text moves to underlying structural and cultural factors and the opportunities that they present to particular individuals who seek to shape the nature of political competition. The argument in its course employs the tools of cleavage analysis. In moving from a close study of institutional dynamics to an analysis of the relationships between institutions and attitudes and then to an exploration of the societal roots of such relationships, the book proceeds from differences to divides to the realm of full cleavage. Chapter 2, “The Accountability Gap,” contrasts the near collapse of Slovakia’s democracy during the mid-1990s with the less extreme shifts that took place in the Czech Republic, identifying the specific stages of accountability violation in Slovakia and demonstrating that encroachments in the Czech Republic stopped at an earlier stage. The rest of the book offers a comprehensive explanation for these differences on the basis of divisions at the elite and mass levels. Chapter 3, “Accountability and Institutions,” examines institutional explanations for the accountability violations detailed in Chapter 2. After showing the limitations of accounts based on formal institutional design, civil society, domestic and foreign economic actors, and other institutional factors, the chapter demonstrates the decisive significance of political party systems, the internal structures of political parties, and the attitudes of party elites.

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Chapter 4, “Institutions, Voter Attitudes, and Issue Divides” tests explanations of accountability that rely on differences in attitudes. This chapter demonstrates the inadequacy of explanations based upon average differences between Slovak and Czech attitudes about democracy, the economy, religion, and national identity. Differences in the political relevance of certain attitudes—rather than differences in the attitudes themselves— created the basis for differences in Slovak and Czech political outcomes. Chapter 5, “Issue Divides, Factors, and Actors,” looks for underlying structural and cultural differences that might explain patterns of alignment in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The chapter shows that socioeconomic factors played a dominant role in the Czech Republic, whereas in Slovakia the presence of unresolved questions of national identity among ethnic Slovaks provided opportunities for political leaders to capitalize on national grievances and to gain a parliamentary majority for a bloc of antiaccountability parties. Chapter 6, “Slovakia Is Everywhere,” draws general conclusions about the origins and consequences of partial cleavages from the experience of Slovakia and the Czech Republic and compares them to a variety of counterfactual scenarios and a range of examples from countries throughout the postcommunist sphere. The chapter emphasizes the role of national identity politics in creating the conditions for divides between the supporters and opponents of accountability and discusses the danger of similar divides in other democracies. Although these conclusions about accountability and cleavages have broad application, their roots lie in the everyday details—some quite mundane, others quite shocking— of Slovak and Czech politics during the 1990s. It is with those details that the next chapter begins.

chapter

The Accountability Gap

2

the politics of slovakia and the czech republic differed dramatically during the middle of the 1990s. This difference sparked observers to describe the two as “divergent neighbors” (Meszaros 1999) and inspired articles whose very titles expressed doubt about Slovakia’s progress: “A Transition to Democracy?” (Szomolányi 1994a), “Turning Back?” (Fisher 1995e), and (without a question mark) “Being Left Behind” (Hrib 1998). Journalists’ metaphors for Slovakia during this period offer a vivid picture of Slovakia as the Czech Republic’s “ugly sister” (Economist 1994b), “the problem child of Central Europe” (King 1996), which was at best “toddling” toward democracy (Kinzer 1995). More worrying for Slovakia were similar reactions from foreign diplomats. By 1995 Western European countries began to omit Slovakia from lists of candidates for integration, and in 1997 both NATO and the EU formalized their stance, accepting the Czech Republic among the first tier of applicants for membership and relegating Slovakia to the second tier, with sharp critiques about the quality of Slovakia’s democracy (Johnson 1997; Council of Europe 1997b). In early 1998 U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared Slovakia to be “a hole in the map of Europe” (TASR 1998f). Closer examination of democracy in Slovakia and the Czech Republic reveals that differences in the quality of the two countries’ democracies depended primarily on differences in one particular aspect of democratic practice: institutional accountability. When applied to Slovakia alone, the conditions of institutional accountability reveal a process in which violations spiraled out of control. In some cases violations of

The Accountability Gap

23

institutional accountability created new opportunities for some institutions to encroach on others; in other cases new encroachments became necessary in order to cover up past violations. The Czech case likewise offers examples of accountability violations, but it also reveals successful institutional mechanisms to reverse or at least contain those encroachments. A comparison of Slovakia and the Czech Republic provides an opportunity for understanding how institutional accountability works and why it differs from country to country. This chapter establishes a common basis for comparing political developments in the two countries, with particular attention to the extent and severity of accountability violations and the institutional response that they evoke. This chapter follows a loosely chronological sequence of events because, with few exceptions, the actual relevant events followed a thematic sequence. After independence both Slovakia and the Czech Republic experienced chronic but relatively minor accountability violations, followed by an interlude marked by efforts to undermine the political system’s web of accountability. Whereas in the Czech Republic even the most significant attempts at encroachment passed quickly and posed little serious threat, in Slovakia the period of systematic encroachment lasted for four years. Furthermore, Slovakia’s accountability violations progressed through a series of identifiable phases, each building on those that came before and together describing an arc from aggressive attempts to avoid oversight (first through legal means and then through extralegal means) to an untenable overreaching that required defensive efforts to avoid accountability for previous encroachments (first from other institutions and then from voters). The differences between this trajectory and the relatively flat course of the Czech Republic form the basis of comparison for the subsequent chapters of this book.

Accountability in Slovakia Sporadic Encroachment, 1992 –94 As Slovakia entered into independence, it encountered strong international skepticism about its viability as an independent and democratic state (Economist 1993a; Perlez 1994). Yet these reports focused primarily on the prospect of economic collapse and conflict between ethnic groups. Some domestic observers also hinted at problems with democratic institutions, but they reached few concrete conclusions. Accountability

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The Accountability Gap

questions in particular appeared only infrequently and played a very small role in overall assessments of Slovakia’s problems. Those who did mention accountability-related questions did so obliquely and in reference only to anticipated problems (Abrahám 1995; Obrman 1993; Szomolányi 1994a). The authors referred frequently to the “authoritarian style” (Szomolányi 1994a) of Slovakia’s leaders but only infrequently to authoritarian actions. These observers expressed concern that the main political institutions of newly independent Slovakia would be monopolized by its largest party, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). In 1992 parliamentary elections HZDS fell two seats short of a simple majority but found enough support from members of other parties to form a government under party chair Vladimír Mecˇiar, who had previously served as premier of Slovakia after the first postcommunist election. Mecˇiar received parliamentary approval both for a government composed largely of HZDS members (along with a few independents) and for his appointment of a full slate of justices for the new ten-member Constitutional Court (Obrman 1993). Mecˇiar’s government also gained the necessary three-fifths vote from Parliament for its presidential candidate, Michal Kovácˇ. Within weeks, however, HZDS power came into question as parliamentary defections cost the party its near majority and President Kovácˇ came into conflict with Mecˇiar over political appointments, a conflict that rapidly escalated into bitter criticism and mutual accusations of disloyalty (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1994b). The Constitutional Court supported Kovácˇ in this controversy with a ruling that reinforced the appointment and dismissal powers of the president against those of the premier (Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic 1993). Institutional accountability remained shaky during the early months of Slovakia’s independence, but the weakness affected all sides, including the HZDS government. Political institutions in Slovakia overstepped their institutional boundaries in their own interests, but the actual number and severity of the encroachments remained relatively minor. Three instances in particular raised concern among members of Slovakia’s opposition. First, in late 1992 and early 1993, HZDS officials took steps to hinder the opening of a university in the Slovak city of Trnava that had been established by the preceding governing coalition, an effort perceived by some as an attempt to limit academic freedom (Fisher 1994d). Second, in late 1992 parliamentary deputies of HZDS and the Slovak National Party (SNS) voted to change the rules regarding the composition

The Accountability Gap

25

of the boards overseeing Slovakia’s radio and television stations in a way that reduced the representation of other parties. They also voted to replace the director of Slovak Television (STV) with a nominee who promised to provide the Slovak government with more access to television broadcasting (Fisher 1994c, 31). When these changes failed to bring the desired results, HZDS and SNS ousted their own appointee and again changed the composition of the oversight boards. During this period the government also made personnel changes on the editorial boards of Slovak Radio and the state-owned daily newspaper Smena (Fisher 1994d, 91). Third, in 1993 Premier Mecˇiar assumed the newly vacant portfolios of privatization minister and chair of the National Property Fund (FNM). Under Mecˇiar’s direction these bodies made few significant efforts at privatization until the final weeks of his tenure. Only when the position of the government became tenuous in the spring of 1994 did the privatization ministry pursue rapid—and politically motivated—privatization of major companies (Fisher 1995b). Although these changes represent potentially serious interference with rival institutions, they are more notable for revealing intents and attitudes than they are for their direct effect on Slovakia’s politics. Attempts to close the university in Trnava might have affected the accountability of Slovakia’s government only in the long term, and in any case the attempt did not succeed. Efforts to influence media outlets posed a greater threat, but the government’s actions remained within reasonable limits. Members of the opposition retained at least a nominal degree of oversight through representation on media boards during this period, and media observers acknowledge that STV managed “to retain programming independence” despite the changes in its oversight and management (Fisher 1994c, 29). Even the concentration of privatization powers in the hands of the premier produced little obvious gain for the governing parties until the final days of the second Mecˇiar government, and the late victories proved short-lived because the incoming government temporarily halted the privatization process (Budování státu˚ 1994). In March 1994 additional defectors from HZDS joined with opposition party members and President Kovácˇ to plan and carry out a vote of no confidence in the Mecˇiar government and to replace it with a broad coalition government. This coalition proceeded to make changes in the directorship of a number of quasi-executive agencies, including the Supreme Auditing Office, the Slovak Statistical Office, and the Press Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR). The coalition also removed four

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The Accountability Gap

appointees of the second Mecˇiar government from the board of STV and twenty-six directors of district administration (from a total of thirty-eight) who had signed a petition encouraging the resignation of Slovakia’s president. Although significant in their scope, these changes obeyed certain limiting principles. In the case of TASR, the new coalition replaced the director with the deputy director rather than an explicitly political appointee. On the boards of STV and the National Property Fund, the new coalition took the majority of seats for itself but also accepted nominations made by HZDS. In the auditing office the coalition offered the position of deputy director to HZDS. Finally, the regional directors faced dismissal only when they persisted in supporting petitions against the president (Fisher 1994a). Thus, in the period immediately after independence, Slovakia’s institutions operated within surprisingly narrow bounds. Institutional constraints remained fluid and uncertain, but encroachments were neither systematic nor system-threatening. Oversight bodies often lacked the information and authority to perform their duties of oversight and sanction, but few institutions lost their independence, and no institution found itself in a position to change the institutional framework to its own advantage. Observers continued to fear Mecˇiar’s authoritarian inclinations, but Mecˇiar did not become a major threat. And once the president and opposition political leaders became concerned about the direction of development, they found a way to replace Mecˇiar’s government with another that showed a greater willingness to accept external accountability.

Systematic Legal Encroachment, 1994 –96 Politics in Slovakia changed dramatically after parliamentary elections of September 30 –October 1, 1994. After a month of negotiations, deputies from three parties—HZDS, SNS, and the Association of Workers of Slovakia (ZRS)—assembled an ad hoc majority and quickly took action to solidify their position within Parliament and other political structures. In December 1994 these parties agreed to form a government led by Mecˇiar as premier, the third Mecˇiar government in five years. Changes began even before the formal government agreement, however. During twenty-three hours of parliamentary session that began on November 3, 1994, and continued until the following morning, Parliament took advantage of the full range of its legal powers—including

The Accountability Gap

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legal loopholes—to place members of HZDS, SNS, and ZRS in the maximum number of legislative, executive, and administrative positions. These steps both prefigured and made possible subsequent coalition encroachments. The steps shielded the parliamentary majority and its executive appointees from outside influences by reducing the independence of oversight bodies and curtailing their ability to detect and enforce violations of law. The changes included shifts in the membership of parliamentary committees and sweeping changes in the media, security services, privatization, and state administration. In almost every case, the steps curtailed or eliminated participation by members of the opposition. Parliament. Among the most dramatic of the early changes was the establishment of a new system for assigning parliamentary deputies to committees and review boards. During the first two Slovak parliaments after the revolution of 1989, Parliament assigned committee positions largely by consensus. Parties received appointments to committees in proportion to their electoral strength, and appointments of individual deputies frequently took into account questions of personal expertise and desire.1 New practices introduced by the incoming parliamentary majority of 1994 drastically changed the composition of both committees. These changes affected committee membership as well as committee leadership. Whereas in previous parliaments the few disproportionalities in membership had favored the opposition as much as the ruling coalition, the disproportionalities created in 1994 benefited the governing coalition in three-fourths of all committees, particularly the Constitutional-Legal, Economy, and Mandate and Immunity committees. Apparently unwilling to change the customary practice of assigning only one committee seat per deputy, the coalition compensated for the disproportionalities in its favor by expanding the Environment Committee and filling it with deputies from the opposition. The parliamentary majority also abandoned previous practices of proportionality in committee chair, vice-chair, and secretary positions. Majority representatives took all four positions in the parliamentary leadership, all committee chairmanships, all vice-chairmanships, and all but seven of the twenty-five secretary positions.2 In response to an interview question about committee reorganization, prominent HZDS deputy Ján Smolec explained that committee assignments were “a matter of sweet revenge” (Weiss 1995, 4).3 The degree of overrepresentation of coalition parties in committees closely

28

The Accountability Gap

reflected deputies’ own perceptions of the importance and prestige of those committees (and the coalition chose the least prestigious committee—Environment—as its “wastebasket” committee for prominent opposition deputies).4 In addition to humiliation and revenge, however, the changes also suggest a deliberate effort to strengthen HZDS control over key committees. Broadcast Media. Beginning with the overnight parliamentary session of November 3 – 4, 1994, the parliamentary majority took steps to gain control over key institutions within the executive branch. Breaking with past practice, the coalition appointed new directors and new oversight committees. At the top of the coalition’s agenda were changes in state-owned broadcast media. During the overnight session the combined votes of HZDS, SNS, and ZRS deputies removed the director of Slovak Radio and replaced him with a parliamentary deputy from HZDS. One month later Parliament also removed the director of STV and replaced him with a prominent journalist who maintained strong ties to HZDS (Sˇkolkay 1996). At the same time the parliamentary majority made dramatic changes in the councils assigned to oversee their activities, replacing their existing memberships with new slates of members voted en bloc. Opposition parties protested that previous parliaments had allowed at least limited opposition representation on the councils, but none of these appointees included any supporters of the opposition. Coalition representatives responded by denying any effort to influence the councils and claiming that the new council members had no political affiliation. But in statements made to their own party members, coalition leaders openly boasted of appointing party supporters to these positions.5 In the following months, Slovakia’s president and leaders of opposition parties issued statements that sharply criticized state broadcasters for their partiality toward the third Mecˇiar government. The governing parties, however, rejected these criticisms and the accompanying demands that the relevant parliamentary committees and oversight boards be restructured. Not until a summer 1996 crisis within the government did members of the majority acknowledge a need for “certain ‘corrections’” in the membership of the councils (Sme 1996c, 2), but the promise of concessions from the governing coalition went largely unfulfilled. Of the ten appointments made in late 1996 to fill newly vacant seats, only one went to a representative of an opposition party (TASR 1996h, 1996j).

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Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Defense. The parliamentary majority also made important changes to Slovakia’s intelligence establishment. The statutes that established Slovakia’s intelligence agency—the innocuously named Slovak Information Service (SIS)—in 1992 gave the prerogative of appointing the agency’s director to Slovakia’s president. In the spring of 1995, however, the governing parties voted to shift the power to Slovakia’s premier. Soon thereafter, Premier Vladimír Mecˇiar recalled the SIS director and appointed Ivan Lexa, an HZDS parliamentary deputy and one of Mecˇiar’s close associates. Lexa’s appointment proved particularly controversial, because until his nomination as SIS director he had served in Parliament as the chair of the parliamentary committee established in 1993 to supervise the activities of SIS. With Lexa’s appointment this committee found itself responsible for overseeing the work of its own former chair. Furthermore, the committee’s membership lacked partisan balance. During the overnight session of November 1994 the parliamentary majority reversed a previous tradition of multipartisan membership on the oversight committee and appointed a new membership consisting of five deputies from the majority and none from other parliamentary parties. Although coalition representatives occasionally made conciliatory statements about broadening the committee’s membership (Sámel 1996a, 9), they took no concrete steps toward expanding the membership until the 1996 government crisis. Despite minor changes, HZDS deputies retained a majority on the committee through 1998.6 During the overnight session, the parliamentary majority changed the leadership of two other bodies responsible for overseeing the activity of political institutions in Slovakia. In the first of these two moves, the majority voted to remove both the director and the deputy director of the Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic, vacancies that were later filled with representatives of the majority coalition. The majority coalition also passed a motion of no confidence in the prosecutor general, head of Slovakia’s Office of Public Prosecutors, and appointed in his stead an HZDS parliamentary deputy. During the same overnight session Parliament established two investigative commissions composed exclusively of governing-coalition members: one to inquire into improprieties by President Kovácˇ and parliamentary allies surrounding the no-confidence vote against the Mecˇiar government in March 1994; and a second to investigate allegations of forgeries on the party registration petitions of the opposition Democratic Union (DU) (Melisˇ 1995; Fisher 1995a). Unencumbered by

30

The Accountability Gap

opposition deputies, these two commissions moved quickly to subpoena witnesses and to enlist the services of police investigators. Investigations continued until late 1995, when the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of a petition filed by opposition deputies charging that the committees had been given “executive powers, thereby violating the constitutional division of power” (Fisher 1995d). The governing coalition proved slow to act on this decision, however, and in early 1996 its deputies rejected consideration of proposals for abolishing the commissions (Národná obroda 1996c). Parliament ultimately did act on the court’s ruling, but not until several months later. The parliamentary majority also sought to gain control of key military appointments, but here it found less success than in other areas. In 1995 Parliament approved legislation to eliminate presidential appointment of the chief of the army general staff (TASR 1996a), but the new law immediately faced a court challenge from the opposition. In November 1996 the Constitutional Court ruled that changing appointment of the army chief of staff (but not the director of intelligence) violated the president’s constitutionally established power to appoint and remove the principal officers of national bodies and high officials and promote army generals, including the general staff position. Unable to place its own appointee in the general staff position, the coalition attempted instead to shift the powers of the general staff position to coalition appointees in other posts. In June 1997 the government proposed placing control of the army general staff into the hands of the state secretary of the Ministry of Defense, a position equivalent to deputy minister, but the coalition’s SNS rejected the move, criticizing it as an effort to marginalize the SNS-appointed minister of defense in favor of the HZDS-appointed state secretary (Vitko 1997). In 1998 the office of the president of the Slovak Republic fell vacant, and the power of military appointment was transferred to the chair of Slovakia’s parliament, but the new opportunity led to conflict between SNS and HZDS, delaying the appointment of a new chief of staff (Sme 1998b). Although HZDS emerged victorious, the victory came so near the end of the parliamentary term that it lacked any practical consequences. Privatization. In addition to removing independent oversight of the intelligence service and other investigative bodies, Parliament took similar steps in the sphere of privatization. The FNM, established by Parliament in 1991, held responsibility for the management of state properties and their preparation for future privatization. Responsibility for directing the politically and economically sensitive activities of the

The Accountability Gap

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FNM fell to boards appointed by Parliament. In the overnight session of November 1994, the governing coalition in Parliament broke with precedent and removed all opposition members from both the FNM’s management council and its oversight body (Sme 1996i). As with intelligence service oversight, opposition parties argued that the parties of the coalition were taking advantage of the lack of oversight for their own benefit, and they demanded participation in the fund’s management and oversight. The coalition monopoly on positions nevertheless continued without alteration through 1998.7 In the fall of 1997 the majority did accept the appointment of a single opposition representative to a newly established supervisory board for the fund, but the appointee resigned after less than a year in the position, contending that the fund consistently ignored the board’s recommendations. At the same time that it replaced the FNM presidium and the executive council, the parliamentary majority also dramatically increased the role of the FNM itself. During the November 1994 overnight session, Parliament transferred “the right to approve direct privatization sales” away from the government and into the hands of the fund’s presidium (Lesˇko 1995, 4). Although this shift created the appearance of decentralization by transferring power away from the government, its actual effect was to maintain the governing coalition’s control while reducing oversight on the privatization decisions. Because the FNM presidium served at the behest of Parliament without significant restrictions on the appointment or removal of members, its loyalty could be guaranteed by a parliamentary majority. The transfer therefore reflected only a shift in control from direct administrative channels to parliamentary channels. Furthermore, the move transferred the nominal responsibility for the sensitive and often controversial decisions of privatization to a body that the government could—and later frequently did— claim was out of its control. The transfer of privatization authority to the fund also shielded the privatization process from other potential control mechanisms, because the fund, unlike government ministries, was not subject to oversight by the Supreme Audit Office (Stanislav 1995). The move also transferred privatization out of reach of other accountability mechanisms. According to a statement by Slovakia’s prosecutor general, “The legal status of the National Property Fund of the Slovak Republic does not make it incumbent upon it to act in the public interest” and “The [fund] is not an institution over which the Prosecutor’s Office could exercise supervision, and, hence, it also cannot carry out an investigation into its compliance with laws” (Hospodarske noviny 1997).

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The Accountability Gap

In November 1996 Slovakia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the transfer of responsibility for privatization from the government to the fund was not constitutional and forbade the fund from engaging in direct sales of state-owned companies. In June 1997 Parliament voted to accept this verdict and to transfer authority over privatization by direct sale from the fund back to the government (TASR 1997c). The court defeat created few disadvantages for the government, however, because the most significant privatization efforts had already taken place and because coalition appointees in the Supreme Inspection Office and the prosecutor general—to whose oversight privatization again became subject—had by then lost the independence necessary for challenging or even investigating government decisions. State Administration. Ministers appointed by the third Mecˇiar government made unprecedented changes within the state administration. It became traditional in Slovakia, as elsewhere in postcommunist Europe, for outgoing leaders to accuse incoming leaders of “purges” of state administration, but evidence suggests that Mecˇiar’s third government outdid its predecessors by a wide margin.8 Igor Lensky´, president of the Slovak Trade Union for Public Administration, contended in 1996 that replacement of personnel under the Mecˇiar government that took office in late 1994 was far broader and deeper than the shifts that had taken place under the government of Jozef Moravcˇík in 1994 or under Mecˇiar’s own previous term from 1992 until early 1994. According to Lensky´ (1996), personnel changes during late 1994 and early 1995 affected as many as eight hundred of the top positions in a bureaucracy totaling only twenty-two thousand. In 1996 the parliamentary majority and its appointees took a series of steps to reorganize intermediate levels of administration, transforming a system with 38 districts and 128 subdistricts into a system of eight regions and 79 districts. Shifting the administration into this new structure provided the government with substantial opportunities for making appointments and for ensuring that the directors and assistant directors of administrative offices at both the regional and district levels consisted exclusively of governing-coalition representatives. The restructuring of regional administration also provided opportunities for extending political reach to lower levels. Opponents alleged that the government was screening employees from existing administrative units for political loyalty before approving their transfer to jobs in the new units and before making staffing cuts. As with the aforementioned

The Accountability Gap

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accusations of purges, nearly every major opposition party cited instances of employees being dismissed or not rehired if they refused to switch their political allegiance (Sme 1996b). In a public statement Lensky´’s trade union reported “signs that it is not uncommon for employees’ job assignments, especially those of high-ranking personnel, to depend upon membership [in HZDS]. Refusal to join [HZDS] often means termination of the contract of employment because of ‘redundancy’” (Vanco 1996, 2). In August 1996 Lensky´ noted that the predominant emotion of his union’s members was “fear” and suggested that the pressure was in some ways more severe than it had been under communist rule because “at least under communism there was no fear of unemployment.” The governing coalition consistently rejected these allegations (Slovenská republika 1996d), but coalition leaders frequently emphasized the parties’ close ties to the state administration (Hrabko and Kotian 1996; Mlynarcˇiková 1997). At the height of administrative restructuring in 1996, Parliament’s vice-chair, Augustín Marián Húska, affirmed the unabashed commitment of his party to recruit supporters among employees of the state administration: “Asked whether the HZDS knows that state administration employees are being approached and asked to join the parties of the government coalition in order to secure their remaining in the state administration, the HZDS deputy chair replied: ‘Yes, the governing parties are expanding their membership base in this way, whether anyone likes it or not’” (Kratky 1996, 2).9 Such recruitment efforts do not appear to have added much to HZDS’s organizational strength, but Húska’s forthright statement speaks to the governing coalition’s goal of widespread control within Slovakia’s state administration. That the objective was control rather than clientelism or other motives is suggested by the recruitment efforts. A party that regarded public administration primarily as a way to provide clientelist rewards for office seekers would have focused exclusively on filling new and existing positions with party loyalists rather than on winning the loyalty of those who were already employed within the system. Assessment: Encroachment Enables Encroachment. Although the changes in executive and oversight bodies described here did not directly violate Slovakia’s legal code, they nevertheless posed a direct threat to institutional accountability by eliminating the independence upon which oversight and sanction depend. As might be expected, Slovakia’s 1994 governing coalition placed trusted supporters in executive

34 The Accountability Gap positions, but it then went beyond previous efforts by deliberately eliminating the potential for independent monitoring. Although the changes were not illegal, they altered the balance of political power within Slovakia’s political system and edged across the line between political prerogative and accountability violation. With a stable majority in Parliament and without the fear of obstruction from independent monitors, the coalition faced no immediate barriers to the use of executive agencies for its own benefit, particularly in the sensitive areas of privatization, broadcast media, and intelligence. Through its initial efforts in Parliament and government, the coalition acquired largely unchallenged access to substantial sums of money, to the means for shaping public opinion, and to the more shadowy rewards available through espionage. Having acquired this access, the coalition did not hesitate to use it. Because the FNM stood outside normal oversight mechanisms, it offered a particularly vulnerable target for abuse. Instead of establishing the broad-based oversight and limited powers necessary to keep the fund accountable, the governing coalition moved in the opposite direction, removing opposition representatives while simultaneously increasing the fund’s scope of action. Thus unencumbered, the governing coalition used its representatives in the fund to take “unambiguous control over the privatization process” (Gould 1998, 1) and to institute “a system of patronage in which the benefits flow to the politically connected” (17). Similar consequences resulted from coalition control of the stateowned broadcast media. Managed by prominent members of the governing coalition and free from opposition oversight, Slovakia’s public broadcasting tilted strongly in favor of the coalition. Through a combination of extensive, verbatim recapitulation of coalition statements and criticism or omission of opposition responses, STV acquired a strong reputation for political bias. Content analysis of the evening news conducted by the STV board itself in 1995 showed enormous disparities in the coverage allotted to coalition and opposition political figures (Sˇkolkay 1996). Subsequent analysis conducted during the election campaign of 1998 showed no significant improvement, despite the board’s awareness of the problem (Bútora and Bútorová 1999). The intelligence service changed in an even more dramatic fashion. Fears that the combination of a majority-appointed SIS director and an exclusively majority composition of Parliament’s intelligence oversight committee would lead to “a loss of control over SIS” (Budování státu˚ 1995) proved to be well founded. The oversight committee remained silent as SIS became actively involved in domestic political conflicts on

The Accountability Gap

35

behalf of the governing coalition. Despite the strong public evidence linking the SIS to numerous violations of law, the oversight committee neither pursued investigations, held hearings, nor took any other action within its scope. In each of these cases the elimination of accountability not only served immediate needs—the desire for retribution, rewards for supporters, increased cohesion, and loyalty within the executive—but also established the conditions for further violations of accountability and a further tilting of the institutional balance. Control of privatization provided a source of funds for fending off future election challenges. Control of broadcast media provided a means for limiting criticism and reframing issues in ways that favored the coalition. Control of the intelligence service provided a direct means for close observation of opponents and, when necessary, for intimidation. Through these means the coalition moved beyond its nearly complete control over Parliament and government institutions to put pressure on other institutions that were not formally within its reach.

Targeted, Extralegal Encroachment, 1995 –98 Having taken strong control of those institutions closest at hand, the governing coalition in Slovakia sought to limit the influence of those few institutions it could not control outright and aimed its efforts primarily at institutions that remained independent and capable of imposing sanction: the presidency, opposition parties, and the Constitutional Court. The Presidency. As the previous section notes, Slovakia’s first president, Michal Kovácˇ, quickly came into conflict with the leadership of his own party, HZDS. A dispute between Kovácˇ and HZDS chair Vladimír Mecˇiar over this dismissal of Slovakia’s foreign minister escalated into an increasingly intense personal conflict. In his March 1994 address, “State of the Slovak Republic,” Kovácˇ brought the issue to the fore, expressing “serious reservations about the style and ethics of Mr. Mecˇiar’s policies, about the way he conducts government, and about the practices that create a confrontational atmosphere in political life” (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1994c). Kovácˇ’s address helped unite opposition to Mecˇiar, a camp that had grown over time to include many HZDS leaders who shared Kovácˇ’s disillusionment with the party chair. Within days of the address, opposition deputies strengthened by a new

36

The Accountability Gap

contingent of defectors from HZDS prevailed in a vote of no confidence against the Mecˇiar government. But electoral success brought Mecˇiar’s party back into power later in the year, and Mecˇiar’s new coalition immediately set to work to remove Kovácˇ from the post of president or, failing that, to remove power from the presidency. Many of the early steps taken in this effort proceeded through fully legal and constitutional channels. Evidence suggests that later efforts involved illegal means. Discussion among HZDS members about removing Kovácˇ from office began immediately. On the day after Kovácˇ’s critical address in March 1994, HZDS deputy Ol’ga Keltosˇová proposed “that a constitutional provision be applied for dismissing the president” (Fisher 1995a, 40), and other deputies of her party offered their support. In a speech shortly before the 1994 election, Mecˇiar spoke to a meeting of the party about specific mechanisms that might be used to remove Kovácˇ. Noting that Kovácˇ’s voluntary resignation would be “the most beautiful” of the options, he also listed four other methods that would take the question out of Kovácˇ’s hands: a parliamentary inquiry to determine whether the president had violated the constitution; a constitutional law making the president’s term shorter; a parliamentary “vote of no-confidence in the president”; and a referendum called by Parliament “on whether the president should remain in his post” (Sme 1994a, 1–2). According to Mecˇiar’s calculations, the first two methods required a three-fifths majority, whereas the third and fourth needed only a simple majority of parliamentary deputies. The 1994 parliamentary election left Mecˇiar and his coalition partners with a majority but without the ninety votes necessary to pass a constitutional law. Parliament sought to fulfill Mecˇiar’s request by establishing a commission to investigate the “constitutional crisis” of March 1994 (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1994a), but in the year and a half of its operation this body produced no formal report and offered no charges against Kovácˇ that proved compelling enough to win the seven additional votes necessary to remove the president. In December 1994 Mecˇiar explicitly called for “a magnificent seven” (BBC 1994), deputies willing to add their votes to the coalition’s, but the appeal produced no results.10 In response, HZDS and its partners began to pursue alternatives that required only a simple majority. In May 1995 a report of the majority-controlled committee for intelligence oversight accused Kovácˇ of misusing Slovakia’s intelligence service during 1993 and 1994, and eighty of the governing coalition’s eighty-three deputies voted to accept a motion of no confidence in

The Accountability Gap

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Kovácˇ. The governing coalition did not attempt to enforce this motion, however, aware that no provision in Slovakia’s constitution would permit the recall of a president on the basis of fewer than ninety parliamentary votes.11 A referendum declaring the lack of public confidence in Kovácˇ might have exerted more pressure on Kovácˇ than the vote of no confidence without requiring ninety deputies’ votes, but the coalition did not actively pursue such a referendum. A look at public opinion helps explain why. Surveys of public opinion conducted in Slovakia in 1995 found nearly identical results on questions about a possible referendum: those who supported Kovácˇ’s removal fell well short of a majority and were outnumbered by Kovácˇ supporters in a ratio of seven to six (Názory 1995; Sme 1996a). While the coalition made every effort to remove Kovácˇ from office, it also pursued a parallel path of imposing ever greater limits on the role of the president in Slovak political life.12 The efforts began with the reduction of the budget and staffing levels. Although small efforts in this direction had already begun in late 1993 under the previous Mecˇiar-led government, they accelerated after the 1994 elections. According to the opposition daily Sme, the 1994 state budget lowered the number of presidential staff members by 18 percent, and the 1995 budget made an additional cut of 37 percent, leaving the president with only sixty staff members (Sme 1996g). The coalition’s 1996 budget further reduced the staffing level of the president’s office to fifty staff members. The 1997 budget held staffing constant despite the transfer of presidential offices to a larger facility requiring considerably more support staff. According to the Sme report, “the Finance Ministry . . . refused . . . to allocate money for the Presidential Palace staff, and the custodian and the cleaning women in the seat of the president are therefore financed from sponsors’ donations” (1). A second series of steps involved the removal of those presidential prerogatives not specified in the Slovak constitution and therefore not requiring a three-fifths majority of parliamentary deputies. Initial efforts, described previously, included the removal of the presidential power to appoint the director of the SIS and the later-overturned removal of the presidential power to appoint the chief of the army’s general staff. Other efforts during this period included legislation that removed the president’s power to appoint the directors of the Slovak Statistical Office and the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Sme 1995a) and a provision that would allow state secretaries to stand in for cabinet ministers during “the minister’s absence” (Toth 1995, 4). This latter change

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The Accountability Gap

provided at least the potential for circumventing Slovakia’s constitutional provision that required presidential approval for the appointment or dismissal of a minister. In November 1995 Parliament removed from the president the power to verify signatures on any public petition requesting a referendum, transferring this power to Parliament.13 In 1996 the coalition-appointed prosecutor general refused to carry out presidential orders of amnesty.14 The governing coalition also took advantage of its control over state-owned broadcast media to limit Kovácˇ’s access to the public through a variety of limitations on presidential access to broadcast airtime.15 Beyond the attempts to remove Kovácˇ and limit his powers and prerogatives, evidence strongly suggests that the government also sought to incapacitate Kovácˇ— or even to force his resignation—by engineering the abduction of his son, Michal Kovácˇ Jr. In late August 1995, Austrian police found the younger Kovácˇ in the trunk of his car near the Austrian border town of Hainburg. He claimed that he had been abducted near his home in Slovakia, assaulted, and transported illegally across the Slovak-Austrian border. Although the abduction did not come to trial in Slovakia for a variety of reasons that are discussed later, testimony received by an Austrian court ruling on Kovácˇ’s extradition linked the kidnapping to Slovakia’s government, and further evidence suggests the direct involvement of Slovakia’s intelligence service, SIS.16 Whether or not the Austrian court was correct in identifying Slovak officials as the kidnappers, it is nevertheless apparent that the government made the widest possible use of the circumstances to hinder the president’s actions and magnify his public embarrassment.17 In the days immediately following the abduction, the Slovak government neither protested the detainment of Kovácˇ’s son in Austria nor requested his return.18 Opposition Parties and Parliamentary Deputies. President Kovácˇ was not the only target of the governing coalition’s institutional encroachments. Between early 1995 and the end of the parliamentary term in 1998, the coalition took a series of steps to discredit its opponents in Parliament and ultimately to expel them from the legislative body. These efforts began as attacks on members of the opposition parties in Parliament but expanded also to include deputies who threatened to break away from the government parties. DU formed in the spring of 1994 as a party of refuge for two splinter groups from HZDS and eventually also incorporated a splinter group

The Accountability Gap

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from SNS. In the run-up to the 1994 parliamentary election, HZDS challenged the validity of signatures on DU’s electoral registration, but the regional and national election commissions found sufficient valid signatures to permit the party’s participation in the election.19 DU’s subsequent electoral campaign ran smoothly, and the party gained nearly 9 percent of the total vote. Shortly after the election, however, HZDS representatives called upon the Constitutional Court to “examine the validity of the Democratic Union’s lists of signatures” on the grounds that “the Election Commission examined the Democratic Union’s lists carelessly and did not check the personal identification numbers of signatories, some of which were evidently faked” (Fisher 1994b). On October 27, the Constitutional Court dismissed the complaint because of insufficient grounds. In response to the court’s ruling, HZDS deputies responded that it was in fact “up to Parliament” to decide about the validity of its DU representation (Pankovcinova 1994, 1).20 During the overnight parliamentary session in November 1994, the coalition of HZDS, SNS, and ZRS decided to resolve the matter by establishing the aforementioned Commission for the Examination of the Petition Sheets of the Democratic Union. Headed by HZDS deputy Dusˇan Macusˇka and including no representatives of DU or any other opposition party, the commission set to work immediately, enlisting the assistance of police to undertake the process of individually confirming each of the nearly 15,000 signatures on the DU list (Handzo 1995). On October 27, 1995, Macusˇka’s commission reported to the Mandate and Immunity Committee that the DU petition list contained only “8,219 valid signatures,” thereby failing to “meet the conditions for participation in the election” (Národná obroda 1995b, 1). Macusˇka suggested that DU deputies should resign “voluntarily and gladly” and refused to exclude the possibility that DU deputies “would have to leave Parliament” (Sujová 1995, 1). Premier Vladimír Mecˇiar repeatedly suggested that Parliament might “fix the situation caused by DU” through direct methods; on several occasions Mecˇiar publicly raised the issue of “sanctions” against DU, which might include elimination of the public funding it received on the basis of its electoral results and a ban on the party’s participation in the next parliamentary election (Zelenayová 1994a, 1). Although DU deputies refused to resign, and the government ultimately did not pursue any formal action, scrutiny of the circumstances in this case reveals strong political motivation for the campaign against DU. Although some claims about invalid signatures on the DU list were

40 The Accountability Gap almost certainly valid, the phrasing of Slovakia’s electoral law makes the issue irrelevant in the postelection period. Both regional- and national-level election commissions voted to accept the list, and these decisions were confirmed by Slovakia’s Constitutional Court, the constitutionally designated final arbiter of electoral disputes. Furthermore, if the electoral commissions or the court had found a shortfall in the number of valid signatures on DU petitions, Slovakia’s election law provided the party with a twenty-four-hour grace period in which to rectify the shortfall (cˇ. 80/1990 Zb. §17–§18), a task easily within the capability of a party that attracted nearly 250,000 votes in the 1994 elections. Statements by the Macusˇka commission therefore rested on the legally flawed premise that a petition list, once submitted, represented an unalterable document. On certain occasions, governing-coalition deputies themselves indicated an awareness of this flaw and justified the continued investigation and police involvement as an attempt to uncover “fraud,” in which case, according to Macusˇka, “it is completely irrelevant whether there were 500, 1,000 or 2,744 forged signatures. What is essential is that existence of fraud was verified” (Sˇásˇky 1995, 1). Yet prosecutors pursued no legal action in any of the 2,744 cases of outright forgery that the Macusˇka commission claimed to have found during the investigation. The political intent of the signature investigation becomes apparent in the coalition’s handling of questions raised at the same time about signatures on the list of the coalition’s own ZRS. Although the case against ZRS rested on stronger evidence, the coalition chose to ignore the allegations.21 Premier Mecˇiar, who had reacted to the DU case by saying, “We proceed from the premise that DU did not furnish proof that it gathered 10,000 valid signatures” (Zelenayová, Urbanova, and Strelinger 1994, 4), proved rather more conciliatory in the case of ZRS, explaining his lack of action by stating simply that “ZRS Chairman Ján L’upták gave me his word that it was not true” (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1995a). At no time did the ZRS petition become the subject of a parliamentary commission or a police investigation. Although Parliament made no formal move to expel DU deputies, other deputies from the ranks of coalition parties were not so fortunate. On November 5, 1996, Frantisˇek Gaulieder, an HZDS deputy who had become increasingly independent of his party after the election of 1994, announced that he would resign from the party’s parliamentary party group and remain in Parliament as an independent deputy.22 The HZDS response to Gaulieder took several forms, including a series of sharply

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personal attacks in the progovernment daily Slovenská republika (Melisˇ 1996) and the expulsion of Gaulieder from the party by the executive committee of his local branch party organization. In addition to these difficulties, Gaulieder faced an unusual challenge to his seat in Parliament. Near the end of November the chair of the Parliament, Ivan Gasˇparovicˇ, reported that he had received a letter with Gaulieder’s signature that stated, “I am surrendering the post of NR SR deputy” (Slovenská republika 1996b, 1). Gaulieder, however, denied any intention to resign and issued a series of public statements and formal protest letters to Gasˇparovicˇ. Gaulieder explained that he and dozens of other potential HZDS parliamentary candidates had signed a number of documents in the summer of 1994 as a precondition for his placement on the party’s candidate list, and the set of documents included an undated letter of resignation addressed to the parliamentary chair (Národná obroda 1996a). He said that this letter was identical to the one received by Gasˇparovicˇ and argued that it was legally void for three reasons: he had not caused it to be sent;23 his subsequent letters legally superseded the resignation letter; and the letter itself, written under duress from his party, violated Article 73.2 of Slovakia’s constitution, which forbids deputies from being “bound by directives.” Despite Gaulieder’s protests, Gasˇparovicˇ forwarded the resignation letter to Parliament’s Mandate and Immunity Committee, and the governing coalition’s deputies in the committee voted to accept it. The committee immediately sent the matter to the full Parliament, where coalition deputies quickly gave their assent and formally accepted his resignation (1996). In accepting the resignation, governing-coalition deputies focused on the written evidence and rejected all other potential considerations.24 Gaulieder appealed the parliamentary decision to Slovakia’s Constitutional Court, the sole venue with jurisdiction over parliamentary mandates. The results of the verdict produced yet additional violations of institutional accountability that are discussed later. Further complicating matters was the explosion of a bomb in front of Gaulieder’s house less than twenty-four hours after Parliament accepted his resignation. Although police found no evidence of government involvement, the conduct of the investigation led to other accountability violations, also discussed later.25 Shortly after Gaulieder’s expulsion, the parliamentary majority engaged in an extremely similar set of actions in response to a different set of circumstances. On January 24, 1997, the SNS designated Ladislav Hrusˇka to fill a parliamentary seat vacated as a result of the death of an

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The Accountability Gap

SNS deputy in late 1996; on February 5, 1997, on the recommendation of the Mandate and Immunity Committee, Slovakia’s parliament voted to confirm Hrusˇka to fill the vacated seat (Sme 1997d). The appointment sparked considerable controversy because Hrusˇka had not received the requisite number of preference votes in the 1994 parliamentary election and therefore did not meet the conditions to be a valid substitute deputy.26 In explaining their disregard for these explicit legal provisions, governing-coalition representatives noted that the law specified a substitute, Emil Spisˇák, who had severed ties with SNS (Sme 1997l) and argued that Spisˇák’s appointment would violate the spirit of the law.27 Ján Cuper of HZDS argued that “the party mandate is conventional practice in twentieth-century democracies” (Sme 1997d, 1); and Milan Secˇánsky of HZDS argued that “an alternate, speaking even in the spirit of the law, is a member of a political party. And alternate Spisˇák was not a member of a political party” (Sme 1997e, 1). Coalition leaders insisted that other demands outweighed legal considerations. Hrusˇka explained that “Spisˇák is demanding a mandate to which he has no moral right” (Pravda 1998, 2), and SNS chair Ján Slota stated that “Spisˇák betrayed the interests of SNS. It would be a perversity if he were to receive the mandate” (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1998b). Like Gaulieder, Spisˇák filed an official complaint with the Constitutional Court charging the violation of his constitutional rights (Sme 1997b), and as in Gaulieder’s case the verdict sparked further accountability violations. The Constitutional Court. The relationship between Slovakia’s governing coalition and its Constitutional Court became increasingly tense as the court asserted its independence. The coalition oscillated between lauding the court’s impartiality when the court issued a favorable ruling and attacking it as “another sick element on our domestic political scene” when its verdicts were unfavorable (cited in Füle 1995, 1; Weiss 1995, 4; Lesˇko 1998). During two specific instances of conflict, the coalition took active measures in response: on one occasion stating its refusal to obey a court order and withdrawing the chauffeur and bodyguard of the court’s chief judge (Constitution Watch: Slovakia 1995a); and on a second, threatening to increase the margin of court justices necessary to declare a law unconstitutional to a four-fifths majority (Constitution Watch: Slovakia 1995b). The coalition did not follow through with these threats, however, and the frequency with which the court struck down governing coalition actions suggests substantial independence, albeit tempered by a degree of caution. In an interview

The Accountability Gap

43

published in early 1997, Constitutional Court Justice Jan Drgonec stated that the court had not experienced political pressure apart from “some criticism in the media” and that “all [the court’s] decisions, although after some hesitation, have been respected” (Sˇkolkay 1997a, 91). During the same interview, however, Drgonec commented that the case of expelled parliamentary deputy Gaulieder was “legally and politically extraordinary” and whatever decision was reached would “set a precedent . . . for our legal system” (Sˇkolkay 1997a, 93). On July 24, 1997, the court issued its decision, ruling that Slovakia’s parliament violated Gaulieder’s rights when it voted to accept his resignation. The court explained that Parliament did not have the right to ignore certain expressions by Gaulieder while considering others, and that when other expressions were taken into account, the “resignation letter did not have unambiguously the qualitative marks of behavior (of a legal act) which could objectively lead to the valid resignation of the position of deputy of the National Council of the Slovak Republic” (Dulin 1997b, 3). The court noted that “a waiver secured through personal agreements (obligations) between political bodies and their nominated candidates in elections is in violation of the Constitution” (Dulin 1997b, 3). Although the court ruled that Gaulieder’s rights had been violated and that he should be reinstated, it stopped short of ordering his reinstatement.28 Rather, the court stated that “the obligation to redress the unlawful behavior is held by the body which acted in such a way, i.e. which through its unlawful activity brought about the undesired consequence. In this case this refers to [Parliament]” (Dulin 1997b, 3). During a news conference, the justices elaborated their view that in the case of Gaulieder “the redress or compliance is a matter for [Parliament]” and that “it is simply not only the courts who are the guarantee of constitutionality” (Dulin 1997a, 1). At the same time the judges also “expressed the opinion that if [Parliament] ignored the decision it would mean the violation of principles of constitutionality and rule of law” (Dulin 1997a, 1). The court’s ruling provoked a wave of verbal attacks and overt expressions of defiance from the governing coalition. In a radio interview, HZDS deputy Ján Cuper argued that “some Constitutional Court rulings are ‘ridiculous’ and that the Slovak judiciary is under the influence of the opposition Christian Democrats” (OMRI Daily Digest 1997). His statement that “the court has been politicized” and has “entered politics although it does not bear any political responsibility” (OMRI Daily Digest 1997) found agreement from HZDS deputy Peter Brnˇak, chair of Parliament’s Constitutional-Legal Committee. Brnˇak argued that “the

44

The Accountability Gap

Constitutional Court acted in the aforementioned case in conflict with the Constitution of the Slovak Republic” and criticized the “‘fetishism’ of the Constitutional Court, which does not act for the benefit of a legal state but rather for the benefit of political goals” (Krno 1997e, 1). In agreement with these remarks HZDS deputy Tomásˇ Cingel commented that “the constitution unfortunately does not contain any means for redress if decisions of that constitutional organ are politicized” (Slovenská republika 1997e, 1). Other governing-coalition members took more seriously the idea of actually finding means for redress. Several deputies questioned the need to implement the court’s decision and proposed alternative understandings of the relationship between the Parliament and the court. HZDS deputy Igor Urban argued that “the Constitutional Court must accept that deputies have the final word in such matters and that their will is decisive” (Krno 1997d, 2). HZDS deputy Brnˇak offered a further justification that turned the constitutional prohibition against binding directives on deputies against the decision itself: “In the case of a disputed act of Parliament, conscience and conviction are fundamental and not directives. This means that this decree constitutionally allows deputies in the justifiable cases to consider also, for example, the moral and ethical dimension of the relevant act” (Slovenská republika 1997d, 2). HZDS deputy Dusˇan Macusˇka stated his decision in unambiguous terms: “I will not vote for Gaulieder’s entry to Parliament” (Pravda 1997a, 2). During parliamentary sessions in late August 1997, the governing coalition avoided taking a position by refusing to attend, thereby preventing the quorum necessary for a vote on the issue. By late September, however, the coalition parties reached a consensus on how to vote. Coalition deputies returned to Parliament and rejected a motion for Gaulieder’s return. In subsequent parliamentary sessions, coalition deputies refused to include motions about Gaulieder on the agenda; and in November 1997, the chair of HZDS’s club of parliamentary deputies, Tibor Cabaj, explained that as far as his party was concerned, “this question is finished” (Pravda 1997a, 2). Attempts to revive the issue in early 1998 failed to gain the requisite approval of the coalition, and the matter received no further official attention. Events involving the court appeal by Emil Spisˇák proceeded in a manner almost identical to that of the Gaulieder case. On January 8, 1998, the Constitutional Court ruled that “Spisˇák met all the requirements to become a substitute [deputy]” and that Parliament had vio-

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lated the constitution, the electoral law, and several international treaties by refusing to seat him (Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic 1998). As with the Gaulieder case, however, the court stopped short of mandating the change and instead called for parliamentary redress. In a letter of clarification requested by Parliament chair Gasˇparovicˇ, the chief justice of Slovakia’s Constitutional Court, Milan ˇ icˇ, reiterated that “the Constitutional Court’s finding on the violation C of Emil Spisˇák’s rights is binding on the Slovak Parliament with effect from the day of its delivery” but that the court could not “determine the ‘mechanisms’” by which Parliament was to comply. As with the Gaulieder case, the court’s decision on the Spisˇák case produced a hostile response from governing-coalition deputies, who angrily asserted their refusal to comply with the verdict. The SNS chair, Ján Slota, responded to the court’s action by stating that “the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic is not to ‘dictate to Parliament’ because Parliament is the highest body in the state” (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1998b). After several weeks of keeping the question off the agenda, the governing coalition permitted a vote in which, as expected, coalition votes prevented Spisˇák’s reinstatement from gaining the necessary majority (TASR 1998c). Assessment: Hard Targets Demand Heavy Artillery. These steps taken by the governing coalition beginning in early 1995 went well beyond the bounds of Parliament and government to attack those mechanisms of accountability that remained outside the coalition’s direct control. Yet the coalition held fast to principles of minimizing risk and maintaining at least the appearance of obedience to law— even defense of law—as it pursued its institutional encroachments. As long as the coalition sought merely to remove the independence of institutions within the sphere of Parliament and government, it could use relatively unobtrusive means and remain fully within the law— or at least pass its own laws making those efforts possible. But a simple parliamentary majority did not suffice to free the governing coalition from the oversight of the president, opposition parties, or the Constitutional Court. Protected by the constitution, these institutions posed a more significant barrier, requiring the support of three-fifths of Parliament’s deputies (90 of 150), a margin that the coalition could not muster even at its most disciplined. In response, the coalition pursued a twinpronged strategy, simultaneously striving for a constitutional majority and pursuing alternative mechanisms outside the constitutional realm and, in some cases, outside the realm of democratic politics. Unable to

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The Accountability Gap

obtain a constitutional majority through exhortation, the coalition appears to have pursued the DU petition scandal as a means of achieving the same end, because excluding DU’s 15 parliamentary deputies from Parliament would have provided the governing coalition with a slim three-fifths majority in the resulting 135-seat Parliament.29 As the prospects of gaining a legislative constitutional majority became increasingly slim, the coalition sought to limit the ability of the president and other institutions to engage in oversight and sanction by implementing budget cuts, media restrictions, and removal of powers not protected by the constitution.30 Only after other efforts failed to provoke the president’s resignation did the governing coalition engage in intimidation and public humiliation through illegal means. It opted for those means, furthermore, only after it had gained control of the covert means available through the intelligence service that could preserve at least the appearance of legality. At the same time that it was fighting to free itself of constitutional limitations, the coalition was also fighting a rearguard action to maintain its majority in Parliament. The controversies surrounding the parliamentary seats of Frantisˇek Gaulieder and Emil Spisˇák occurred as the result of a parallel effort by the governing coalition—and in particular its leading party, HZDS—to exert and maintain control over parliamentary mandates, a constitutionally protected institution in its own right. All three of the governing coalition’s parties understood in practical terms the consequences of party splintering: ZRS owed its existence to its chair’s defection from the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL’); HZDS and SNS suffered considerably from defections by deputies, and their government lost a vote of no confidence as a result. All three coalition parties therefore sought to minimize the possibility of future defections. The expulsion of HZDS’s Gaulieder reflects the culmination of efforts begun in the summer of 1994 to bind deputies to the party in a number of different ways. It is unlikely that the brute-force mechanism of expulsion represented the party’s first line of defense, but Gaulieder’s refusal to accept the party’s inducements for resignation (Sme 1996f) provoked the coalition to make full use of the parliamentary mechanisms it had reserved for itself during the overnight parliamentary session of November 1994.31 These mechanisms sidestepped the constitutional unenforceability of Gaulieder’s contract and reemphasized the futility of defection to any deputy who might choose to follow in Gaulieder’s footsteps.32 Spisˇák’s exclusion reflects a further effort to increase party control over who would exercise party mandates

The Accountability Gap

47

by plugging loopholes in the governing coalition’s own 1995 legislation that gave parties near-complete control over substitute deputies. Though the exclusion of Gaulieder and Spisˇák drew heavily on the coalition’s political reserves, the efforts helped preserve the coalition’s majority and minimized the degree to which the leaders of the coalition’s parties could be held accountable by their own deputies. In comparison to these accountability violations, the coalition’s direct action against the Constitutional Court came relatively late. Not until the Gaulieder and Spisˇák cases did the coalition forthrightly refuse to acknowledge a court ruling. This apparent delay must be understood in the context of the coalition’s tendency toward minimizing its risks. As one of the most widely trusted institutions in Slovakia and a body that carefully remained neutral in most conflicts, the Constitutional Court remained well defended. Nor did it present an immediate threat, and its rulings against the coalition had posed only relatively minor inconvenience. Not until the potentially crucial mandate question did this balance tip and the costs imposed by the court decision outweigh the costs of rejecting it. In order to maintain party discipline and avoid accountability to their own deputies, the coalition parties accepted the risk of openly rejecting accountability to the court. To minimize that risk, coalition parties broadened the scope of the conflict over deputy mandates in an attempt to cast doubts about the court’s authority and the constitutionally established doctrine of court review. Although all of the above institutional encroachments succeeded in releasing the governing coalition from certain important external restraints, they did not achieve the sweeping success that marked the earlier efforts. Despite the intimidation and the removal of presidential prerogatives, Michal Kovácˇ served out his full term as Slovakia’s president. The opposition, for its part, remained coherent enough to deny the coalition a constitutional majority. Furthermore, the accountability violations began to incur costs of their own. Whereas the coalition’s initial efforts within the parliamentary and governmental spheres did not provoke anger beyond the narrow range of staunch opposition supporters, attacks on the president and parliamentary deputies exposed Mecˇiar’s government to negative public scrutiny. The attacks on Michal Kovácˇ Jr. and Gaulieder raised awkward questions that required police investigation. The expulsions of Gaulieder and Spisˇák required increasingly obvious departures from parliamentary procedure (and common sense) and forced the coalition into serious conflict with the Constitutional Court. In these efforts, the coalition parties faced the

48 The Accountability Gap limits of their power. In the period that followed, they continued to evade accountability, but the efforts became almost exclusively defensive as the coalition sought to avoid or undo the consequences of its previous extralegal encroachments.

Defensive, Extralegal Encroachment, 1995 –98 Politically related violence in Slovakia in 1995 and 1996 produced a series of investigations by police and prosecutors, but all of these ended without the filing of a single formal indictment. Even a cursory examination of the investigations reveals that problems resulted from political interference rather than professional incompetence. Not content to stop there, the coalition compounded its interference with investigation by using the political power of amnesty to prevent any future efforts at prosecution. Police and Prosecutors. The lead investigator in the Kovácˇ kidnapping investigation, Maj. Jozef Sˇimunicˇ, held his position for just over one week. His successor, Maj. Peter Vacˇok, held his position for six weeks. Vladimír Lamacˇka, the director of the Investigations Department of the Police Corps and Sˇimunicˇ’s and Vacˇok’s superior, also lost his position during the same period, on orders from HZDS minister of the interior, L’udovít Hudek. Both Sˇimunicˇ and Vacˇok pursued almost identical lines of questioning, criticizing government interference in the case and raising questions about the involvement of SIS.33 The third and final ˇ ízˇ, put a halt to these efforts. He immediately ended investigator, Jozef C the investigation of SIS and focused instead on a hypothesis of “self-abduction.” He announced in April 1996 that anonymous witnesses could corroborate the hypothesis that Kovácˇ had faked his own abduction (Stahlova 1996), but six weeks later he announced his decision to suspend the investigation on the grounds that it had “failed to find facts that would justify the launching of criminal proceedings against any ˇ ízˇ remained in particular person” (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1996).34 C his position for nearly a year, formally closing the case on the first anniversary of the abduction. ˇ ízˇ, the most striking aspect In the move from Sˇimunicˇ to Vacˇok to C of the investigation is the extraordinary degree of direct influence by political appointees of the governing coalition. Attempts by both Sˇimunicˇ and Vacˇok to question SIS members met with a flat refusal from SIS director Ivan Lexa, who later justified his decision with a sweeping reference to national security: “If I relieved SIS members and the network

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49

of SIS agents of their obligation to maintain secrecy, SIS would be generally declassified, and the state interests of the Slovak Republic would be damaged” (Národná obroda 1996b, 1). Although he would not permit the questioning of his employees, Lexa himself became directly involved in the case. On September 26, he formally accused Vacˇok and other investigators of “exerting psychological pressure on [SIS functionaries] and inciting them to give false testimony” regarding Kovácˇ’s abduction. Lexa appealed to prosecutor Robert Vlachovsky for investigation of Vacˇok and his superior Lamacˇka for “jeopardizing official secrets” by the public identification of suspects as SIS (Národná obroda 1995a, 1). Although Lexa’s own organization and its agents were considered potential suspects by both of the first two investigators, it was on the basis of Lexa’s objections that Vlachovsky justified his removal of investigator Vacˇok (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1995b). A variety of other evidence, some of it discussed later, suggests that government ministers also played an active role in shaping the ultimate direction of the investigation and the appointment of investigators who would subject their investigation to political interests.35 Shortly before the closing of the Kovácˇ kidnapping investigation, other events complicated the case. The first of these complications was the death of security consultant Robert Remiasˇ in an automobile explosion in Bratislava. In the months before his death, Remiasˇ had served as a go-between for Oskar Fegyveres, a former SIS agent who claimed to have participated in the Kovácˇ abduction under the direction of SIS director Lexa. Because of Remiasˇ’s connection to Fegyveres and because Remiasˇ had informed friends that he was being followed by SIS agents, opposition parties immediately accused the intelligence service of involvement in the explosion. After a week of investigation police investigators reported preliminary findings that a malfunction in the experimental propane fuel system of Remiasˇ’s car had caused the explosion (TASR 1996g). Several months later, however, police criminologists revised their findings and reported the cause as the detonation of 150 –200 grams of plastic explosive (Jurina 1996). Shortly thereafter police suspended the investigation because of lack of further evidence (TASR 1996d). Several weeks after Remiasˇ’s death, a privately owned Slovak radio station broadcast an audio recording of what was alleged to be a telephone conversation between SIS director Ivan Lexa and Interior Minister L’udovít Hudek in which Lexa asks Hudek to secure the removal of an investigator from an unspecified case and Hudek agrees.

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The Accountability Gap

When confronted with the tape, Hudek lamented the violation of his privacy but did not deny the authenticity of the recording (Geclerová, Zˇitnansky, and Sámel 1996). Not until several days later did he join with Lexa and other HZDS leaders to argue that the tape consisted of several conversations spliced together to give the impression of wrongdoing (Slovenská republika 1996f).36 Tests conducted in the Czech Republic and Austria supported the authenticity of the recording, but criminologists in the Slovak Police Corps reported “unequivocally that tampering was involved” (Pravda 1996c, 2) and shifted the investigation toward identifying and prosecuting those responsible for the tampering. Several weeks later investigators suspended investigation on the case, citing their inability to identify “who made the recording or what recording equipment was used” (TASR 1996e).37 The pattern of government interference with police procedure affected other cases as well, particularly the investigation of an explosion in front of the home of former HZDS deputy Gaulieder. Although police investigators quickly identified that the explosion had been the result of 200 – 400 grams of industrial explosive triggered by a fuse, they found few other meaningful leads (TASR 1996l). As in the Kovácˇ-related cases the government changed investigators for unspecified reasons, and a new investigator soon announced that he was suspending the investigation because of insufficient evidence (Sme 1997n).38 Amnesty. The term of Michal Kovácˇ as president of Slovakia ended on March 2, 1998, and in the absence of a Parliament-chosen successor, many of his powers, including the powers of pardon and amnesty, devolved to the premier. On March 3, 1998, Premier Vladimír Mecˇiar employed those powers to issue an order “not to start criminal prosecution, and if it has already started, to desist for crimes committed in relation to the kidnapping of Michal Kovácˇ Jr. abroad” (TASR 1998b). At the same time, Mecˇiar also issued amnesties for all those who might have otherwise faced prosecution “for crimes committed in relation to the preparation and carrying out of the May 23 –24, 1997 referendum,” a significant violation of electoral accountability described later (TASR 1998b). Mecˇiar explained these decrees as an act of “civic reconciliation” and “a conciliatory gesture toward these sections of the population and thus [they] show our desire for reconciliation” (Slovenská Televizia 1 1998). The decision, however, prompted immediate and severe criticism from opposition leaders and even from officials within the governing coalition. In July 1998 Mecˇiar issued a revision of the

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amnesty that excluded “criminal proceedings” and prosecution and altered the wording to remove the implicit suggestion of the previous amnesty that an abduction had actually taken place (Silacky 1998, 4). Through these two statements, Mecˇiar not only eliminated the need for further pressure on investigators and prosecutors but also ensured the prohibition of further oversight and sanction in the case.39 Assessment: Encroachment Demands Encroachment. By 1996 Slovakia’s governing coalition was on the defensive. Government efforts to undercut accountability became focused primarily on avoiding the oversight of and sanction for previous violations. Rather than face responsibility for the kidnapping of the president’s son, the third Mecˇiar government became increasingly involved in the previously inviolate sphere of criminal investigation and prosecution. Ministers and prosecutors appointed by the governing coalition removed investigators at the behest of fellow government appointees who were themselves under investigation. The processes stopped only with the appointment of investigators who could not or would not perform a detailed investigation. In many cases the coalition did not even conceal the process of seeking out favorable investigators, though at other times it justified the changes as remedies for political bias, opportunism, lack of competence, and other failings (Slovenská republika 1995b, 1996c; Sme 1996j). As a hedge against future changes of government, the coalition also extended freedom from accountability into the indefinite future through the use of blanket grants of amnesty. All of these efforts proved successful to the extent that they prevented the indictment and trial of coalition employees. In the broader scheme, however, they did not add to the coalition’s political resources or release it from any restraints that were not of its own making. If anything, the need to avoid prosecution forced the coalition to show its hand and thereby revealed an absence of institutional independence that extended even as far as the police and the prosecutors.

Encroachments Against Electoral Institutions, 1997 and 1998 For the first two-thirds of its four-year term, the third Mecˇiar government confined its efforts at eliminating electoral accountability to post hoc efforts to remove elected officials, particularly through its investigation of DU and the exclusion of deputies Gaulieder and Spisˇák. In 1997, however, the government interfered directly with the electoral process itself by altering a referendum ballot to avoid losing an important vote. In the

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process the government also found it necessary to pursue other violations of institutional accountability, including abrupt shifts in official responsibilities, further disregard of Constitutional Court decisions, pressure on prosecutors, and sweeping amnesties. The 1997 Referendum. In early 1997 two quite different referendum proposals began to take shape in the Slovak parliament. In February 1997 the governing coalition approved legislation calling for a referendum containing three questions related to Slovakia’s possible entry into NATO. During this same period, opposition parties pursued plans for a referendum on a constitutional change from parliamentary election of Slovakia’s president to direct election. Unable to gain majority support in Parliament, opposition parties opted for an alternative constitutional mechanism that required the president to call a referendum if 350,000 signatures could be gathered in its support (TASR 1996k). After receiving both referendum proposals, President Kovácˇ announced that the three NATO questions and the presidential election question would be combined into a single, four-question referendum to be held in late spring. The combined referendum posed a series of difficult choices for the coalition parties, in particular for HZDS. A constitutional law instituting a two-round direct election of the president would have created serious difficulties for Premier Mecˇiar. A directly elected president would be able to claim a popular mandate, and opposition strategists theorized that the newly redefined presidency would force Mecˇiar to make a choice between two unpleasant alternatives: allowing another person—probably a member of the opposition—to claim the benefits accruing to the winner of a countrywide election; or winning the presidency himself at the expense of losing the wider powers of the premiership. The referendum’s electoral mechanism, furthermore, worked to Mecˇiar’s disadvantage by requiring the winning candidate to win a full majority rather than a plurality.40 Yet Mecˇiar and his coalition could not easily oppose the proposal because it was extremely popular among voters, even among those who supported the coalition parties (Czech Press Office [hereafter CTK] 1997; Pravda 1997d; Sme 1997j; TASR 1997a). Unable to oppose this referendum directly and unwilling to see it pass, the coalition sought alternative means of eliminating the danger. The coalition reacted first with procedural challenges. Governingcoalition representatives along with members of the opposition SDL’ argued that Slovakia’s constitution did not permit constitutional change by means of referendum (Smolec 1997). According to HZDS deputy Ján

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Cuper, “only Parliament can change the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. Therefore, when M. Kovácˇ announced the referendum on the direct election of the president, he reportedly proceeded unconstitutionally” (Krno 1997c, 1). Governing-coalition representatives also vehemently criticized Kovácˇ’s unification of the two sets of referendum questions onto a single ballot. Slovakia’s constitution states that a referendum can be considered valid only if it achieves a majority of votes cast and only if the number of votes cast represents a majority of eligible voters. Because of this turnout requirement, the act of not participating in a referendum could be considered a distinct type of “no” vote. Members of the governing coalition argued that by joining the two sets of questions in a single referendum, Kovácˇ prevented voters from casting this passive “no” vote on one question while actively participating in the other (Slovensko do toho! 1997). Slovakia’s government voted on April 25, 1997, to request an interpretation from the Constitutional Court on the question of whether a referendum can change the constitution. At the same time the government ordered the Ministry of the Interior not to distribute ballots containing a question on direct election of the president (Sme 1997m). On April 26 the Central Referendum Commission— one of the few national political institutions in Slovakia with equal representation of all parties and, consequently, an opposition majority— declared such orders to be legally irrelevant and in violation of Slovakia’s legal code (Sme 1997m). The conflict continued in this vein for several weeks with each side insisting on its own legal priority.41 The Constitutional Court’s brief two-part verdict issued on May 21 did not end the controversy. In the first section of the ruling, the court stated that “the Constitution of the Slovak Republic does not forbid the inclusion in a referendum of a question about changing the Constitution or a part thereof” (Praca 1997a, 1). The second part of the ruling, however, found fault with the presidential election question for its inclusion of an attachment containing the text of a draft law on direct presidential election.42 On the day after the ruling was issued, the chair of the Conˇ icˇ, issued a statement in which he explained stitutional Court, Milan C his interpretation of the ruling: “Four or three questions? That is not a matter for the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic, which did not express any opinion in that regard. In my opinion, the referendum was announced according to the constitution. The questions which were included in the referendum cannot be changed by the president, nor by the Constitutional Court, nor by the Central Referendum

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The Accountability Gap

Commission. Nor, of course, by anyone else” (Pravda 1997b, 1).43 Despite ˇ icˇ’s strong statement to the contrary, the governing coalition claimed C victory. According to HZDS deputy Ján Cuper, “The president and the opposition pretend as if the Constitutional Court decided in their favor,” but in reality “citizens cannot vote on the fourth question, which contains an unconstitutional supplement” (Sme 1997i, 2). When confronted with statements to the contrary by Constitutional Court chair ˇ icˇ, Cuper responded that “Mr. C ˇ icˇ is not accurately informed” (2). C Like Cuper, HZDS-appointed Interior Minister Gustáv Krajcˇi interpreted the Constitutional Court’s verdict as requiring the exclusion of the fourth question. According to Krajcˇi, “On the basis of [that interpretation] I attempted to convince the Central Referendum Commission to have a new ballot printed, but they disagreed, so then I had to decide” (Toth and Kotian 1997, 1). Krajcˇi decided that the Ministry of the Interior would distribute ballots that contained only the three NATO-related questions. The Referendum’s Aftermath. The result was chaos. On learning of the three-question ballot, opposition parties issued statements encouraging citizens to go to polling stations but to refuse to accept any ballot that did not contain all four questions. In several municipalities, local mayors refused to allow voting on the three-question ballot. As a result, fewer than 328,000 of the 3,362,000 eligible voters actually cast ballots.44 The Central Referendum Commission immediately accused Krajcˇi of misconduct in the handling of the referendum. In particular, it accused him of engaging in forgery by applying the commission’s stamp to an unauthorized three-question ballot and of “having failed to secure publication and distribution of the [four-question] ballot papers in line with the [Central Referendum Commission’s] ruling” (TASR 1997e).45 Coalition leaders, particularly those in HZDS, supported Krajcˇi in these statements, and Premier Mecˇiar publicly affirmed that he stood “on the side of Minister Krajcˇi” (Slovenská republika 1997a, 2). Krajcˇi remained in his position as interior minister through the end of the Mecˇiar government despite a series of criminal complaints and civil lawsuits against him regarding his actions connected with the referendum. On September 19, 1997, prosecutor Michal Barila proposed the filing of formal charges against Krajcˇi, but on September 29 the decision was countermanded by his superior, district prosecutor Tibor Sˇumichrast, who declared that Krajcˇi “is not under suspicion of criminal activity” (Silacky 1997, 1).46 Sˇumichrast explained that he could not

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55

find evidence of a violation of law. With regard to the charge of forgery—the most concrete of the charges leveled against Krajcˇi— Sˇumichrast reasoned that no violation had occurred because “a blank ballot does not have the character of a public letter” and “the illustration of the stamp of the central commission on printed or sample ballots is not codified in law” (Silacky 1997, 1). Sˇumichrast also failed to find motive, explaining that Krajcˇi’s behavior, “although it bears the marks of illegality, was directed toward the protection of at least the referendum initiated by Parliament” (Silacky 1997, 1). Sˇumichrast’s decision is significant to the extent that it calls explicit attention to the severe absence of institutional accountability within Slovakia’s political system. His letter explicitly acknowledges that “no state organ, neither the president nor the Central Referendum Commission, nor the Minister of the Interior was authorized to cancel the referendum or to change the content of its promulgation” (Sˇumichrast 1997, 279). Yet he claimed to find no legal grounds for filing charges against the minister of the interior for acting without authorization to change the content of a referendum. If taken at face value, Sˇumichrast’s explanation indicates a fundamental weakness in Slovakia’s entire electoral system, because the absence of legal protection for ballots and official stamps would permit the duplication of alternative ballots and the legal use of commission stamps by anyone intent on disrupting the political system. Yet the governing coalition, although it accepted the dismissal of charges against Krajcˇi, did not subsequently take any action to repair what Sˇumichrast had identified as a severe weakness in the country’s legal foundation. In light of previously discussed interactions between the government and the prosecutorial service, it would appear far more likely that the absence of accountability lay not in the legal code but rather in the processes that compelled Sˇumichrast to find in favor of Krajcˇi, using whatever grounds might be available. The possibility of additional legal action against Krajcˇi diminished further in March 1998 when Premier Vladimír Mecˇiar’s appointment as acting president allowed him to issue the aforementioned decree of amnesty. Furthermore, although Slovakia’s Constitutional Court ruled in early 1998 that the use of the three-question ballot had violated citizens’ constitutional rights (TASR 1998d) and that a new referendum could therefore be rescheduled, the devolution of presidential powers to Mecˇiar allowed the coalition to decide the referendum’s future. In one of his first acts as acting president, Mecˇiar took advantage of his new powers to cancel plans for a rescheduled referendum.

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The Electoral Law Amendments. Shortly after the election of 1994, Premier Mecˇiar expressed his preference that Slovakia abandon its proportional electoral system and that the next elections be held under a majority first-past-the-post system (Zelenayová, Urbanová, and Strelinger 1994; Wolf 1994). He and other members of HZDS reiterated this preference on occasion for several years, and in early 1996 the party formally announced plans to change the electoral system (Pravda 1996a). HZDS’s smaller coalition partners immediately rejected plans for a majority system, claiming that such a system would hurt their own electoral chances (Slisˇková 1996), and the changes remained on hold for another two years. By early 1998 HZDS had accepted the necessity of an accommodation with its smaller coalition partners and abandoned its plans for a majority electoral system. In late May 1998 deputies of the coalition parties joined together to pass, with only minor amendment, a proposal drawn up by Interior Minister Krajcˇi and submitted by HZDS deputies. Unlike the original HZDS proposal to adopt a majority system—a change that would have benefited HZDS at the expense of almost every other party—the electoral law passed by Parliament preserved Slovakia’s proportional system, but with other changes that negatively affected Slovakia’s opposition parties in several ways.47 Proponents of the amendments explained the new ban on public posting of electoral rolls and other administrative tasks on the basis of gains in efficiency (TASR 1998a), but opposition leaders pointed to the actions of the Ministry of the Interior during the 1997 referendum and expressed fears of coalition manipulation. Leaders of opposition parties expressed similar and even more vehement concerns about restrictions that placed the sole responsibility for broadcast media coverage in the hands of the governmentappointed directors of Slovak Television and Slovak Radio. Opposition leaders likewise cited the law’s reduction of electoral districts from four to one as a means of benefiting parties with particularly charismatic leaders and less-educated followers—particularly HZDS—because the party leader would appear on all ballots instead of only those in a particular region (Jancˇura 1998). The advantages of this provision for coalition parties were noted even by HZDS chair Mecˇiar, who expressed satisfaction that a large opposition coalition would find it difficult to nominate a single leader for the first position on the ballot (Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko 1998). The strongest opposition criticisms of the new law involved its treatment of coalitions. During the second half of 1997, five opposition parties of varying sizes and ideological outlooks came together under

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a single organizational umbrella—the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK)—and managed to attract significant public support. By 1998 the new coalition had become the first political formation ever to exceed the popularity of HZDS in opinion polls. By changing the rules for coalitions, the new electoral law forced opposition parties into a difficult choice. Rather than risk falling below newly elevated electoral thresholds, the SDK and the parties of the Hungarian Coalition (MK) each opted to merge their disparate coalitions into single parties that could be registered with the minister of the interior, a task made even more difficult by the short period between the passage of the law and the party registration deadline. Both parties succeeded in the task, however, and despite strong expectations that the new law would enable considerable political manipulation, few problems arose during the actual election campaign.48 Opposition parties challenged the objectivity of state broadcasting and questioned the conduct of state administration in a few limited instances, but they found few specific violations. Assessment: Institutional Encroachment Enables—and Demands— Electoral Encroachment. Despite the governing coalition’s sweeping success in eliminating institutional-accountability mechanisms within the sphere of Parliament and government and its strong progress toward silencing other sources of institutional accountability outside its sphere, coalition actions during its second two years in office demonstrate its awareness of other, more fundamental dangers. By granting amnesty in cases that had already been closed and tailoring an election law to penalize the opposition, the coalition revealed anxieties that coming elections might bring a change of government. By altering a referendum ballot on the thinnest of pretenses, the coalition admitted its impending defeat in the first contest of the 1997–98 electoral season. As changes to the electoral law suggest, the coalition further responded to its falling popularity by changing the rules that transform voter preference into political outcomes. In 1997 and 1998 Slovakia’s governing coalition thus branched out from its encroachments on institutional accountability to undercut electoral accountability as well. These violations give support to the arguments made by O’Donnell and others that an absence of institutional accountability can directly threaten electoral accountability. The electoral law changes required only a simple majority of parliamentary deputies and therefore could have been enacted under almost any circumstances, but the referendum

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alteration depended on several preconditions, including full, unrestricted control of the Ministry of the Interior and a prosecutorial service that was unwilling to file charges against coalition officials. Both changes, however, followed the coalition’s pattern of regarding external accountability as an obstacle to be avoided, whether through legislation or through more complicated use—and misuse— of other mechanisms under coalition control. Violations of electoral accountability came relatively late in the process and emerged from violations of institutional accountability. Polyarchy in Slovakia weathered the third Mecˇiar government considerably better than did institutional accountability.

Return to Sporadic Encroachment, 1998 and Thereafter The third Mecˇiar government lost Slovakia’s 1998 parliamentary elections by a substantial margin. The ZRS fell far short of the 5 percent threshold for parliamentary representation, and the share of the vote won by HZDS dropped by nearly 8 percent to just over 27 percent. Of the coalition parties, only the SNS improved its electoral performance, but its 9 percent of the vote was not even enough to raise the combined total of the seats held by the two parties to the two-fifths level necessary for blocking constitutional laws. It became immediately apparent, furthermore, that other parties would not cooperate with HZDS or SNS. As a result, the formation of a new government fell to SDK, composed of the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), DU, and other smaller parties. SDK quickly formed a majority coalition that included SDL’ and the new Party of Civic Understanding (SOP). Although these three parties together held a parliamentary majority, they extended the coalition offer as well to the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (MKP), thereby gaining both the approval of foreign observers and the three-fifths majority necessary for constitutional changes. The new parliamentary majority responded with relative restraint even though it controlled mechanisms that easily could have been used to retaliate against the parties of the third Mecˇiar government. Parliament actually restored proportional representation of parties in committee assignments. Although it did not offer any positions of committee leadership to HZDS, it did extend offers of committee leadership to SNS, including chairmanship of the committee for overseeing SIS. The new coalition also allowed a greater degree of proportionality than its predecessor on other oversight boards and committees and followed

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through on its promise to establish direct popular election of Slovakia’s president on the basis of a two-round run-off election. The relative absence of accountability violations is revealed clearly in the inability of HZDS to identify meaningful grievances. In a 1999 press release entitled “Violation of Democracy After 1998 Elections in Slovakia,” HZDS issued a series of charges against the SDK-led coalition that closely resemble those previously made against the third Mecˇiar government: corruption, administrative purges, harassment of HZDS officials and journalists close to the party, violations of judicial independence, and slow police response on crimes in which HZDS leaders had been victims (Movement for a Democratic Slovakia 1999). Later HZDS statements echoed these points and added others, including bias in state television, attempts to manipulate a referendum, and willful violation of Mecˇiar’s 1998 amnesty decree. Although the HZDS accusations against SDK mirror accusations made against the third Mecˇiar government, the charges do not carry the same weight. Even if wholly accurate, the list of violations compiled from HZDS official statements falls far short of the list of verifiable encroachments made by HZDS between 1994 and 1998. Nor do HZDS charges constitute a systematic pattern of violation that could meaningfully threaten either the broader network of institutional accountability in Slovakia’s system or undercut the basic elements of electoral accountability (Movement for a Democratic Slovakia 1999). Although few of the HZDS charges actually hold up to closer scrutiny, two sets of accusations require closer attention. One of the most serious charges of encroachment against the SDK-led government concerns the alleged violation of Slovakia’s constitution by the new coalition’s premier and acting president, Mikulásˇ Dzurinda, who revoked Mecˇiar’s amnesties involving the abduction of Michal Kovácˇ Jr. and the marred referendum. The revocation allowed the Ministry of Justice to pursue charges against Ivan Lexa, former director of SIS and other midlevel officials in the third Mecˇiar government. Dzurinda justified the decision as an attempt to restore accountability by undoing his predecessor’s encroachments, but when Slovakia’s Constitutional Court ruled Mecˇiar’s amnesties to be inviolable, Dzurinda was quick to permit Lexa’s release. Dzurinda’s response to Mecˇiar’s use of amnesty captures in miniature how the consequences of severe encroachments endure even when the causes cease. As with Mecˇiar’s amnesty, many of the other violations of institutional accountability under his third government could be eliminated only by further violations of institutional

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accountability, and the new coalition faced a choice between adopting the tactics of their predecessors or allowing those tactics to go unpunished. With few exceptions the coalition followed the latter path and exerted a degree of restraint in its response. The second set of accusations of encroachment by the Dzurinda government involves corruption. Frequent accusations—not only from HZDS—identified significant misuse of public resources for the benefit of members of the government and their families. These violations represented a major retreat from the government’s electoral promises of cleaner public administration and a reversal of the privatization practices of the Mecˇiar years. At the same time, however, it is worth noting that the individual-level embezzlement likely conducted within the Dzurinda government differed markedly from the enormous transfers of property conducted during the Mecˇiar-led coalition and from the Mecˇiar government’s systematic use of that revenue to enhance its public presence. Although Dzurinda’s government fell far short of the expectations it raised and did not patch all the holes in Slovakia’s institutional fabric that were revealed by the preceding government, the new government did take some important steps to restore institutional accountability and it reduced encroachment to a far more sustainable level. Dzurinda’s government strained against institutional barriers and occasionally broke them, but unlike Mecˇiar, Dzurinda did not substantially change the structure or break it in ways that would make subsequent violations easier. In its “ordinary” (though by no means desirable) encroachment, Slovakia’s government after 1998 more closely resembled pre-1994 Slovak governments and the governments of the independent Czech Republic.

Accountability in the Czech Republic Sporadic Encroachment, 1992 –98 The story of institutional accountability in the Czech Republic contains many of the same ingredients as its Slovak counterpart—scandals surrounding intelligence services, privatization, media manipulation, regional governments, and the electoral law—but the resemblance is superficial. Governments in the Czech Republic never gained a clear upper hand over rival institutions, and even carefully targeted efforts at encroachment ultimately missed their mark.

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During the first six years of the Czech Republic’s independent existence, leaders of opposition parties criticized the absence of rule of law and accountability (Jicˇínsky´ 1995, 77). Institutional accountability in the Czech Republic remained stronger in two important ways, however. First, whereas Mecˇiar’s encroachments in Slovakia formed part of a broad and ultimately systematic effort, the analogous problems in the Czech Republic revealed themselves to be largely unrelated incidents. Second, whereas most of Slovakia’s encroachments met with little institutional resistance and found no redress until the electoral defeat of the responsible parties, most of the efforts at encroachment in the Czech Republic met with active investigation and prosecution from police and oversight bodies. The only successful, systematic rejection of institutional accountability during this period in the Czech Republic was the government coalition’s success in preventing the establishment of new oversight mechanisms. Accountability Enforced. Although the Czech Republic experienced a significant number of accountability-related scandals during the 1990s, most attempts at encroachment ended in failure, often because of the effective intervention of other institutions. During the first term of the Czech Republic’s parliament, from 1992 until 1996, a majority coalition composed of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA), and the Christian Demoˇ SL) voted to abandon the cratic Union–Czech People’s Party (KDU–C previous parliament’s practice of assigning leadership positions in committees to all political parties in rough proportion to their strength in parliament. Instead, the governing coalition placed its own representatives in charge of all eleven major parliamentary committees and into nineteen of the twenty-eight vice-chair positions, and arranged the distribution in such a way as to exclude opposition parties from both chair and vice-chair positions on four of the eleven committees. Similarly, the coalition abolished the previous practice of including a limited number of opposition representatives in the parliamentary presidium. These changes evoked considerable criticism from the representatives of opposition parties, who argued that such measures were unduly restrictive in a legislative body and accused the coalition of regarding “even parliament as a reserved domain of its own power” (Jicˇínsky´ 1995, 72). The coalition, however, did not use other means at its disposal to exert its power in Parliament. While reserving leadership positions for itself, the coalition allowed the distribution of committee seats along

62 The Accountability Gap proportional lines. In fact, the level of disproportionality actually decreased from 5 percent in the 1990 parliament to 4 percent for the 1992 parliament. Nor did the proportionality of committee leadership positions disappear permanently from the Czech political landscape. The parliament elected in 1996 broadened the distribution of committee chairs to include not only the governing-coalition parties but also the ˇ SSD) and excluded only the more exCzech Social Democratic Party (C ˇ ) and Communist (KSC ˇ M) parties. Disprotreme Republican (SPR–RSC portionality of overall committee seats also declined in 1996 to a nearperfect 1 percent and continued at that low level in the parliament elected in 1998. Governments in the Czech Republic faced several accusations of inappropriate interference in the public media in the years after independence. In 1993 members of the independent Board for Czech Radio and Television accused governing-coalition officials of trying to delay—and eventually to reverse—the decision to license a private television network (Pehe 1994, 74; Madden 1996, 15). In 1994 Pavel Sˇafr, the editor in chief of a daily newspaper that favored the majority coalition, accused coalition leaders of engineering his removal after the paper made statements critical of government officials (Crockford and Vltchek 1994; Klima 1997). Yet these efforts ultimately had little success. The Board for Czech Radio and Television went ahead with its decision to allow private broadcasting, and the resulting station quickly became the country’s most popular. If political pressure did bring about the removal of Sˇafr— coalition officials denied any involvement—the change must be understood more in symbolic terms than as a shift in influence, because the newspaper in question reached a relatively small readership (Kettle 1995b). Despite other relatively minor concerns about the confidentiality of information and laws against defamation of the president, the Council of Europe’s Agenda 2000 report nevertheless acknowledged the relative freedom of the Czech media during the mid-1990s (Council of Europe 1997a). The position of the Czech Republic’s judiciary also provoked accountability-related controversy. In early 1998 a letter from the European Association of Judges (EAJ) to the president of the Czech Republic and other constitutional officials contended that the country’s courts were “too greatly subjected to the executive power” (Vyklicky 1998). The Agenda 2000 report of the Council of Europe (1997a) noted overloaded courts with frequent delays rooted in “inadequate experience and qualification on the part of judges” (11). Yet neither of these

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organizations regarded the insufficiencies as having an immediate adverse effect on the institutional balance. The EAJ offered its comments in the spirit of constructive criticism and with the acknowledgment that “the Czech justice system is basically democratic, and is capable of reform through internal development” (Vyklicky 1998). The Council of Europe report accepted the Czech judiciary as “independent” and acknowledged that decisions made by the Czech Constitutional Court “testify to its role in enforcing the rule of law” (11). Allegations surrounding misuse of the Czech Republic’s intelligence service proved similarly inconclusive. In January 1995 Jan Kalvoda, chair of the majority coalition’s ODA held a press conference at which he accused the Czech Republic’s Security and Information Service (BIS) of “spying on political parties” (Respekt 1995, 20). His accusation specifically implicated BIS director Stanislav Deváty´, a member of the coalition’s ODS, and went so far as to suggest a “state of war” within the governing coalition. Jozef Lux of the other major coalition party, KDU– ˇ SL, gave his initial support to Kalvoda. Both Deváty´ and leaders of C ODS denied the charges. Upon investigation of the specific accusations, others outside ODS questioned Kalvoda’s claims. Ministers from all the governing parties—including Kalvoda’s own—voted to reject the accusations and to rebuke his method of making them public; nor were the charges accepted by a parliamentary commission that contained a significant number of independent and opposition deputies (Constitution Watch: Czech Republic 1995). Nearly two years after Kalvoda’s statement, Lux issued a similar set of allegations. Lux stated that he had evidence that he, “as Vice-Chair of the Government, was followed by the secret service” (Respekt 1996, 20) and that BIS had placed informants within the Ministry of Agriculture while it was under Lux’s direction (Constitution Watch: Czech Republic 1997a). BIS officials acknowledged that it had placed informants in the Ministry of Agriculture but argued that their purpose was to investigate the head of a regional bank who was associated with Lux and that it actually curtailed the investigation rather than bring Lux under surveillance. Lux proceeded to soften the severity of his accusations and appeared mollified by Deváty´’s almost immediate resignation. As Lux distanced himself from the accusations, Milosˇ Zeman, chair ˇ SSD, took up the theme. One day after Lux’s initial announceof the C ment, Zeman stated that his party “had been unofficially informed that in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior, BIS had created an operative unit to monitor, and eventually discredit, first certain members

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of the opposition, then all members of the opposition, thirdly coalition party members, and, finally, even certain members of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS)” (Carolina 1996a). Zeman submitted a “50-page document” to support his claims (Carolina 1996b), but this document did not convince Czech president Václav Havel (Carolina 1997a) or the parliamentary BIS Control Board, a committee headed by a member of Zeman’s own party. Zeman admitted the flaws in his evidence but claimed that he had been “the victim of provocation” (Carolina 1997b). Although it is clear that something went awry within the Czech intelligence service during this period, it is extremely difficult to support claims that BIS acted systematically against a particular group of parties or leaders.49 One impression that emerges from almost all sides of the debate is the marked degree of disorganization within BIS (Schmarz 1996). Former directors of BIS attribute the difficulties to party-related factions within BIS itself. Former BIS director Deváty´ argued that “there was a group of agents in the service who gave information to politicians,” and Petr Necˇas, an ODS deputy and chair of the parliamentary committee on defense and security, claimed that “every political party has had its own group of agents in the counter-intelligence service” (CTK 1999). It is likely that the conditions of general disarray and internal struggle that brought the activity of the intelligence service under public scrutiny also limited the effective use of such activity by the executive against its political rivals. The most persuasive allegations of institutional accountability violations in the Czech Republic involve abuse of the privatization process, but evidence of violations in this realm led to relatively quick investigation and prosecution. The massive scope of the Czech Republic’s plans for privatization prompted early warnings that the process would be misused by those in power for their own benefit (Machácˇek 1992). The designers of the privatization structures made efforts to limit political access to the process, and the actual process at first appeared to be relatively free of overt corruption. In 1994, however, the police arrested the director of the Center for Voucher Privatization, Jaroslav Lizner, on suspicion of accepting a bribe in exchange for securing a particular outcome in the privatization of a government-owned firm (Machácˇek 1992). A lengthy trial indicated that Lizner acted on his own, but the affair raised questions about the permeability of the privatization process to outside interests. Those questions rose to the level of serious concern in late 1997 when investigations revealed that two significant donations to ODS had come

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not from the listed donor but from the director of an investment fund who had direct interest in the outcome of privatization tenders that were underway at the time of the donation (Bendová 1997; Právo 1997a). ODS vice-chair Libor Novák accepted responsibility for the concealment of the donor’s identity and denied any involvement by ODS chair, Václav Klaus. Klaus likewise denied that he had any knowledge of the donor’s identity (Prague Radiozurnal Radio Network 1997), but a number of top officials within the party contradicted his account (Právo 1997b). In February 1998 the coalition party ODA admitted receiving funds from a firm based in the Virgin Islands that acted as a conduit for donations from major foreign and domestic firms with interests in obtaining government concessions (Carolina 1998). It is difficult to judge the significance of these controversies. The scale of the acknowledged donations is relatively small, even by the standards of Czech politics, and investigations only uncovered a few illegal donations.50 Furthermore, although consequences were limited, they did at least come quickly. ODS vice-chair Novák and several other defendants faced trial on charges of tax fraud, and both ODS and ODA lost considerable numbers of deputies and other supporters after the details of the scandals became public. As a result of the scandals, ODS chair Václav Klaus resigned from the office of premier, ending what was at the time the longest-serving government in postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe. (ODA support collapsed and the party lost its previous political prominence, whereas ODS regained its public support within a few months, and the party managed a second-place finish in the June 1998 election.) Accountability Delayed. The Czech Republic’s governing coalition did not—unlike its Slovak counterpart—pursue a systematic effort to undermine rival institutions, but it did exert concerted force in its efforts to block the creation of new institutions that threatened to increase institutional accountability. The Czech Republic’s governing coalition worked together to block proposals for the establishment of an ombudsman, for the codification of procedures for holding referendums, and for the creation of regional self-government and the upper house of the Czech parliament. These efforts, however, proved not only less corrosive than analogous events in Slovakia but also less enduring. The institution of an ombudsman—an independent body like those used in Western democracies for monitoring violations of civil and human rights—generated discussion during the drafting of the Czech

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Republic’s constitution in 1992, but the office did not appear in the final document. Between 1993 and 1996 the Czech Republic’s president, Václav Havel, and representatives of the parliamentary opposition frequently mentioned the establishment of an ombudsman as a priority, but the proposal aroused the opposition from coalition parties— particularly the coalition-leading ODS— on the grounds that the institution would be both expensive and “unnecessary in a state governed by law” (Lyman 1994, 5). The governing coalition kept the ombudsman question off the legislative agenda between 1992 and 1996, but the coalition’s narrower margin in the 1996 parliament and shifting opinion within the smaller coalition parties raised the possibility of its passage. ˇ SSD submitted legislation creating a “public In 1997 the opposition C guarantor of rights” with “the authority to examine government files but no power to intervene into cases or to make any binding decisions” (Constitution Watch: Czech Republic 1997b, 11). With the support of deputies of the smaller coalition parties, the proposal survived the first two of the three required readings but failed on the third reading because of abstentions by several of those same coalition deputies (Parlaˇ eské republiky Poslanecká sneˇmovna 1997), and the proposal ment C did not reemerge until after the next parliamentary election. A similar set of circumstances surrounded the establishment of a legal framework for holding referendums. The governing coalition elected in 1992 rejected the need for a constitutional provision allowing referendums, and opposition parties dropped their demands for a referendum provision in exchange for other concessions (Constitution Watch: Czech Republic 1993). Although excluded from the constitution, the question of referendums did not disappear from the political scene. It played a small role in the election programs and rhetoric of opposition parties in 1996 (Czech Social Democratic Party 1996, 15). The leading coalition party, ODS, remained strongly opposed to the idea of a formal constitutional provision for referendums, however, and the notion remained well short of the three-fifths majority required for a constitutional change throughout the 1990s.51 The opposition of the Czech Republic’s governing coalition also prevented the establishment of two sets of institutions that were mandated by the Czech Republic’s constitution: regional self-administration and an upper house of the Czech parliament. Despite a constitutional mandate, these institutions could not come into existence until Parliament enacted additional legislation governing their formal establishment and operation. Chapter VII of the Czech Republic’s constitution specifies the

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division of the country into “municipalities” and “higher territorial selfadministering units” called “lands” (zemeˇ) or “regions” (kraje). The constitution specifies that both the municipalities and the higher units are to be administered by councils that are elected on the basis of direct popular election. Municipal organizations already existed and required no significant changes, but regional bodies had been abolished in early postcommunist reforms. When the constitution became law in 1992, no formal organizations— elected or otherwise— existed at the regional level. Despite the constitution’s explicit instructions, neither of the first two parliaments established such bodies. Disagreement over the number and extent of these regional bodies produced consistent delays in the introduction of a government proposal during 1993 and 1994. The question of regional bodies finally reached the floor of Parliament in June 1995, but variants with three, thirteen, and seventeen regions failed to gain a majority. A variant with nine units gained the support of a majority of deputies present but fell well short of the three-fifths vote of all deputies required for a constitutional law. The debate on these questions showed a distinct lack of unity within the coalition. Although the nine, thirteen, and seventeen variants were all introduced by coalition deputies, only the last mentioned gained the support of the coalitionleading ODS. Throughout the debate, ODS deputies followed the party line by seeking a large number of small units and opposing all other proposals.52 In debate, ODS deputies labeled the regional governments as “expensive and unnecessary” (Parlamentní zpravodaj 1995, 265). This 1995 legislative defeat eliminated the question of regional units from the legislative agenda for the remainder of the parliamentary term, and increasing tension among governing-coalition parties prevented any further development until after 1998. The only institutional conflict to be resolved in favor of additional accountability mechanisms during the mid-1990s involved the upper house of the Czech Republic’s parliament. Strong support from the governing coalition led to the incorporation of a second house of parliament—the Senate—within the Czech constitution (Parlamentní zpravodaj 1995), but the governing coalition’s support quickly ebbed. In late 1992 the parliamentary opposition secured enough votes from coalition members to veto a proposal that would have established a provisional senate composed of Czech deputies from the newly defunct Czechoslovak federal parliament. In June 1994 parliamentary deputies from the governing coalition helped ensure the rejection of a proposal for a senate composed of eighty-one single-member electoral districts

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with elections staggered over three two-year periods, while at the same time rejecting the proposals of certain opposition parties simply to abolish the Senate. Despite repeated calls for action by President Václav Havel (Lesenarova 1995; Havel 1995), Parliament took no further action on the question, and the governing coalition’s own efforts toward introducing a follow-up proposal proceeded at an extremely slow rate. In early 1995 Václav Klaus, the premier of the Czech Republic and the chair of ODS, explained that he “never really thought that the Senate is really a necessary part (of the Constitution)” (Lesenarova 1995, 8). Other statements by coalition deputies likewise suggested that the issue was relatively unimportant and that a decision in favor of a senate would not reflect its indispensability as much as the awkwardness of deleting the institution from the Czech constitution (Manak and Kopecky 1995). Not until autumn of 1995 did deputies of the governing coalition approve an election law for the Senate, a law that was virtually identical to the one rejected the year before. Not until December 1995 did the president and premier reach an agreement that permitted the Senate elections to be held in late 1996. The circumstances surrounding all these institutions demonstrate both weaknesses and strengths within the Czech Republic’s institutional structure. Even leaders within the governing coalition expressed willingness to criticize the indefinite delays and postponements. Shortly before his election as chair of the governing coalition’s smallest party, the ODA, Michal Zˇantovsky´ argued that “for long term stability in a democracy . . . rule of law is indispensable” and noted his feeling that in the Czech Republic “the law does not rule as generally and consistently as it should” (Holub 1997). In particular, Zˇantovsky´ cited many of the institutional disputes raised in the previous discussion: Elsewhere the constitution is considered to be something sacred and untouchable. With us it took four years before we filled the second chamber of parliament that is set down in the constitution. And high constitutional officials still say that the Senate is not necessary, and a whole series of people who voted for the constitution and stood behind its birth devalue the Senate. This also applies to the higher territorial-administration units. (Holub 1997)

Yet the most important of the institutions—the Senate— did eventually find sufficient support in Parliament. Furthermore, although the governing coalition sought to avoid the restraints that would be imposed by referendums and an ombudsman, their efforts did not directly violate Czech law or the basic principles of institutional accountability.

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Only the failure to resolve the territorial administration involved a prolonged resistance to constitutional mandates, and in this case the struggle reflected an inability to compromise over the size and scope of the regional units rather than an outright rejection of other institutions. The Czech Republic’s governing coalition proved itself no friend of institutional accountability, but it expressed its opposition in the relatively mild form of passive delay rather than in active opposition to existing institutions.

Targeted, Legal Encroachment, 1998 –2002 The party finance scandals discussed previously led not only to investigation and criminal prosecution of high-ranking officials of ODS but also to a dramatic restructuring of the Czech executive. Faced with severe criticism from opposition parties by coalition parties, as well as a faction within his own party, Václav Klaus resigned from the position of premier, thereby dissolving his government and requiring the appointment of a successor. In Klaus’s place, President Havel appointed Czech National Bank chair Jozef Tosˇovsky´, a prominent public figure with no direct party ties, who promised to serve only until the preterm election of a new parliament. Tosˇovsky´ appointed a government consisting of political independents along with several representatives from the forˇ SL, ODA, and the faction that mer coalition parties, particularly KDU–C broke away from ODS and called itself the Freedom Union (US). ODS finished second in the June 1998 parliamentary elections, the worst performance in the party’s seven-year history but far better than observers had predicted in the months immediately following the scandal, during which the party’s popularity had fallen to single digits. The ˇ SSD emerged from the elections as the largest party but failed to find C a workable formula for a majority coalition. Spurned by the US and unˇ M, C ˇ SSD established an unusual willing to form a coalition with the KSC “opposition agreement” with its main rival, ODS. In the agreement ˇ SSD minority government in exchange ODS offered tacit support for a C for key posts in the parliamentary leadership and other policy-related concessions. These rapid changes had almost immediate implications for relationships of institutional accountability in the Czech Republic. Without ODS chair Václav Klaus in the country’s top executive position and at the head of the governing coalition, stalled proposals for additional accountability institutions again began to move. Beginning in late

70 The Accountability Gap 1997—just before the party financing scandals—growing internal divisions within ODS had caused a sufficient number of the party’s deputies to dissent from the position of the party leadership and support a constitutional law establishing boundaries for fourteen units of regional ˇ SSD government that took office in 1998, administration.53 Under the C ˇ SSD joined with KDU–C ˇ SL and the changes continued. In late 1999 C ˇ M to win passage of a law calling for the establishment of an omKSC budsman. In that same month, the same ad hoc group of parties joined with deputies from US to assemble a three-fifths majority in favor of a constitutional law allowing referendums. At the same time that Parliament was creating new oversight instituˇ SSD–ODS opposition agreement tions, however, the conditions of the C threatened to undercut accountability in other areas. Although ODS ˇ SSD shared few policy goals, they did share a common interest in and C conditions favoring the electoral success of large political parties and in the increase of government power. Draft laws produced by a commisˇ SSD and ODS legislators in 1999 closely reflected the parties’ sion of C common priorities. Drafts included proposals for limiting presidential pardons, qualifying the president’s role in the appointment of the leaders of institutions such as the Czech National Bank and the Constitutional Court, and limiting the president’s discretion in the naming of premiers, along with a large number of other minor changes designed to eliminate ambiguity. Although the strongest limitations on presidential powers did not survive debate on the proposal, many of the restrictive provisions found their way into the final draft passed by the ˇ SSD and ODS. The new law limited the president’s combined efforts of C choice of premier-designate to the head of the largest party, required parliamentary approval for presidential appointments to the Czech National Bank and the National Control Office, and restricted the use of presidential amnesty (CTK 2000b). Even more threatening to institutional accountability were the elecˇ SSD and ODS representatives under the optoral reforms debated by C position agreement. Taking advantage of its indispensability to the ˇ SSD government and appealing to the interests of C ˇ SSD as the other C large party in the Czech system, ODS proposed a majoritarian electoral system that would favor the two largest parties at the expense of all othˇ SSD and ODS expressed ers. Immediately after the 1998 election, both C a willingness to consider a majority electoral system even if it would eliminate other parties from contention.54 Shifts in the balance of political power quickly made the plan both less feasible and less desirable for the largest parties. First, electoral defeats in key Senate campaigns

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ˇ SSD and ODS coalition one seat short of a in the fall of 1998 left the C constitutional majority in the Senate, making it almost impossible for the two parties to change constitutional language requiring a “proportional” electoral system in the lower house. Second, both ODS and ˇ SSD experienced declining electoral preferences, making a majoritarC ˇ SSD modified its poian system less appealing. In light of these shifts, C sition in favor of a less proportional reformulation of the existing proportional system, and ODS eventually moderated its position as well. ˇ SSD and ODS announced a reformulated opposition agreeWhen C ment in early 2000, the text committed the two parties to a July 2000 date for enacting legislation to “simplify the formation of a functioning majority government comprising two political subjects at the most” through a system of thirty-five electoral districts (CTK 2000e). After considerable negotiation and experimentation with a number of electoral formulas, the two parties eventually agreed on and passed a revised electoral law calling for thirty-five electoral districts with between three and five deputies in each district, implementation of a less proportional method for counting votes, imposition of a higher threshold for coalitions of multiple parties, and a variety of other minor changes that could hurt the chances of smaller parties (CTK 2000a). ˇ SSD and ODS, however, institutional Despite the strong efforts of C barriers within the Czech system ultimately blocked the limitations on presidential powers and the new electoral law. The constitutional amendment on presidential powers quickly passed the Czech Chamber of Deputies in early 2000 but languished in the Senate; by the time the ˇ SSD and ODS had lost their Senate came to consider the amendment, C constitutional majority and the amendment failed. Because the electoral ˇ SSD and law did not involve a change in the constitution, the votes of C ODS deputies in that body proved sufficient, but President Havel, on behalf of other opponents of the law, immediately asked the Czech Republic’s Constitutional Court to review whether the law conformed to the constitution’s insistence on proportional representation. In early 2001 the court responded with a verdict that invalidated the law’s major provisions—including the redistricting and the new counting method— on the grounds that these violated basic principles of proporˇ SSD finally tionality (CTK 2001). In the wake of this defeat, ODS and C did manage to gain approval for a revised electoral law in early 2002, but without the more disproportional elements found in the first version. The strength of institutional accountability thus did not change markedly during the 1998 –2002 parliamentary term, though the efˇ SSD and ODS seem designed to produce a significant shift. forts of C

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As might be expected, these two parties rejected charges that their efforts were designed to eliminate oversight and sanction. To the conˇ SSD and ODS officials used implicit or explicit reference trary, both C accountability to justify their positions. They argued that the amendment on presidential powers would prevent the president from acting independently of Parliament and explicitly acknowledged the disadvantages of the electoral law for small parties; they also argued that a system of fewer but larger parties would prevent politicians from hiding behind coalition agreements and force them to be more accountable to voters. Opponents of the changes took issue with the more immediate hazards of allowing one or two parties to use their political position to diminish that of others, albeit through legal means. Opponents also noted that multiparty coalitions functioned as a useful restraint between elections, arguing that single-party governments might take advantage of relatively weak postcommunist institutional structures to ensure their own long-term political dominance (CTK 2000d). Whether the proposed changes in constitutional and electoral law would have had serious long-term consequences for the Czech Republic ˇ SSD and is difficult to assess. In their proposed legislative changes, C ODS offered an implicit choice: an increase in electoral accountability between single-party governments and their voters or the preservation of institutional accountability among coalition partners. Unlike Slovakia’s HZDS, which ultimately sought to protect itself from both sorts of acˇ SSD and ODS seemed willing to accept the full consecountability, C quences of the trade-off and to risk big electoral losses and exclusion from government in a majoritarian (or semimajoritarian) system in return for the opportunity to make correspondingly big electoral gains and take direct control of the legislature and executive. In trying to set the stage for a one-on-one competition without external restraints, the two parties risked unraveling the network of institutional accountability, but they did not pursue the sort of aggressive and well-coordinated effort made by HZDS in Slovakia. The level of threat thus remained relatively low, and other institutions found time to prepare an adequate defense.

Conclusion: Institutional Accountability in Comparative Perspective Despite their different trajectories, Slovakia and the Czech Republic share important common elements. Electoral accountability in both

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countries remained largely intact, and both countries adhered reasonably well to minimalist definitions of democracy, with rights of expression, information, and association; an inclusive citizenship; and elections that were, for the most part, free and fair. Some elements of institutional accountability also remained quite similar. In both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, governing coalitions played a disproportionately large role in parliamentary institutions; blocked efforts to enhance accountability; and interfered with the press, the courts, the security services, and the privatization process. Compared with the constant low-level encroachments by governments in both countries after independence, the third Mecˇiar government (1994 –98) stands out in sharp contrast. Between 1994 and 1998 Slovakia’s ruling coalition boldly attempted to unify legislative, executive, and oversight powers within a single coalition. The breadth and speed of these efforts dwarfed the tentative efforts in the same direction that were made by other governments in both countries. Whereas those other governments sometimes took the largely symbolic step of excluding opposition parties from committee chairs, the third Mecˇiar government excluded the opposition members from all parliamentary leadership and from key committees. Whereas other governments put occasional pressure on certain newspapers and television stations, the third Mecˇiar government incorporated public broadcasting into its own organizational structure and used it for political ends. Whereas the other governments accepted bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for political influence in privatization projects, the third Mecˇiar government directly managed the privatization process and privatized property worth hundreds of millions of dollars directly to coalition party members and supporters. Whereas other governments may have used intelligence service agents to shadow political opponents, the third Mecˇiar government used the intelligence service to engage in political sabotage and the physical intimidation of its political rivals. Finally, whereas other governments faced sanction for their relatively moderate violations, the third Mecˇiar government was able in many cases to eliminate sanctioning bodies or pressure them into silence. Although the violations committed by Mecˇiar’s government were more severe than those of other Slovak or Czech governments, they were also more likely to go unpunished. The third Mecˇiar government managed not only to avoid oversight and sanction but to strip rival institutions of their capability for oversight and sanction, either through co-option or coercion. Accountability

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ultimately caught up with Mecˇiar, but he came within a few small steps of a more lasting victory. Had Mecˇiar succeeded in gaining the seven votes needed for constitutional majority, he could have dismissed the president and changed the constitution to restrict the activity of opposition parties and/or the Constitutional Court. Had Mecˇiar succeeded in controlling the Constitutional Court— or remained in office for fourteen more months until the terms of several justices expired— he could have acted more or less with impunity. Slovakia might then have found itself in a position analogous to that in Serbia in 2000, with a dissatisfied population that could change government only through countrywide demonstrations that enlisted the tacit support of the police or the military. Protests and institutional defections probably would have resulted in the eventual removal of Mecˇiar, but by that time Slovakia’s reputation could have been so damaged and its political and economic development so long delayed as to ensure damaging delays in the country’s international integration. Slovakia’s relatively soft landing— culminating in invitations for NATO and EU membership in 2002 —was by no means inevitable, and the narrowness of Slovakia’s escape calls attention both to the importance of institutional accountability and to its fragility in new democracies. Slovakia’s near disaster also calls attention to the process by which such dangers emerge in the first place and to the need for precautions. The systematic encroachments of the third Mecˇiar government, beginning with personnel changes and ending with ballot fraud and incapacitated prosecutors, demonstrate a process by which governments may gradually loosen their institutional restraints. The process of encroachment employed by the third Mecˇiar government followed an orderly sequence. The government began by undermining the independence of easy-to-control institutions and then used its enhanced authority to gain leverage over more difficult targets. Most governments seek to shift the institutional balance of power in their favor, but it is this second step—using the new balance of power to shift the balance even further—that sets the third Mecˇiar government apart from other Slovak and Czech governments of the period. Oppositions in other countries have much to learn from the diverging Slovak and Czech paths during the mid-1990s. The more that opposition forces are aware of this progression, the more they may be able to block a government’s initial efforts at control. Failing that, oppositions may be able to negotiate with governments at an early stage in the encroachment process, offering greater leeway in some policy areas in exchange for a

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strengthening of oversight, sanction, and independence in other areas. Opposition forces may also seek to mobilize public outcry at earlier stages rather than wait for the more obvious outrages that happen only once the mechanisms of control have already been lost. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, a growing understanding of the process of progressive encroachment began to produce results in the late 1990s. Warnings by Slovakia’s opposition politicians and journalists to expect a “pre-election surprise” (Lesˇko 1998) may have helped deter some efforts at electoral manipulation, and the efforts by some journalists and academics in the Czech Republic to publicize the negative consequences of the new electoral law resulted directly from their efforts to avoid “the Slovak path” (Klima 2000). Of course, the question of how institutional accountability came under threat in Slovakia is only one part of a larger inquiry that seeks to understand the underlying reasons for the change. The next chapter begins the process of trying to understand why by looking for differences in the institutional frameworks of the two countries.

chapter

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3

differences in slovak and czech levels of accountability depended both on institutional strength and institutional weakness. For those who study new and fragile democracies, institutional weakness attracts obvious attention: constitutions lead to stalemate; courts succumb to political pressure; fragmented party systems collapse in chaos. Institutional weakness certainly did affect the political development of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but only in a few important realms. Otherwise, the institutional landscapes of the two countries remained quite similar. Indeed, standard institutional accounts offer little basis for understanding the differences in the two countries’ political outcomes. Explanations based on institutional design contribute little because of overwhelming similarities in the constitutions and formal institutional architecture of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Other commonly cited institutional explanations offer equally little insight. Presidents, courts, the military, economic actors, and international organizations simply did not differ in relevant ways in the two countries. Even standard party-related variables such as party system fragmentation and volatility exhibited little clear difference. The answer lies in a combination of other, less frequently studied aspects of parties and party systems. Violations of institutional accountability were more severe in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic not because Slovakia’s institutions were somehow weaker than their Czech counterparts but because a coalition of political parties in Slovakia waged a stronger, more sustained, and more coherent attack on its rivals.

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In particular, Slovakia’s HZDS achieved a potent combination of disproportionate size, effective organization, and tight centralization employed in the service of leader who bore a clear distaste for institutional accountability. It is this combination, more than any single characteristic, that explains the different trajectories of the two countries.

Different Strengths: Leadership and Party Organization The outsized role of Vladimír Mecˇiar and his HZDS in the accountability violations of the previous chapter makes it difficult to start an explanation anywhere but at the top, with political parties and their leaders. The story, however, is more complicated than it seems at first glance, and a closer look shows relatively small differences in the quality of leadership, the balance of party strength, and the internal working of party institutions. When combined, however, these differences endowed HZDS with unparalleled political strength at the moment when its leader was most likely to use it for the sake of encroachment.

Leadership and the Impulse to Encroach At first glance, differences in Slovak and Czech political leadership appear so extreme as to make further investigation unnecessary. Slovakia’s Vladimír Mecˇiar seemed to inhabit an entirely different cultural universe than any other leader of Slovakia or the Czech Republic, but there is more to the story. The underlying similarities between Slovak and Czech premiers during the 1990s offer evidence that Slovakia’s descent toward authoritarianism depended on more than just the predilections of a particular leader. Mecˇiar’s biography and style set him apart from the other successful political leaders in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The son of a tailor, Mecˇiar grew up in rural Slovakia, studied for a time in Moscow, and boasted of youthful prowess as a boxer. His counterpart in the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus, grew up in Prague as the son of a government official. Klaus studied briefly in the West, played basketball and tennis, and expressed admiration for Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher. Whereas Mecˇiar was stocky and direct with an unpretentious manner and a large repertoire of stories and jokes, Klaus was slim, serious, and often condescending. Whereas Mecˇiar gained a reputation in the foreign press as “egocentric and power-hungry” (Kohler 1995, 16) and as a “Slovak bully” (Economist 1999, 48), Klaus became the champion of

78 Accountability and Institutions “capitalism with a human face” (Bridge 1996, 10) and a sought-after spokesman for reform in Central and Eastern Europe (Klaus 1994). Despite these differences, important similarities between the two figures gradually became apparent. Newspapers and magazines had begun to label Klaus as “arrogant” as early as 1990, and the label stuck. Klaus, for his part, did little to change public perceptions. In the second half of the 1990s, some of Klaus’s political opponents began to cite his arrogance as a threat to Czech democracy. Jirˇi Pehe, an adviser to Czech president Václav Havel, openly compared Klaus to Mecˇiar in a May 1997 commentary: “Both [Klaus and Mecˇiar] consider themselves democrats, but they do not hesitate to circumvent or ignore various democratic rules when it suits them. This utilitarian approach to democracy is in both of them combined with the fact that both are very selfcentered, almost narcissistic. Both assume that they are right almost all the time. Neither one manages to actually listen. Klaus teaches, Mecˇiar preaches” (Pehe 1997, 4). Such comparisons became more common as Klaus’s dismissive attitude toward opponents began to shape intraparty and interparty conflict. Strong personal parallels between the two leaders became clear in 1997 when scandals pushed Klaus’s party out of government and Klaus responded with tactics reminiscent of Mecˇiar’s in similar circumstances in 1994. Both leaders referred to their dismissal as a “putsch,” and both tacitly encouraged mass demonstrations that resulted in physical injury to individuals whom the crowds perceived as hostile to the former premier. Both leaders dwelled on what they perceived as betrayal, and Klaus moved toward Mecˇiar-like rhetorical excess by consistently referring to his removal as the “Sarajevo assassination” (a reference to efforts to oust him that began while he was in Bosnia attending an international conference). During this period nearly every major daily newspaper in the Czech Republic published one or more editorials comparing the two leaders, and many Slovak papers did likewise. An editorial in Slovakia’s Pravda entitled “As Is Mecˇiar, So Is Klaus” likened the two leaders on the basis of “unlimited love for power” and “unsparing arrogance toward critics and journalists” and differentiated the two on little more than Mecˇiar’s better sense of humor and Klaus’s higher level of culture (Silacky 1997a, 4).1 A similar commentary in the Czech Republic’s Lidové noviny emphasized that the two leaders held similar attitudes toward politics and differed only in terms of the issues that they invoked.2 Lidové noviny (1997,

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4) also conducted a survey of interviews with Slovak and Czech psychologists, who agreed that the two politicians shared tendencies toward “narcissism” and an “attraction to power” that were unusually high “even for a politician,” though Mecˇiar displayed more acute symptoms.3 Whether because of these impulses or for other reasons, Klaus and Mecˇiar also reached similar positions regarding the structure of political institutions. Both explicitly rejected the need for “intermediating” structures (Economist 1994a, 42) and advocated the creation of a majoritarian electoral system and two-party competition (Wolf 1994; CTK 2000c) that would create a single, unambiguous center of power unencumbered by partners and institutional rivals. It is important to acknowledge that Klaus’s aversion to institutional accountability took longer to develop than Mecˇiar’s and appeared to rest more solidly on principle. Unlike Mecˇiar, who rejected institutional accountability for himself but attempted to impose it on others (Zelenayová 1994b), Klaus insisted on change toward a majoritarian system even when such changes risked losses for his own party.4 However, whether because of principle or expedience, both leaders supported highly centralized political frameworks, and both expressed an exceptional personal distaste for accountability. These similarities undercut quick and easy explanations of Slovak and Czech difference as the result of “good” leaders versus “bad.” The two leaders were complicated men who shared some of the same inclinations and preferences. Their personal differences alone did not send Slovakia and the Czech Republic along divergent paths; in fact, the different paths emerged despite many strong personal similarities. One difference lay in the ability of the leaders to indulge their centralizing impulses.

Intraparty Politics and the Means to Encroach In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, discussions of political leadership have little meaning outside the broader context of party politics. In this sense, at least, Elster, Offe, and Preuss (1998) are right to reject Mecˇiar as “the explanation” for Slovakia’s difficult democratization, but they are too hasty in therefore dismissing him as mere “explanandum” (290 –91). Mecˇiar is notable not only because of his political goals but because institutional developments—particularly the internal structure of political parties—gave him an unusual degree of control over the political course of his country.

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Scholarly literature offers some guidance on where to begin studying the relationship between party institutions and democratic development in postcommunist countries, but many questions still need answers. In their discussion of party system institutionalization, Mainwaring and Scully (1995) contend that “party organizations matter” (5). Their analysis of institutionalized party systems emphasizes both the “organizational presence” of parties at local levels (16) and the “independent status and value” of these organizational structures within the party as a whole (5). Mainwaring and Scully argue that together these two aspects provide a stabilizing influence on the political system as a whole, creating a local-level foundation for parties and holding the party leaders directly accountable to their supporters between elections. Most parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic established organizations that fell short of these standards both in the degree of organization and the relevance of organizational structures. Yet this does not contribute directly to an explanation of Slovakia’s accountability problems because centralization and weak organization affected parties in both countries. Indeed, the source of most accountability violations in Slovakia was the party that proved best at establishing a strong organizational structure. Only Mecˇiar’s HZDS combined strong party organization with almost total centralization, producing a powerful party machine directed entirely from above. That organizational difference set HZDS apart from other parties and thereby set Slovakia apart from the Czech Republic. This form of partial institutionalization—strong organization without a distribution of decision making—actually appears to have increased the risk to Slovakia’s democratic system. Party Organization. On average, party organization in Slovakia differed little from that in the Czech Republic, but the similarity is difficult to demonstrate. Fortunately, work by Janda offers a convenient starting point for the measurement of party organization. Although Janda’s (1980) formal scheme for quantification does not correspond easily to the specific contours of the Slovak and Czech party systems, his work provides useful categories and rules of thumb for assessing the degree of party organization in terms of the number, density, and activity of party institutions at local, regional, and central levels. Application of these criteria to Slovak and Czech parties as they existed in the mid-1990s shows a similar overall spread of characteristics but a much more skewed pattern of distribution in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic.5

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• Structural articulation: Structural articulation requires a well-defined set of party organs, fixed membership of those organs, and clear selection procedures. The statutes of all major parties in both countries create such frameworks, and a wide range of interviews with party officials at the national and local levels indicate that although these blueprints never quite matched the reality, most parties functioned more or less as their statues directed. Each country had a notable exception, however. Statutes meant little to Slovakia’s ZRS or for the Czech SPR–RSCˇ , and these parties’ institutions—where they existed at all—possessed a remarkably fluid character. • Intensiveness of organization: Intensiveness of organization depends on the size and spread of the party’s smallest unit of party organization. The statutes of nearly all parties in both countries dictate organizational units at the municipal level, and all major parties could point to specific municipal bodies as evidence of their activity at that level. This overall similarity concealed considerable differences, however, in the number and activity of units at this smallest level. In Slovakia the spectrum ranged from HZDS, which claimed 2,000 local party organizations, an average of 25 organizations per district; to SNS, with only 350 local party organizations, or just over 4 per district; and ZRS, which by 1996 could not even maintain its statutory minimum of 5 local party organizations per district in many regions (Krause and Malová 1996).6 A similar range of organizational intensity existed in the Czech Republic, from KSCˇ M’s 7,000 municipal organizations to ODA’s 190 municipal organizations concentrated in large urban areas.7 • Territorial extensiveness of organization: Although all major parties in both countries exhibited minor disproportionality in favor of certain regions and municipality types, only the Hungarian parties in Slovakia lacked geographically comprehensive organizations. In the Czech Republic several parties possessed considerably stronger party organization in some regions than in the country as a whole— ODA in larger cities, KDU–Cˇ SL in southern Moravia, and SPR–RSCˇ in northwestern Bohemia—yet even these parties maintained some form of party organization in nearly every district of the country. • Frequency of meetings: In light of the sheer number of local party organizations, it is extremely difficult to determine the actual frequency of their meetings with any certainty. It is possible, however, to review parties’ stated expectations for meetings of local organizations. The spectrum of Slovak and Czech party requirements did not differ significantly, with most parties calling for local meetings on a quarterly basis except for ZRS in Slovakia, and ODA and SPR–RSCˇ in the Czech Republic.8 National meetings are easier to track than local meetings, but because of differences in how parties structure and

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identify their top-level organizations, they are difficult to compare from one party to the next. In general terms, almost every party in both countries scheduled a national assembly or convention every one or two years. These assemblies elected executive committees with ten to fifty members and either directly or indirectly elected an even more select group to monitor the daily operation of the party. Only ˇ refused to specify the frequency of national the Czech SPR–RSC meetings, preferring instead to call them “as necessary” (Vik 1996). • Permanent party apparatus: One of Janda’s measures for the strength of party organization depends on the effectiveness of party record keeping, but this particular measure proves difficult to study comprehensively in Slovakia and the Czech Republic because some parties sought to conceal the degree to which they maintain certain kinds of records. The extent of party research divisions and the size and activity of party offices offer useful alternative measures. Nearly all parties in the two countries employed permanent staff devoted to research and preparation of party public relations material and maintained a permanent party headquarters. The parties differed, however, in the extent of these efforts. In Slovakia the degree of recording activity ranged widely. HZDS maintained an active research organization within the party headquarters; a party-related staff within the premier’s office dealing with analysis of public opinion; and an eight-page weekly party newspaper with mass circulation (as an insert in a major daily newspaper). By contrast, SNS, ZRS, and the Hungarian Coalition (MK) parties employed staff members to prepare party propaganda and perform ad hoc research but did not possess a specialized research department or party press. These differences are also reflected in the size and organization of party headquarters and in the extent of party employment. On these criteria, HZDS dwarfed other parties. With its own freestanding building in a residential district of Bratislava and a fifty-person main-office staff, HZDS boasted double or triple the space and personnel of its nearest rivals. By 1996 the party had also become capable of maintaining extensive and well-appointed party offices in or near government district office buildings throughout the country, and the party claimed to have at least two full-time employees in each of the seventy-nine new administrative districts created in 1996 (establishing district offices even before the new districts were formally constituted). Although SDL’ and KDH also maintained significant central offices, these were much smaller than those of HZDS, with fewer staff members.9 Other parties maintained smaller, ten- to fifteen-room offices in Bratislava and sporadically staffed offices in larger outlying cities. ZRS possessed no formal office in Bratislava and maintained only a small, four-room headquarters in central Slovakia.

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No single party in the Czech Republic maintained an organization as extensive as that of Slovakia’s HZDS, but all Czech parties, with one or two exceptions, maintained reasonably strong administrative ˇ , for example, claimed to capacities. All parties except SPR–RSC employ paid research staff. Party publications ranged from a commercial daily newspaper (the Communist Party’s Halo) and a small commercial weekly (the Republican Party’s Republika) to monthly or quarterly newsletters produced exclusively for party members. As in Slovakia, the activities of Czech parties reflected the size of the staff and the available space, but variations in party space were smaller in ˇ SSD, KSC ˇ M, the Czech Republic. Four major Czech parties— ODS, C ˇ and KDU–CSL— each maintained sizable central offices in downtown Prague with upward of twenty rooms and twenty-five to forty central office employees. ODA maintained an office in downtown Prague as well but rather smaller: about ten rooms and twenty fullˇ, time employees. The major exception to this pattern was SPR–RSC which conducted its operations from a crowded three-room central office in the basement of an apartment block in a Prague suburb.10 • Sectoral pervasiveness of organization: In his discussion of the pervasiveness of party organization, Janda (1980) looks at “the number of major sectors of the society represented in organizations ancillary to the party and by the proportion of individuals in each sector involved in the organizations” (105) and at the degree to which the party controls such organizations. In these terms, neither Slovakia nor the Czech Republic approaches the degree of “party encapsulization” found in certain Western European and Latin American party systems, but parties in both countries did maintain a similarly limited number of affiliated organizations for youth and, occasionally, for women and for pensioners.11

Making an overall judgment about party organization is not as simple as aggregating the results on these standards, but it is useful to look at each in comparative perspective. Table 3.1 compares the parties in these countries against the norm on each of the six characteristics. It is important to note that “normal” for these two countries constituted a stable administrative presence in the capital city and modest organizational presence in those regions and among those voters from which the party might gain support. Although relatively young and inexperienced, the major parties in both of these countries bore considerably more resemblance to their counterparts in the advanced industrial democracies (which were themselves changing in the direction of less formal organization) than to more ad hoc parties common to Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union.

All others ODA SPR–RSCˇ

s o u r c e : Krause and Malová (1996)

All others SPR–RSCˇ

At or near the norm Below the norm

HZDS MK All others ZRS All others MK ZRS

slovakia

Territorial extensiveness of organization

All others

czech republic

Intensiveness of organization

KSCˇM KDU–CˇSL

All others ZRS

Structural articulation

Above the norm

At or near the norm Below the norm

Above the norm

Degree of centralization

ta b l e 3 . 1 Organizational characteristics of parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1996

All ODA SPR–RSCˇ

All others ZRS

Frequency of meetings

All others ODA SPR–RSCˇ

All others ZRS

HZDS

Party apparatus

KSCˇM KDU–CˇSL CˇSSD All others ODA SPR–RSCˇ

All others ZRS

HZDS

Sectoral pervasiveness of organization

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Within this range, the parties of the two countries show distinct patterns. Five of Slovakia’s seven major parties form a tight cluster near the mean, with levels of organization that were sufficient to give the party a modest presence in those regions where they could reasonably expect to gain voters. Consistently below this level stood ZRS, which from its beginnings lacked many of the rudiments of an effective party and deteriorated even further over time. Alone above the mean stood HZDS, which owed some of its electoral success to early organizational efforts and subsequently translated its success in electoral competitions into resources for further organization. Through this process, HZDS developed an organizational structure whose extent and effectiveness were unrivaled by any other party in either country. In the Czech Republic, by contrast, no single party stood out dramatically above the rest. The four parties with the strongest electoral results during the period clustered together in a narrow range slightly above that of Slovakia’s central cluster. Trailing these by a significant margin in organizational terms ˇ. were ODA and SPR–RSC Party Centralization. The impact of party organization depends in large part on other party characteristics, particularly the ways in which parties make decisions. As with organization, the assessment of party decision making is an extremely difficult task, and it is useful to break the question into the more manageable subcategories akin to those used by Janda (1980) to determine centralization of power within parties. Although these may not be the only important indicators, they offer an appropriate starting point. Application of these criteria to Slovak and Czech parties as they existed in 1996 demonstrates a great deal of overall similarity but a few key differences. • Nationalization of structure: Essential to a centralized party is the integration of regional and local units into a single national organization with a hierarchical structure. Janda’s criterion asks about the existence of regional and national bodies and the degree to which other bodies—including parliamentary party groups—remain subordinate to the national level of party organization. All major parties in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic possessed a national-level organization, and in nearly all cases the decisions made at this national level are ultimately binding on party structures at lower levels. In both countries this principle is firmly established to such an extent that it is difficult even to find examples of contrary behavior that might allow parties to be distinguished from one another.12 In this ˇ stands environment of centralized parties, only the Czech SPR–RSC

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out: by dispensing entirely with regional organizations, the central office achieved complete control over party operation.13 • Selection of leaders: Formal procedures for selection of party leaders were nearly identical in every party in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. With only minor exceptions, parties in both countries elected their leaders by votes of national party congresses whose delegates had, in turn, been elected by regional party organizations.14 In selection of parliamentary candidates, however, the parties of the two countries differed more than on any other aspect of party centralization or organization. In Slovakia the central organizations of most parties accepted input from local and regional party organizations in the nomination of candidates, but ultimately maintained firm control over the selection and ordering of the party’s electoral lists.15 In all other cases, central party organizations retained the ultimate control over the composition of the electoral lists. As a result, Slovakia in the years between 1992 and 1998 offers no examples of party leaders who faced exclusion from electoral lists or demotion of their positions on those lists simply because of the opposition of local or regional party organizations.16 The same cannot be said for parties in the Czech Republic. In the elections of 1992, regional party organizations played an extremely small role and decision making remained “markedly centralized” and “reserved to the most select party leadership” (Sˇimícˇek 1995). But by 1996 conditions had changed. In late 1995 the small party ODA introduced the notion of regional caucuses (primárky) of party members for the purpose of choosing the party’s candidate lists for the upcoming elections, and the other major parties soon followed.17 In each case the party’s national organization reserved the right to adjust the definitive electoral list, but they ultimately proved reluctant to interfere, even when prominent party leaders were excluded from party electoral ˇ SL and SPR–RSC ˇ managed to avoid the tenlists.18 Only KDU–C dency toward member caucuses.19 • Allocating funds: The nature of political party funding in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic encouraged extreme centralization of funding within all parties in both countries. Electoral law in both countries provided for generous state subventions to those parties that exceeded a certain vote threshold. Financial statements of parties in both countries indicate that these subventions made up the largest single share of parties’ revenues. Because subventions and large donations flowed directly to parties’ central offices, those bodies gained control over most financial resources. By contrast, revenue gathered at local levels in the form of small donations and party dues represented only a small share of party income and did not allow regional or local party organizations to enjoy financial autonomy.

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• Formulating policy: As with funding, policy in both Slovak and Czech parties originated at the national level. Parties differed significantly, however, according to which national-level organizations held final say over policy-related decisions. In certain parties, the parliamentary party group and party experts played a more significant role relative to that of party leaders. A number of surveys of party deputies in Parliament offer insight into the process of policy formulation in particular parties. Responses to the question “Who has the most say in party policy?” in the University of Leiden survey of both Slovak and Czech parliaments indicate that nearly all deputies attributed the primary influence to their parties’ national executive (University of Leiden 1994). A more specific question used in the author’s 1996 survey (Krause 1996b) found that Czech deputies viewed party executive committees as the most important factor in policy decisions, followed at some distance by party leader and the parliamentary party group, with party experts falling a far-distant fourth.20 In Slovakia, as in the Czech Republic, policy decisions likewise remained limited to elite groups within the party executive and Parliament (Malová and Krause 1999). Patterns of policy making ranged only from collective decision making of elites within SDL’, whose parliamentary deputies were least likely to attribute influence to the national executive in the 1994 Leiden survey, to idiosyncratic policy decisions made by party chairs in parties such as ZRS and HZDS.21 Because these parties maintained tight secrecy about their internal processes, it is difficult to assess how much control the party leader maintained over the actual formulation of party policy, but evidence of such control can be found in instances of radical shifts in party policy.22 The temporary absence of a party leader can also offer insight into how parties formulate policy. In late spring of 1996, for example, Mecˇiar’s incapacitation by illness was accompanied by a series of otherwise uncharacteristic intraparty conflicts regarding privatization and other issues. Even Haughton (2002, 1334), who rejects claims of Mecˇiar’s “omnipotence,” nevertheless concedes that he “enjoyed exalted status within his party, far greater than that enjoyed by the leaders of other Slovak political parties” (1323). Although not all party policy reflected Mecˇiar’s own initiative (1334), Mecˇiar acted as the ultimate arbiter of conflicting interests within the party. In this regard he exceeded the degree of personal control maintained by Lux and Klaus in the Czech Republic and was, perhaps, matched only by ˇ. Sládek of SPR–RSC • Controlling communications: Janda (1980) evaluates party centralization in part based on the degree to which the central party controls communications media and does so at the expense of subordinatelevel party organizations. The few parties in the two countries with ˇ M and daily or weekly newspapers—HZDS in Slovakia and KSC

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ˇ in the Czech Republic—were uniform in their use of pubSPR–RSC lishing efforts to shape a single party line from the center. • Administering discipline: Formal disciplinary actions by parties against party officials occurred infrequently in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but certain parties availed themselves of disciplinary techniques—both formal and informal—more frequently than others. The differences appear in particularly sharp relief on the question of voting discipline within party parliamentary groups. The statutes of almost every major party in both countries contain provisions for expulsion of members. When surveyed about disciplinary tools, however, representatives of nearly every party responded that their party did not make active use of expulsion or any other method. In the absence of open public records, such statements cannot be confirmed except at the highest levels of the party, where expulsions and other sanctions are highly visible. Most parties show no evidence of tight, externally imposed discipline (though participants in bitter party disputes frequently did leave parties of their own accord after their defeat to join or establish a rival party).23 Formal disciplinary measures were likewise rare within parliamentary party groups in both countries, in large part because both countries’ constitutions forbid efforts to restrict deputy votes. The constitution of Slovakia states that parliamentary deputies “shall be elected to exercise their mandates individually and according to their best conscience and conviction. They are bound by no directives” (Article 73). The Czech constitution states that deputies “shall exercise their mandate personally in accordance with their vow, without being bound, in doing so, by any directives” (Article 26). In principle, these restrictions prevented even voluntary agreements about deputies’ behavior (Dulin 1997b). When early nonbinding agreements proved ineffective, most parties abandoned such efforts, with the notable exception of Slovakia’s HZDS. Reacting to significant defections in early 1994, the party gathered would-be nominees to the party’s electoral slate for the 1994 parliamentary election and asked each potential candidate to sign notarized agreements of loyalty. For many, at least, these agreements included signed but undated letters of resignation from Parliament and a promise to pay a fine representing more than twenty times a deputy’s yearly salary. Although even a cursory reading of the constitution would exclude such a strategy, HZDS nevertheless employed it to expel parliamentary deputy Frantisˇek Gaulieder from Parliament shortly after he resigned from HZDS, and although Slovakia’s Constitutional Court upheld Gaulieder’s subsequent claim, HZDS prevented his reinstatement simply by ignoring the verdict and maintaining de facto mechanisms of discipline even without their de jure validity (Haughton 2001). In doing so, HZDS leadership imposed a degree of party discipline

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unrivaled by any other party in either country.24 The Gaulieder decision calls attention to the close interrelationship between decision making and encroachments that is discussed later. With the exception of HZDS and its allies, however, parties in both countries relied on less coercive mechanisms such as exhortation and negotiation. • Leadership concentration: The major parties of these two countries tended without exception toward centralization of leadership, and it was the national level of party organization in each party that controlled the party’s position and direction. But there were significant differences in the locus of control within the national level of organization. As the previous sections suggest, certain parties operated under the control of a leadership group and depended on deliberations within that group. In other parties, one individual exerted a predominant influence and determined the course of the party. In most parties in Slovakia, party leadership remained concentrated among a group of party elites who held positions in both Parliament and the party apparatus. Conflict within these groups varied from party to party. Although such conflicts most often took place behind closed doors, they did occasionally spill out into the public realm in the form of particularly bitter disputes and leadership struggles. Three parties exhibited evidence of ongoing struggles without a clear winner: SDL’, DU, and KDH.25 The formal and informal challenges for control in these parties provided for at least a modicum of internal competition and debate, whereas in MK and SNS, top party leaders achieved significant power but faced important moderating influences from other party officials or coalition partners.26 In only two parties in Slovakia did a single, clear winner emerge early in party competition and maintain that position over time: Ján L’upták, founder of ZRS, and Vladimír Mecˇiar, leading force in HZDS from its inception.27 The departure of potential rivals within HZDS in the leadership struggles of 1993 and 1994 solidified Mecˇiar’s dominance, reinforcing the futility of challenges to Mecˇiar and clearing space for the appointment of new party officials who owed their positions entirely to his support. Mecˇiar faced no formal opposition for the chairmanship during any party congress.28 Evidence from voting patterns and survey results confirms the uniquely strong positions of Mecˇiar and L’upták within their respective parties. Slovakia’s system of proportional representation based on party lists allows voters to express preference for particular candidates. The number of preference votes received by Mecˇiar and L’upták surpassed that of the nearest competitors within the party by margins that were above average for party chairs in Slovakia. Mecˇiar and L’upták were also the only chairs of major parties to achieve that result in more than one election.29 Mecˇiar, in fact, did so in four straight

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parliamentary elections between 1992 and 2002. Surveys of popular preferences regarding the popularity of politicians among party supporters show extremely similar results.30 The spectrum of leadership centralization in the Czech party system closely resembled that in Slovakia. Party leadership in all Czech parties remained concentrated among a narrow group of individuals in Parliament and the parties’ executive committees. As in Slovakia, the number of leadership alternatives ranged from few to none. In ˇ M, and KDU–CˇSL, individual party leaders remained in ODA, KSC power for long periods, but because of internal opposition or other limitations, power remained dispersed among a number of party ˇ SSD and ODS, a leaders.31 In the country’s two largest parties, C single leader came to personify the party but remained responsive to other party officials.32 ˇ SSD moved toward a broader distribution of power Whereas C with the resignation of party leader Milosˇ Zeman, ODS moved in the opposite direction. As early as 1995 the personal control held by ODS chair Václav Klaus sparked charges that it had become “a party of just one man” (Kopecky´ 1995, 528). Yet as Kopecky´ notes, the party was at the same time making a “gradual move towards a complex, routinized and institutionalized electoral organization” (528), and during most of the mid-1990s Klaus faced internal opposition from other members of the party leadership, some of whom came into the party with independent bases of support, and others of whom had emerged as political figures in their own right. The party’s 1997 leadership struggle in surrounding corruption allegations brought the conflict into the open. Klaus prevailed in the party congress but at the cost of significant defections to a splinter party, the US, which took with it six of the party’s eight top candidates in the previous parliamentary election. With the departure of these party leaders, however, Klaus regained and actually deepened his personal dominance within ODS, much as Mecˇiar had done after his own party conflicts in 1993 and 1994. By 1999 the notion of a “oneman party” actually described ODS better than it had during the mid-1990s. Yet in this regard, Klaus fell far short of the mark set by ˇ chair Miroslav Sládek. The Republican Party remained SPR–RSC closely tied to Sládek’s name and face and possessed few resources for prolonged survival without his constant presence. Sládek’s role ˇ in many ways paralleled that of Mecˇiar within within SPR–RSC HZDS, but the small size and fundamental disorganization of Sládek’s party prevented it from playing the same role in Czech political life.33

Table 3.2 presents the relative positions of Slovak and Czech parties according to all seven of these characteristics. On an abstract range from

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extremely decentralized to extremely centralized, all parties in both systems fall toward the centralized pole. Within the set of relatively centralized parties, however, some parties stand out from others. Five of Slovakia’s seven major parties cluster near the center of the range. Within this cluster SNS and the parties of the MK showed evidence of slightly more centralization than KDH or DU, and considerably more than SDL’. Only ZRS and HZDS stood apart from this cluster, both exhibiting stronger centralization than the rest. In the Czech Republic, the four largest parties form an almost identical cluster with KDU–Cˇ SL and ODS exhibiting slightly more centralization (ODS moved further in this direction after 1997) and Cˇ SSD and KSCˇ M exhibiting slightly less. Slightly below this cluster stands the even more decentralized ODA. Well above the cluster stands SPR–RSCˇ , which opted for centralization at nearly every opportunity.

Centralized Organization and Accountability During the 1990s the political parties of Slovakia and the Czech Republic showed only moderate success in developing a broad organizational presence that also played a role in party decision making. Parties tended to opt instead for being relatively centralized with a relatively limited role for organization. A comparison of Slovak and Czech parties suggests that although this may not approximate the ideal, there are even less auspicious combinations, particularly that of Slovakia’s HZDS, that built an extremely powerful organization but remained heavily dependent on the decisions of the party leader. Figure 3.1 offers a graphic representation of the overall centralization and organization levels for all major parties in both systems derived from the number of times a party appeared “above” or “below” the norm in Tables 3.1 and 3.2. On this rather imprecise scale centralization and organization show a small negative correlation. Two of the three most highly centralized parties—Slovakia’s ZRS and the Czech SPR– ˇ — exhibited extremely low levels of organization and the marginal RSC role of party structures in a tightly controlled decision-making process that depended largely on the whims of party leaders. In this light Mecˇiar’s accomplishment is remarkable. He built a powerful and sophisticated party apparatus while making sure that it remained responsive to his personal command. None of the other major “one-man” parties in Slovakia or the Czech Republic devoted as much attention to squaring this circle, and none survived the 1990s with any political

All

SPR–RSCˇ All others

SPR–RSCˇ

All others

Selection of national leader

All

s o u r c e : Krause and Malová (1996)

Above the norm At or near the norm Below the norm

Above the norm At or near the norm Below the norm

Degree of Nationalicentralization zation of structure

CˇSSD ODA ODS

All

slovakia

DU SDL

HZDS ZRS All others

Alloca- Formulating ting policy funds

All

CˇSSD KSCˇM ODA

All others

SPR–RSCˇ

czech republic

All others

All

Selection of parliamentary candidates

ta b l e 3 . 2 Centralization characteristics of parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1996

KDU–CˇSL ODA

SPR–RSCˇ KSCˇM All others

HZDS ZRS All others

Controlling communications

KDU–CˇSL KSCˇM ODA

All others

SPR–RSCˇ

KDH SDL

All others

HZDS

KSCˇM ODA

All others

SPR–RSCˇ

DU SDL

HZDS ZRS All others

Administering Leadership discipline concentration

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7

SPR– v RSC

Centralization as calculated in Table 3.2 (⫺7 = minimum centralization, 7 = maximum centralization)

6

5

0

4

HZDS

3

2

0

ZRS

1

SNS

0

MK ODS

⫺1

KDH

⫺2

DU

⫺3

SDL'

v

CSSD

KDU– v CSL

v

KSCM -3

⫺4

⫺5

⫺6

⫺7

ODA

••

Czech Republic party Slovakia party Circle size proportional to party share in Parliament

⫺7 ⫺6 ⫺5 ⫺4 ⫺3 ⫺2 ⫺1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Degree of organization, derived from Table 3.1 (⫺7 = minimum organization, 7 = maximum organization)

figure 3.1. Centralization and organization of parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1996.

prospects. By the end of the 1990s the Czech Republic’s Klaus had come closer than any other to replicating Mecˇiar’s success, but he did so on the basis of a party organization whose strength predated efforts at centralization, and he never achieved (or even attempted to achieve) the same degree of both centralization and organization.

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Mecˇiar’s achievement is significant not merely for its uniqueness but also for its impact on Slovakia’s politics. In creating a party that was both organized and centralized, he created a tool for violating horizontal accountability. In 1993 and 1994 his success at excluding his opponents without losing local and regional party structures allowed him to return to the premiership with the support of strong and loyal party institutions. Evidence suggests that in the process of centralization, Mecˇiar managed to exclude precisely those deputies with the strongest preference for various forms of accountability. The 1994 University of Leiden survey obtained responses from a large share of parliamentary deputies and asked a variety of questions that are useful in assessing deputies’ attitudes toward institutional accountability, particularly the question of whether “government should be restricted by law, even if it impedes effectiveness.” Results of the survey show the average HZDS parliamentary deputy to be more likely to reject this statement than those of any other party, nearly twelve percentage points more than the mean for deputies of other parties. Party centralization, furthermore, tended to support those with antiaccountability sentiment. In the absence of subsequent parliamentary surveys, it is actually possible to use Leiden to explore subsequent developments. Though the Leiden survey respondents remained formally anonymous, it is possible derive the actual identity of nearly all respondents and to separate them into categories according to what they did next: some remained with the party and were included on one of the party’s parliamentary lists again in 1994, some remained with the party during 1994 but were not present on the party’s lists in 1994, and some left the party during its 1994 split. To these it is useful to add a fourth group: those who had already left HZDS in 1993 to form the Alliance of Democrats of the Slovak Republic (ADSR), which later joined with the 1994 defectors to become DU. Figure 3.2 shows a clear relationship between deputies’ attitudes toward accountability in early 1994 and their subsequent actions: those HZDS deputies who were more likely to put legal restraint on government powers were subsequently more likely to leave the party or cease active participation in it.34 These results confirm reports of an increasing hostility toward institutional accountability among HZDS parliamentary leaders (Mesezˇnikov 1995b), resulting in a core of party leaders who were uniformly willing to encroach on other institutions. Because of the party’s centralization, Mecˇiar could undertake his accountability violations without significant internal dissent or even further splintering. The speed and efficiency with which all levels of Mecˇiar’s party apparatus acted against internal rebellion—most visibly

Support for firm-hand rule (Share of deputies who reject the statement "Government should be restricted by law, even if it impedes effectiveness")

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0.60 Mean for all HZDS deputies

0.55

0.50 0.50

0.45

Mean for all deputies in Slovakia's parliament

0.40

0.33 0.30

0.20

0.10

0.00 Subsequent relationship to party (number of respondents in parentheses) Strong members Remained in HZDS parliamentary delegation and occupied position on party list in 1994 (26)

Weak members Remained in HZDS parliamentary delegation but did not occupy position on party list in 1994 (5)

Late defectors Left HZDS after survey to join Alliance of Democrats of Slovak Republic/Democratic Union (ADSR/DU) (5)

Early defectors Left HZDS before survey to join Alliance of Democrats of Slovak Republic (ADSR) (6)

figure 3.2. Attitudes of HZDS deputies in Slovakia’s parliament toward firmhand rule, 1994, according to deputy’s subsequent relationship to party. s o u r c e : University of Leiden (1994)

the expulsion of breakaway parliamentary deputy Gaulieder in 1996 — demonstrated the apparent futility of resistance and effectively deterred other budding party rebellions. Of course, the legal and constitutional consequences of Gaulieder’s intimidation and expulsion ultimately weakened the Mecˇiar government by compelling a whole series of

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additional accountability violations, but in the short term, discipline allowed Mecˇiar’s party to retain its dominant position in Slovakia’s political system. The strength of party organization may also have deferred other costs of accountability violations and thereby allowed the violations to continue in the short term. Although opinion surveys offer strong indications that HZDS encroachments hurt the party’s support among some potential voters, the success of HZDS organization—particularly the increases in party membership and the thousands of party members regularly participating in meetings and rallies—made it more difficult for party leaders to see these effects and therefore eliminated incentives to curb their behavior. Mecˇiar’s obvious surprise at his party’s relatively poor electoral performance in the 1998 parliamentary election offers strong evidence that he fully expected to win the election and simply did not realize the weakness of his support beyond the party faithful (Gasˇparovicˇ 2003).35 Changes in combination of organization and centralization thus parallel the overall fortunes of institutional accountability in Slovakia over time and explain why Mecˇiar’s third government differs so significantly from his first two. The extent to which Mecˇiar’s own attitudes changed during that period is not and may never be clear, but changes within the party clearly played a role. Although it was Mecˇiar’s initiative that led to the founding of HZDS, the party at its outset was not his alone to command, and his intraparty rivals included a variety of other potential leaders with strong political skills, distinct bases of popular support, and independent outlooks. Only after expelling or silencing these figures could Mecˇiar pursue the elimination of external constraints on his power without disturbance. The combination of party centralization and organization also conveniently differentiates Slovakia from the Czech Republic. Organized centralization—and the attendant danger to institutional accountability— emerged only weakly in the Czech Republic. Not until the split of Klaus’s ODS in 1997 did problems emerge, and even these only faintly echoed the restructuring that put Mecˇiar in full control of HZDS after 1993. Free of intraparty rivals, Klaus found it easier to control party policy, negotiating the unexpected “opposition agreement” with the rival ˇ SSD that promised changes in electoral law and other limits on the C power of rival institutions. By that point, however, Klaus depended too heavily on cooperation from other strong political movements to be able to reshape institutions to his own liking. In both countries tight control

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over a sizable party apparatus allowed party leaders to use intraparty conflict in the service of eliminating institutional accountability, but success depended also on the relationships among parties, which also differed in the two countries.

Different Weaknesses: Oppositions and Coalition Partners Much of the difference between Slovak and Czech outcomes during the 1990s resulted from differences in the overall party systems. As with questions of party organization and centralization, however, the differences between the two countries did not appear on standard measures, and frequently cited hypotheses about the relationship between party systems and democratic consolidation had only indirect relevance. Slovakia’s HZDS faced weaker barriers to encroachment than did its Czech counterparts, but not because Slovakia’s party system suffered from higher volatility or fragmentation. Rather, Slovakia’s accountability violations depended on a particular pattern of imbalance within Parliament and government. In the Czech Republic, by contrast, coalition partners and opposition parties continued to impose constraints on large parties. A number of authors, most prominently Mair (1993) and Mainwaring and Scully (1995), emphasize the importance of stability of party competition in establishing the conditions for successful democratic consolidation. Mainwaring and Scully in particular argue that regular patterns of party competition ease the process of democratization. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, however, volatility shows little if any connection to political outcomes. Party competition takes a number of forms, and a variety of measures help explain the extent of party system change over time. Figure 3.3 shows calculations of volatility in Slovakia and the Czech Republic according to Pedersen’s formula for volatility, which measures the percentage change in party representation from one party to the next (Czech Statistical Office 2002; National Council of the Slovak Republic 2002; Parliament of the Czech Republic Chamber of Deputies 2002; Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic 2002).36 As the figure shows, the volatility of the Czech party system equaled or exceeded that of Slovakia between 1990 and 1998. The same similarity appears in an analysis of intraparliamentary volatility—the shifting party allegiances of deputies after their election to parliament— during the same period. The figure shows similarly high rates of intraparliamentary

Percentage change in party seats from one election to the next

40

Electoral volatility

30

Czech Republic

20

Slovakia

10

0

Percentage change in party affiliations of deputies during parliamentary terms

Intraparliamentary volatility

50

Czech Republic 40

30

Slovakia 20

10

0 1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

figure 3.3. Electoral and intraparliamentary volatility in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990 –2000. s o u r c e s : Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (2002); Czech Statistical Office (2002)

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volatility in the two countries between 1990 and 1994. Between 1994 and 1998, however, volatility within Slovakia’s parliament declined to near-zero levels while remaining elevated in the Czech Republic. In fact, the period of Slovakia’s lowest intraparliamentary volatility corresponds precisely with the period of the greatest encroachments. Research conducted by Tóka (1997) anticipates this result and contends that the relationship between volatility and political outcomes is too dependent on particular circumstances to permit general conclusions. Slovakia’s example suggests that stability may actually become a burden if the beneficiaries of stability are parties that reject various forms of accountability. As previous sections of this chapter show, the overwhelming decrease in intraparliamentary volatility in Slovakia after 1994 resulted mainly from the disciplinary mechanisms introduced in Mecˇiar’s HZDS that allowed the party’s leaders to control its deputies (Malová and Krause 1999). Other scholars emphasize the potential risks to democracy from other forms of instability, particularly the proliferation of parties. Sartori’s (1976) often-cited work on political party systems begins with a typology based on the size of the party system. The number of parties, he argues, not only reflects the concentration of power within the system but also affects the interplay of parties, dictating different methods of competition and cooperation and affecting the success of governing coalitions. In this framework the emergence of accountability imbalances in Slovakia might reflect a shift away from Sartori’s central categories of “two party” and “limited pluralism” in the direction of an “extreme pluralism” like that of Weimar Germany or the French Fourth Republic. Slovak and Czech party systems, however, do not exhibit significant differences in the number of parties. Counting parties consistently and reliably is not an easy task, however. Difficulties arise in how to account for coalitions, splinter parties, parliamentary clubs, and fringe parties. Sartori suggests counting only those parties that show a long-term potential to affect the strategies of other parties either through coalition or obstruction.37 As the top frame of Figure 3.4 shows, the application of Sartori’s method shows only a small difference between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Both countries, furthermore, remained above Sartori’s numerical threshold for extreme pluralism during the entire period of the 1990s.38 The bottom two frames of the figure show party system size for the two countries using an alternative method derived by Taagepera and Laakso that avoids the ambiguity of counting rules by assigning an overall system size based on the relative size of party electorates or

Sartori method

Slovakia Number of parties

8

6

Czech Republic Threshold for polarized pluralism

4

2

0 Taagepera and Laakso method using votes in parliamentary elections

Number of parties

8

6

Czech Republic Threshold for

4 polarized pluralism

Slovakia 2

0 Taagepera and Laakso method using party seats in Parliament

Number of parties

8

Czech Republic

m

6

Threshold for

4 polarized pluralism

Slovakia

2

0 1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

figure 3.4. Political party system size in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990 –2000, according to the methods of Sartori and Taagepera and Laakso. s o u r c e s : Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (2002); Czech Statistical Office (2002)

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parliamentary delegations. The results correspond roughly to those of the Sartori method, especially in the case of Slovakia.39 Whether measured in terms of Sartori’s methods or those of Taagepera and Laakso, both countries exceeded the limits set for limited pluralism in almost every year after 1990, yet only Slovakia suffered from major accountability violations.40

Coalition-Opposition Imbalance and the Weakness of Parliamentary Barriers The Slovak and Czech cases suggest that overall party system fragmentation may play a smaller role than fragmentation among particular segments of the party system. Sartori (1996) anticipates this effect in his discussion of “predominant party systems” (196), which takes into account the relative size of parties as well as their number. Although neither the Slovak nor the Czech parliament met Sartori’s formal condition for a predominant party system—“major party is consistently supported by a winning majority” (196)—the relative size consideration is directly relevant to the political outcomes of the two countries. Figure 3.5 shows the relative sizes of the largest and second-largest parties in the two countries between 1990 and 1998. The results indicate that with the exception of a brief period after the first elections, Slovakia’s largest party—Mecˇiar’s HZDS— outnumbered its next-largest rival by a consistent margin and that this margin remained consistently higher in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic except for a brief period in 1994. It is possible to gain a better understanding of the significance of these imbalances by looking at how the distribution of seats shapes the relative influence of parties in parliamentary voting. In multiparty systems where no single party has gained a majority, parties must cooperate to achieve majorities. In such circumstances, a party with 2 percent of parliamentary seats may hold as much influence as a party with 49 percent of parliamentary seats if the larger party has no other viable coalition partners. To measure such questions of relative influence, researchers have developed “power indices” to determine how often a party might expect to play a pivotal role. The Banzhaf-Coleman power index, for example, measures the share of all permutations of party coalitions in which a particular party may decide the outcome (Turnovec 1995). Of course, the Banzhaf-Coleman method is limited in what it measures because not all permutations of party coalitions are in any way practical. Nevertheless, the indicator does give a good sense of party dominance

Ratio of largest and second-largest parties

4:1

Seats in Parliament Slovakia

3:1

2:1

Czech Republic

1:1

Banzhaf-Coleman power index based on seats in Parliament 16:1 15:1

Ratio of largest and second-largest parties

14:1

Slovakia

13:1 12:1 11:1 10:1 9:1 8:1 7:1 6:1 5:1 4:1 3:1

Czech Republic 2:1 1:1 1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

figure 3.5. Relative sizes and positions of the largest and second-largest parties in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 1990 –2000. s o u r c e s : Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (2002); Czech Statistical Office (2002); Parliament of the Czech Republic Chamber of Deputies (2002); National Council of the Slovak Republic (2002)

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by indicating simply how difficult it would be to assemble a winning coalition without the dominant party. The ratio of Banzhaf-Coleman’s “decisive position” for the first- and second-largest parties in both countries over time appears in the bottom frame of Figure 3.5. These results magnify the differences in relative size and suggest that no party in the Czech Republic managed to achieve a position of dominance rivaling the levels achieved by Slovakia’s dominant HZDS during the mid-1990s. The distribution of seats made the prospect of an anti-Mecˇiar coalition in Slovakia less likely than an anti-Klaus coalition in the Czech Republic (Haughton 2002). Indeed, the period of greatest difference between Slovak and Czech ratios and power indices coincided with the greatest difference in institutional accountability.

Intracoalition Imbalance and the Weakness of Governmental Barriers In comparison to the Czech Republic’s Klaus, Slovakia’s Mecˇiar benefited from the support of parties that were relatively newer, smaller, and weaker. Mecˇiar’s HZDS took full advantage of its dominant position not only in day-to-day parliamentary voting but also in the creation of a governing coalition that would permit the premier nearly free reign. The coalition that emerged in the Czech Republic imposed sharper limits on its leaders because Czech coalitions possessed a more even distribution of parties in terms of organizational strength, bargaining position, and support for accountability. The strength of parties in Slovakia’s governing coalitions tended toward asymmetry during most of the 1990s. Coalition politics within the two HZDS-led governments during this period demonstrate the importance of such asymmetry in shaping outcomes. In the June 1992 parliamentary elections, HZDS won 74 of 150 seats in Parliament and could depend on enough passive support from other parties that it could dispense with formal coalition partners. That unusual situation lasted only into the first months of independent Slovakia, however, because defections from the party in early 1993 significantly reduced the size of the HZDS parliamentary delegation and forced the party to search for additional votes elsewhere. By late 1993 HZDS managed to reach an agreement with part of the recently fractured SNS, but this coalition, too, lasted only a few months before more defections left the new coalition short of a majority (so short, in fact, that the government collapsed several weeks later). After the 1994 parliamentary elections HZDS

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managed to create a more stable coalition in which it played a dominant role. This coalition, which incorporated SNS and ZRS, linked the largest party delegation in Parliament in coalition with the two smallest delegations. Within Parliament, HZDS maintained on average six times as many deputies as either of its coalition partners and an overall three-toone size advantage over the two other coalition parties combined. In the government that took office in 1994, HZDS appointees occupied twothirds of all ministerial portfolios. Other factors further increased the dominance of HZDS within the coalition. ZRS had begun its political existence only months before the parliamentary elections of 1994 and possessed little track record or history that might prevent its leaders from engaging in ad hoc political compromise (Haughton 2002). SNS presented a slightly more established adversary, but during 1994 and 1995, the party faced an ebb in public support and a great deal of internal disorder as the result of internal conflict in 1993. Only gradually did SNS manage to reestablish itself as a coherent and electorally viable political force with the potential to act as an effective counterweight to HZDS. By that time, however, most of the coalition’s most severe accountability violations had already taken place. The two smaller coalition parties also found themselves at a significant disadvantage with regard to HZDS in their lack of alternative coalition choices. The disproportion in size among Slovakia’s parties meant that an alternative to HZDS would require the agreement of almost every other party in Parliament. It was not a simple matter, therefore, for the smaller parties to threaten to leave the coalition, because the chances of their finding or creating an alternative coalition were extremely low. Furthermore, a survey of eighteen opposition parliamentary deputies conducted by the author in 1997 shows that opposition parties disliked ZRS and SNS almost as much as they disliked HZDS. HZDS scored a 1.9 on a 1–10 scale of sympathy, whereas ZRS and SNS both scored 2.4. No other party scored below 5.0 among opposition deputies.41 Although HZDS also faced limits on its choice of coalition partner, these limits were smaller than those of any other party. Furthermore, perceptions of HZDS’s advantages in this regard allowed it to persuade coalition partners that they faced exclusion from power if they did not fall into line. SDL’ played a key role in these tactical maneuvers. SDL’ leaders had consistently demonstrated a lower antipathy toward HZDS than did leaders of any other opposition party, and elites from SDL’ and HZDS occasionally discussed the possibility of cooperation. The value

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of this option for HZDS may be gauged by the responses of various parties in June 1996 during one of the few periods of open conflict between HZDS and its coalition partners. As the conflict reached its height, HZDS opened negotiations with SDL’ and obtained an agreement for its support of an HZDS minority government in exchange for certain conditions, chiefly involving the reversal of past accountability violations (Sme 1996k; Pridham 2002). A combination of internal and external pressures made the implementation of this agreement unlikely, but the small chance of displacement posed too great a risk for SNS and ZRS, which quickly agreed to “leave the past in the past and move on” (Národná obroda 1996d, 1) with existing arrangements rather than find themselves immediately excluded from access to the state resources upon which they had become highly dependent (Haughton 2002).42 The opportunity to “flirt” with SDL’ (Hud’ová 1996) offered HZDS yet another useful mechanism for ensuring the loyalty of minor coalition partners.43 In the Czech Republic Václav Klaus came closest to replicating Mecˇiar’s coalitional dominance, but even Klaus’s ODS could not approach the same level of coalition control despite participation (formal or informal) in all but one governing coalition between 1991 and 2002. Between 1992 and 1996 ODS occupied one-third of the seats in an otherwise extremely fragmented Parliament. This disproportion made the emergence of a non-ODS government virtually impossible, as such a coalition would have required cooperation among at least six parliamentary party groups, and no opposition coalition could have obtained a parliamentary majority without the inclusion of two Communist parties that were widely regarded as unacceptable coalition partners. As a result of the fragmentation, ODS also had some degree of choice among potential partners from among Parliament’s large number of splinter groups and independent deputies. Kitschelt’s 1994 survey of Czech party officials indicates that representatives from some of these smaller parties exhibited moderate sympathy for ODS. Shifting from one coalition partner to another would have been difficult for Klaus but not impossible, and this flexibility magnified the level of ODS control during the first Klaus government. Yet ODS’s coalition partners possessed advantages that the junior coalition partners in Slovakia did not. The larger of ODS’s coalition ˇ SL, maintained one of the oldest and strongest orgapartners, KDU–C nizational structures in the country, and its membership exceeded that ˇ SL, Klaus and his party of ODS by a considerable margin. In KDU–C

106 Accountability and Institutions thereby faced a strong and solidly rooted political force that could not be easily moved and that could not easily ignore the wishes of its supporters. ODS’s other partner, ODA, did not maintain a strong organization, but it had deep roots in the November 1989 anticommunist movement, and its leadership included several of the most popular and trusted political leaders in the country as well as the parliamentary delegation with the longest average experience in Parliament. Circumstances worsened for ODS after the 1996 parliamentary elections. The party’s share of seats in Parliament remained larger than any other, but dropped from 38 percent to 34 percent. At the same time, the party’s coalition partners increased their share slightly from 14.5 percent to 15.5 percent, and opposition parties increased from 47 percent to 50.5 percent. The new parliamentary opposition, furthermore, was split among only three parties, each with at least 9 percent of parliamentary ˇ SSD gained almost as many seats seats. The dramatically strengthened C as ODS. These changes sharply limited ODS’s position within the govˇ SSD could present itself as a plausible core of erning coalition, because C an anti-ODS coalition and ODS could no longer point to easy coalition alternatives as a way of threatening its partners into compliance. ODS’s partners took full advantage of these changes and their increased relative strength to negotiate a new distribution of governmental portfolios, reducing the three-fifths share held by ODS after 1992 to an even half, with the other half distributed equally between the two smaller partners. In 1998 a further shift in the Czech electoral environment left ODS in ˇ SSD in a position to form a government. second place and placed the C ˇ SSD accepted the offer Unable to reach agreements with other parties, C ˇ of ODS for tacit support of a CSSD minority government in exchange for positions in parliamentary leadership and key policy concessions. This “opposition agreement”—later renegotiated as a “toleration patent” and referred to by some observers as a “veiled silent grand coalition” (Klima 1999, 170)— offered political visibility and a modicum of influence but less stigma than a formal coalition association with ˇ SSD. The agreement left both ODS and C ˇ SSD in dependent positions, C and neither party could pursue encroachments except in areas where the other could also expect benefits. Within these narrow conditions, ODS skillfully focused on questions of accountability designed to advantage large parties and thereby gained a number of policy victories, including, most significantly, amendments to the Czech Republic’s electoral law. Yet the common interests of the two large parties did not extend much beyond these changes, and when the centerpiece of these

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changes—the electoral reform—failed to gain the support of the Constitutional Court, the two parties could not muster sufficient cooperation to press the matter much further and settled for relatively minor changes to the electoral law that did not significantly reduce its proportional character.

Imbalance and Accountability Although aggregate indicators showed similar levels of fragmentation and instability, differences in the relative weights of parties produced quite different results, particularly when compounded by differences in centralization and organization. Even the strongest Czech parties encountered resistance from a variety of capable partners and meaningful political counterweights. In Slovakia in the mid-1990s, the centralized organization of HZDS faced much weaker restraints from its allies and its opponents (Pridham 2002). The relatively brief period of this asymmetrical fragmentation was enough to allow a significant degree of accountability violation. The imbalance involved not only the size of the parties but their attitudes toward accountability. Because of its parliamentary strength and the weakness of its parliamentary adversaries, HZDS was able to choose partners that were too weak to defend themselves effectively in government. Furthermore, the weakness of HZDS’s partners extended beyond organizational capability and popular support to include weakness of support for accountability as well. ZRS and SNS thus represented ideal partners for a party inclined toward encroachment, because they were neither capable of defending themselves nor particularly interested in defending rival institutions. In the Czech Republic the support for accountability among coalition partners and opposition parties varied far more and imposed greater restraints on governing parties. The 1994 University of Leiden survey offers clear support for the arguments of Kopecky´ and Mudde (2000) and Szomolányi and Gould (2000) about differences in elite-level conflict between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The Leiden survey indicates that at least some coalition partners of ODS in the Czech Republic were considerably more likely to insist on institutional accountability than were the partners of HZDS in Slovakia. As Figure 3.6 shows, the coalition parties HZDS and SNS stood together at the antiaccountability end of the spectrum. The same unanimity did not emerge among the governing parties of the Czech Republic. In fact, deputies of the governing coalition show a wide split

Support for firm-hand rule (Share of deputies who reject the statement "Government should be restricted by law, even if it impedes effectiveness")

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Czech Republic Coalition partners in black, opposition parties in gray

Slovakia Coalition partners in black, opposition parties in gray

0.53 0.50

0.50 Mean for all deputies in Slovakia's parliament

0.45 0.40

0.40 Mean for all deputies in the Czech Republic's parliament

0.38

0.33

0.33 0.30

0.28 0.25 0.20

0.15

0.15 0.13

0.10

0.00

HZDS SNS (37) (6)

SDL' (20)

DU (6)

KDH MKDH (15) (9)

v

v

KDU– ODS KSCM CSSD SPR– ODA v v CSL (52) (35) (14) RSC (11) (12) (8)

Party (number of respondents in parentheses)

figure 3.6. Attitudes of parliamentary deputies toward firm-hand rule in Slovakia and the Czech Republic by party, 1994. s o u r c e : University of Leiden (1994)

on accountability questions on two elite-level surveys. Both the early1994 Leiden survey and a late 1993 survey by Miller, White, and Heywood found Czech coalition parties to stand at opposite extremes on the question of whether government should be restricted by law. Both surveys show nearly identical patterns: deputies of the coalition’s ˇ SL were most likely to reject legal restrictions on government, KDU–C

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deputies of ODA were most likely to insist on such restrictions, and Klaus’s ODS was close to the overall parliamentary average. Other questions of parliamentary decision making also revealed distinctly different attitudinal patterns in the governing coalitions of the ˇ SL, perhaps two countries. Deputies of the Czech ODA and KDU–C seeking a counterweight to ODS, joined with opposition deputies in supporting a stronger role for rival institutions, including the president, civil service, courts, and municipal government. In Slovakia, by contrast, deputies of the coalition’s minor partners were even less likely to accept a strong role for these rival institutions than were deputies of the coalition-leading HZDS. Similarly, SNS deputies were far more likely than deputies of the smaller parties in the Czech Republic’s coalition to prefer a one-party government over a coalition government even though SNS had no realistic chance of entering government without coalition partners. No available surveys include responses from the deputies of HZDS’s other coalition partner, ZRS, but a series of statements by party leader Jan L’uptak indicate his lack of regard for rival political institutions. L’uptak not only attacked Slovakia’s President Kovácˇ with vigor but also publicly suggested that it was “unacceptable for courts to be independent of parliament” during the transition to democracy (CTK 1995). Unlike the Czech Republic, Slovakia thus found itself with a coalition consisting of those parliamentary parties least likely to respect institutional accountability, and this configuration clearly affected the overall shape of political decisions in the two countries. The 1994 Leiden survey shows an overall lower degree of concern about legal restraints among deputies from Slovakia, but the difference between the deputies of the two countries is relatively moderate, with a margin of just under nine percentage points. As Figure 3.6 indicates, differences in coalition formation had the effect of magnifying this relatively minor difference. According to the Leiden survey the differences between opposition and coalition camps in Slovakia on accountability was more than five times larger than the difference in the Czech Republic. The difference between deputies from Slovak and Czech governing parties averaged almost nineteen points (University of Leiden 1994). Because the attitudes of deputies who opposed Mecˇiar’s coalition were almost identical to attitudes of the average Czech deputy, it is not surprising that the election of an anti-Mecˇiar government in Slovakia in 1998 erased the differences in the two countries’ levels of institutional accountability.44

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Similar Weaknesses, Similar Strengths: The Role of Other Institutions Although parties played a central role in shaping differences in Slovak and Czech democratization, it is important to turn to the role of other institutions, if only to demonstrate that these do not answer the main question posed in this book: What accounts for the widening gap between levels of institutional accountability in Slovakia and the Czech Republic in the mid-1990s and the rapid closing of that gap near the end of the decade? This is not to say that other institutions did not have any effect, but rather that they functioned in similar ways in both countries. Some were similarly crucial, others similarly unimportant. Still others did function differently, but the differences proved inconsequential, at least for the preservation of accountability. There is a long list of politically significant institutions other than parties and party systems, and one potentially compelling answer for the success of institutional encroachments in some countries and not others is weakness in the institutions under siege and the other institutions charged with protecting them. O’Donnell (1999) calls specific attention to the role of oversight bodies and courts with professional staff and adequate resources. Other authors in other contexts refer to the roles played by presidents (Kenney 1998), the military (Valenzuela 1992), and the civil service (Lijphart 1984). Although not explicitly created for this purpose, other institutions may also play important roles in protecting— or undermining—accountability. Though not constituted domestically, international organizations such as the United Nations or Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) can attempt to achieve similar ends. Presidents, courts, the military, and other institutions exhibited roughly the same degree of influence in both countries. In Slovakia that influence was too low to prevent major encroachments between 1994 and 1998. In the Czech Republic the level of influence was similarly low and would have been able to provide little resistance against the type of assaults that occurred in Slovakia if the party and coalition barriers mentioned previously had failed.

State Institutions Encroachment by government and Parliament in Slovakia touched nearly every major political institution in the country, whereas in the Czech Republic few institutions faced serious challenge. The source of

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the difference, however, cannot be attributed to the institutions themselves because of overwhelming similarities in the design and operation of the two countries’ institutions. Although there can be little doubt that state institutions can play an important role in permitting or preventing accountability violations, this is one area where the Slovak-Czech comparison does not yield broader comparative insights, because institutions in the two countries played such similar roles. The Constitutional Framework. It is hardly surprising that the formal design of institutional relationships can determine institutions’ success or failure. The work of O’Donnell and his contemporaries on the institutional basis of accountability represents only the latest rebirth of a tradition that traces back in time through Madison to Montesquieu and ultimately to Aristotle. In recent years scholarly attention has focused on such questions as the relative merits of presidents and prime ministers, the importance of judicial review, and federalism (Schedler, Diamond, and Plattner 1999). The Slovak and Czech cases, however, have little to say about such controversies. The Slovak and Czech constitutions of 1992 had nearly identical institutional frameworks—parliamentary regimes with relatively weak presidencies (Baylis 1996, 303).45 Neither country’s constitution offered much definition about supervisory bodies and other executive agencies. Appointments not specified in the constitution and all nonconstitutional legislation in both countries remained subject to a simple majority of the parliamentary assembly. Both countries allowed changes to the constitution on the basis of a three-fifths vote of all parliamentary deputies, but not until the establishment of the Czech Republic’s upper house in late 1996 did the legislative processes of the two countries diverge significantly, and not until the Slovak parliament established direct presidential elections in 1999 did either country make a significant constitutional change. Kopecky´ (2001) argues that “from a broader comparative perspective, there is virtually no difference in the shape of the macro-institutional structure of both countries” and that “it would appear highly problematic to trace divergent outcomes of democratic consolidation to these types of institutional effects” (233). Other Slovak and Czech institutional structures were also extremely similar. Municipal governments in both countries were directly elected by inhabitants but depended heavily on funding from the central government. Intermediate levels of government existed in both countries, but they were entirely dependent on the central government for appointment and revenue. The two countries’ court systems also followed

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similar patterns, with a system of local, regional, and national courts and a distinct Constitutional Court. Methods of appointment differed only slightly, and the differences did not come into play during the 1990s.46 These extremely close similarities suggest that any basic difference in institutional accountability in Slovakia and the Czech Republic resulted from factors other than formal institutional structure. The Presidency and Presidents. Of course, even identical written constitutions do not exclude differences in the functioning of particular institutions. A frequently mentioned explanation for differences in Slovak and Czech institutional accountability is the role played by Czech president Václav Havel and the absence of a figure of similar stature in Slovakia. Lauded by Western media as a Czech “philosopher-king” (Meyer 1990, 28), dissident playwright Havel brought to his post a strong track record of opposition to authoritarian rule and actively opposed attempts to strengthen particular political institutions—sometimes including his own—at the expense of others. With an advocate of institutional accountability of Havel’s stature as the president of the Czech Republic, it is easy to attribute to him the country’s lack of institutional encroachments and to argue that a “Slovak Havel” might have helped prevent Slovakia’s later institutional encroachments. This notion, however, overlooks both the relative weakness of Havel’s position in day-to-day Czech politics and the efforts undertaken by Slovakia’s president Michal Kovácˇ against institutional encroachment. Although Havel remained prominent on the world stage throughout the 1990s, his domestic political authority at home quickly began to decline (Vachudová 2001). During the spring and summer of 1992, his efforts to halt the breakup of Czechoslovakia proved ineffective, and during the fall he faced strong resistance to his proposals for a directly elected presidency as part of the new Czech Republic’s constructional structure (Baylis 1996). As the Czech Republic’s president, Havel retained his moral authority but found little support for his frequent proposals for institutional reform, such as regional self-government, an ombudsman, and a law on referendums. Of the institutions championed by Havel, only the Senate came into being during the Klaus premiership, and even that success came only after four years of delay on the part of the majority coalition. According to Baylis (1996), Havel was not able “seriously to impede [Premier Václav Klaus’s] policy agenda” between 1993 and 1996. In the face of Klaus’s more aggressive political style, Havel “reluctantly acquiesced in his own political eclipse” (316),

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although he maintained “moral authority and popularity . . . that allowed him to exert greater influence than his office alone would provide” (Wolchik 1997, 189).47 Slovakia’s president Michal Kovácˇ never possessed the special legitimacy that Havel derived from activities as a dissident, but he did gradually acquire some of the same elements of “moral authority and popularity” (Baylis 1996, 304). Even an institutionally marginal president may retain some prominence, and Kovácˇ’s personal willingness to oppose the majority coalition provided a source of influence that was different from Havel’s but not less significant. Shortly after Kovácˇ’s inauguration in early 1993, his resolve to defend the full range of the presidency’s powers quickly led to conflict with the leadership of his own party, HZDS. The conflict led in turn to Kovácˇ’s close cooperation with opposition parties and to his 1994 State of the Union address that united the opposition parties in a successful vote of no confidence against the second Mecˇiar government. When Mecˇiar returned to power after the 1994 election and Parliament removed many of the presidency’s formal powers, Kovácˇ continued to engage in a sustained and vocal opposition. Although the majority coalition in Parliament invariably overrode Kovácˇ’s vetoes, he continued to reject parliamentary proposals; although the majority coalition boycotted his addresses to Parliament, he continued to present his opinions. Havel is more likely to be credited with upholding democratic ideals, but Kovácˇ spoke out emphatically against nearly every institutional encroachment in Slovakia, including many that did not directly affect his own position. He continued these efforts through the final days of his presidency and remained involved in efforts to limit the majority coalition even after the expiration of his term.48 Surveys of the Slovak and Czech parliaments in 1994 and 1996 further reinforce the underlying similarities between the two presidents: deputies in the two countries offered almost identically low assessments of their respective president’s influence (Krause 1996b; University of Leiden 1994).49 In fact, given the differences in their respective starting points and their political environments, the roles played by Havel and Kovácˇ show an unexpected similarity: although they were rarely heeded by those in power, they nevertheless refused to keep silent. The major difference lay only in the reaction of the two countries’ respective majority coalitions. Whereas the third Mecˇiar government tried to silence Kovácˇ, Czech governments let Havel speak and thereby (they hoped) expose his own political weakness.

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The Judiciary. Fundamental differences between the Slovak and Czech judiciary—particularly the courts—might in theory explain the differences in accountability, but in fact the two countries’ courts performed similar roles. Both showed a consistent willingness to rule against their respective majority coalitions. The Czech court system demonstrated a reasonable degree of independence, and legal experts acknowledge that it fulfilled its function as a restraint on the majority coalition (Grónsky´ 1996; Schwartz 1999), though evaluations by the European Union suggest substantial room for improvement in impartiality and efficiency. Slovakia’s court system operated along similar lines. Although Slovakia’s methods of appointing Constitutional Court justices allowed for greater potential for control by parliamentary majorities than in the Czech Republic, the newly appointed members of Slovakia’s court proved their independence by ruling against the coalition at the first opportunity, and the court continued to show an independent streak in a series of important rulings that halted or at least slowed several of the coalition’s encroachments (Schwartz 1999, 208).50 That Slovakia’s court did not impose more meaningful limits has much to do with the nature of the encroachments themselves, as they did not at first provide much opportunity for judicial intervention, because the government avoided obviously illegal actions and unconstitutional legislation. That the court played so little a role during these early stages has less to do with the judiciary than with the overall design of institutions, but in this latter aspect Slovakia remained similar to the Czech Republic. The Military. Much of the literature on democratization that focuses on cases in Latin America emphasizes the potential for military establishments to escape accountability (Valenzuela 1992) and to support other institutions in their efforts to avoid accountability (Kenney 1998). In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, such difficulties did not arise. The military neither participated in the preservation of accountability in the Czech Republic nor contributed to its deterioration in Slovakia. According to Szayna’s (1998) study of civil-military relations in the two countries, “There is little question that the civilian leadership clearly dominates civil-military relations” in the Czech Republic and “despite its difficult situation, the military has not shown any signs of questioning the principle or extent of civilian control” (119). Szayna makes similar judgments about the civil-military relationship in Slovakia. He notes that it is “civilian dominated” (127) and “still exhibits the Communist era attitudes of shunning involvement in politics” (126). Any blurring of the civil-military

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line, Szayna notes, resulted from the efforts of the third Mecˇiar government to influence the military rather than the other way around. Analysis by Antonietti (1997) reaches similar conclusions and finds a firm commitment to civilian control within Slovakia’s military leadership. Civil Service and Municipal Government. Except for the presidency, the judiciary, and the military, nearly all formal political institutions in both countries remained under the control—real or potential— of the majority coalition in Parliament or its appointees in government. Except for Parliament, the only formally elected bodies were municipal councils, and municipalities suffered both from a severe lack of influence at the parliamentary level (University of Leiden 1994) and from an almost total dependence on the central government for its funding (Koudelka 1995). The civil service, likewise, lacked meaningful independence from political changes. As Chapter 2 demonstrates, the Slovak and Czech state administrations did differ in their political engagement, but this difference is the result of accountability violations in Slovakia rather than the cause of such violations.

Nongovernmental Institutions Other explanations for institutional accountability depend on the activities of the quasi-political actors standing just outside the bounds of formal institutions. O’Donnell (1999) posits the importance for institutional accountability of reliable and timely distribution of information through independent media and for the active engagement of both media and social organizations. In slightly broader terms, Schedler (1999b) recognizes the potential “contribution of civil society actors to the conquest of horizontal mechanisms of accountability” among institutions (340) while at the same time noting that accounts of this relationship tend to rely on assumption and intuition. Other authors note the influence of domestic economic actors on questions of institutional accountability. Maxfield (1999) acknowledges the role of the private sector in encouraging the autonomy of central banking systems; Domingo (1999) notes that certain economic interests in new Latin American democracies have supported attempts to strengthen the legal framework, whereas others worked to impede precisely those same reforms. The relationships between these institutions and institutional accountability are extremely complex. Strong economic and religious institutions and active public protest all have the potential to strengthen accountability, but their actual effect depends both on the particular

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qualities of these institutions and their strength within society. In most cases, it is not necessary to delve deeply into the tangled relationship between these factors and accountability because the factors themselves differed by relatively small margins between the two countries. The differences that did occur took two forms. In a few areas, such as stateowned broadcast media, Slovakia exhibited characteristics that could be tied directly to lack of accountability, but these characteristics resulted directly from decisions made by the majority coalition and must be understood as effect rather than cause. In other areas, Slovakia’s institutions actually were more likely than their Czech counterparts to exhibit characteristics commonly associated with accountability and therefore cannot explain the two countries’ different paths. Domestic Economic Actors. A growing literature on the interrelationship between politics and economy in new democracies suggests that firms and other economic actors may exert both strong positive and strong negative influences on the process of democratization. Although organized economic interests played an important role in both Slovak and Czech political life during the period in question, they did not play an important role in creating the difference between Slovak and Czech levels of institutional accountability. Economic forces neither promoted encroachment in Slovakia nor exerted influence to prevent encroachment in the Czech Republic. In both countries, in fact, domestic economic actors—both firms and unions—remained largely subordinate to the political institutions on questions of political action. In the Czech Republic, corporate and labor elites played relatively minor roles in political struggles, even with regard to policy making in the areas of their greatest concern. Gould (1998) notes that “efforts by Czech managers to gain greater control over policy-making were thwarted by Czech government leaders” (1). Kotrba (1996) concurs, noting that in relationships between political and economic figures, it was the politicians who held the preponderance of influence. According to Orenstein (1996), the Czech government also “exercised [extraordinarily] strong” control over the “economic and social policy agenda” where the unions had their strongest claims to influence. Orenstein credits the Czech unions with claiming a space in which “to represent their members’ interests at work and in national politics” but notes that they won only minor victories (185). Unable to exert much political influence even in their own spheres, the Czech Republic’s main economic actors played even less of a role in the more abstract sphere of accountability politics.

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In Slovakia, issues of economic influence were more complicated. Whereas the role of unions in Slovakia closely resembled the role of their counterparts in the Czech Republic,51 the role of managerial elites in Slovakia’s politics cannot be so quickly dismissed. Gould and Appel (1999) argue that Slovakia’s managers “were able to ride back into influence and power with the political founders of the independent Slovak state,” from which point the managers “assumed a significant role in the design and implementation of economic programs” and “succeeded in lobbying the government to delay and then cancel the second wave of voucher privatization, eventually reorienting the entire concept of Slovak privatization to serve their interests more directly” (3 – 4). Nevertheless, differences between the Slovak and Czech managerial elite cannot explain the differences in the two countries’ political outcomes. The managerial explanation could at best explain only encroachments involving privatization and not the coalition’s more important encroachments against rival political institutions. In fact, economic elites faced a strong disincentive against other noneconomic accountability violations because, as Appel and Gould (2000) note, Slovakia’s managers also recognized the benefits from the foreign trade and investment that would be made possible by a stronger rule of law. Furthermore, although the managers did prove extremely skillful in engineering their return to influence, the process did not happen immediately. The first two governments of independent Slovakia did little to advance the managers’ interests. The first Mecˇiar government privatized at an extremely slow rate, whereas the second acquiesced to a voucher method of privatization that actually threatened to undercut management control. Not until the third Mecˇiar government did managers become deeply involved in the privatization process. Rather than force their way into the policy-making process, managers were forced to wait for an invitation from a majority coalition that sought their participation. Therefore, even though managers held important resources, they remained largely dependent on political developments for their opportunities and played little independent role in undercutting Slovakia’s institutional accountability. Media. Mass media in Slovakia differed sharply from that of the Czech Republic, but as with the business sector, the differences were the result of accountability violations in Slovakia rather than the cause. The behavior of private-sector media outlets suggests little inherent difference in the inclinations of Slovak and Czech journalists. Overall levels

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of newspaper readership in the two countries were almost identical, and both countries had relatively large numbers of newspapers with a willingness to criticize the respective majority coalitions (Kettle 1995b; Gindl 1996). The majority coalitions in Slovakia and the Czech Republic maintained strong ties to particular newspapers, but these occupied only a small share of the newspaper market.52 Critics of Slovakia’s majority coalition cite attempts by the coalition to influence the editorial line of major independent dailies by acquiring ownership and by interfering with printing, distribution, and control of advertising (Gindl 1996; Sˇkolkay 1997b), but these attempts had only a limited effect. Even those who were critical of the third Mecˇiar government’s media policies acknowledge that “in spite of certain limitations on editorial freedom, a certain pluralism has managed to develop” (Sˇkolkay 1997b, 192). The biggest difference between mass media in the two countries appeared in the realm of state-run electronic broadcasting. As the previous chapter indicates, Slovakia’s politicians fought over control of stateowned television and radio stations from the earliest days of Slovakia’s independence. The political control over these stations became particularly significant after changes were made in their management and in their supervisory boards by the majority coalition in November and December 1994. The clear progovernment tone of Slovak Television, in particular, contrasted with that of Czech Television. Whereas Czech Television sought to maintain some degree of impartiality—media analysis by Sˇmíd (1996) describes its coverage as “not pro-government, but also not anti-government”—Slovak Television adopted a clearly progovernment tone after changes to its management and oversight by the HZDS-led coalition in late 1994. The most significant differences in Slovak and Czech media thus reflect differences in political strategy by the respective majority coalitions. The delay in the establishment of a meaningfully independent private television station in Slovakia and the consistent progovernment tone of Slovak Television after 1994 also resulted from deliberate efforts by Slovakia’s majority coalition to restrict independent broadcasting. Once in effect, Slovakia’s restrictive media policy certainly contributed to the majority coalition’s subsequent efforts by issuing favorable reports and minimizing opposition, but the government, not the media, brought about the change. The Church. Scholarly explanations regarding institutional accountability have not dwelled at any length on the question of religious influence, but competing accounts can easily be constructed from existing research on the role of religious organizations in democratization.

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On the one hand, the hierarchical mode of leadership within the Roman Catholic Church—the dominant religious organization in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic—is often regarded in scholarly literature as an impediment to both cultural and institutional pluralism (Putnam 1993). On the other hand, democratization literature often characterizes the church in the 1980s and 1990s as an opponent of authoritarian regimes (Mainwaring, O’Donnell, and Valenzuela 1992). Because the church played a more significant role in Slovakia than it did in the Czech Republic, the authoritarian church model would help explain the differential in accountability. It would also conform closely to the role played by the church in Slovakia’s history, particularly during the Second World War. This view, however, does not accurately capture the nature of Slovakia’s church during the 1990s. Whereas Czech bishops confined their political statements to general exhortations and concerns about restitution of church property (Kettle 1995a), their counterparts in Slovakia actively opposed the erosion of accountability. On several important occasions a group of nine of Slovakia’s eleven bishops issued public statements that were sharply critical of the third Mecˇiar government and its political leaders. These called for the government to stop its attacks on President Kovácˇ and members of the opposition, to abandon draft legislation that might have imposed criminal penalties against those who criticized Slovakia or its leaders, and to avoid extremes in other areas. Severely critical responses from leading government figures contributed to a further widening of the rift between the third Mecˇiar government and the church leadership.53 Civil Society. The important role played by citizens’ associations and other nongovernmental organizations in the third wave of democratization in the 1980s and 1990s produced a renewed awareness of the role of such organizations in building democracy. O’Donnell (1999) and others raise the possibility that organizations in the third, nongovernmental sector may play a role in safeguarding accountability among political institutions. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, however, the role of the third sector differed in ways that cannot explain the two countries’ political divergence. The institutional development of civil society in Slovakia and the Czech Republic proceeded in an almost identical pattern with similar rates of growth and only slightly lower levels of membership in Slovakia.54 What differences did emerge between the Slovak and Czech third sectors resulted largely from differences in government activity. After the initial euphoria of the 1989 revolution and the 1990 elections,

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associations lost much of their early political significance in both countries. Green and Leff (1997) argue that “the development of bottom-up associations in the Czech republic has been slow and hesitant” (72). They find “weak mass-elite linkages” and attribute these to “a postcommunist style of governance that itself discourages regularized citizen and associational input” (84). To the extent the two sectors did interact, it was the state that maintained the upper hand because of “the overwhelming dependence of civil associations, particularly those in social, health, or human rights services, on state funds” (73). A later survey by Green (1999) that examines the role of associations in Czech policy making casts further doubts on arguments that the Czech Republic’s civil society served as a barrier to the arbitrary use of power among the country’s political institutions because it had remained “a minor actor” even in “policymaking about its very existence.” Although Slovakia lagged slightly behind in terms of the number of associations and the size of their memberships, it actually made considerable progress in the organization of third-sector associations into a coherent structure with the capacity to plan an active role in Slovakia’s political life. The Association of the Third Sector (G3S), established in 1995, had little success in restraining the legislative efforts of the third Mecˇiar government. However, in the process of campaigning against a restrictive law on foundations, the G3S significantly strengthened the links among associations and increased their collective potential for mobilizing resources in subsequent political struggles, including the successful voter participation drives that may have hurt Mecˇiar and his coalition partners in the 1998 parliamentary elections (Bútora and Bútorová 1999). Slovakia’s associations became politically active at the early signs of institutional encroachments by the third Mecˇiar government but achieved little immediate influence over policy because government appointees held all the key control mechanisms. The Czech associational sphere experienced less provocation and did not attain the same level of organization or activity. Even though the third sector showed an impressive ability to participate in the electoral aspects of political accountability by organizing election-related activities,55 it did not fare so well in imposing institutional accountability. In neither country did organizations of the third sector play a critical role in the outcomes of important government or parliamentary decisions, particularly those related to the development of democracy itself. Although a vibrant civil society may be necessary for the long-term development of attitudes that make democracies endure, the Slovak and Czech cases suggest that

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these organizations can do little about the problem in the short term when they face a governing coalition that is hostile or even merely indifferent. Parliaments and governments in both countries exerted far stronger control over civil society than civil society did over relationships among political institutions.

International Institutions Many authors argue that the involvement of foreign governments and international organizations plays a significant role in the consolidation of new democracies (Parrott 1997; Pastor 1999; Schedler 1999b). Through international election monitors and other forms of observation, foreign governments and international organizations have played important roles in the democratic development of nearly all new democracies. Observers have traditionally paid far closer attention to electoral accountability—rights and free and fair elections—than they have to institutional accountability, but the imbalance has lessened in recent years. Pastor (1999) cites the criticism that the leaders of presidential coups (autogolpe) in Peru and Guatemala faced from other members of the Organization of American States (OAS). Other international organizations, including the OSCE and NATO, have also become involved in issuing cautionary statements to members and to prospective members regarding the behavior of domestic political institutions toward one another. In addition, international economic actors such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and major multinational corporations have openly favored institutional accountability by employing “rule of law” as an explicit basis for their investment decisions. The weakness of institutional accountability in Slovakia might in theory have occurred either because the international institutions neglected Slovakia or because international involvement proved somehow counterproductive. Although plausible, neither of these hypotheses offers much explanatory value. In the wake of the 1989 revolution, Czechoslovakia received considerable Western support for its efforts at democratization, and this support continued after the separation into two independent states. The programs varied considerably in their efforts, ranging from educational programs for new political elites, support for nongovernmental organizations and associations, independent journalism, and mass education. As the political transition in the Czech Republic began to look firmly established, outside funding for such efforts began to decline. Funding for

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democratization efforts in Slovakia, by contrast, continued throughout the 1990s with many foundations and international agencies (Soros Foundation 1999). In addition to development and education programs, Western governments used the more traditional diplomatic tools, but these did not strengthen the Czech Republic’s democratic institutions any more than Slovakia’s. The criticisms of the Czech Republic made by the United States and the EU remained limited to issues of human rights, most notably frequent instances of violence against ethnic Roma and a citizenship law that seemed designed to exclude Roma (Vachudová 2001). Western diplomatic actions toward Slovakia were more frequent and serious and involved not only human rights and Roma but also institutional accountability. An escalating series of demarches, public statements, and legislative resolutions from both the United States and the EU identified with increasing precision the encroachments of the third Mecˇiar government and called on Slovakia’s government to alter its policies and redress past violations as a condition for NATO and EU membership. Such efforts appear to have produced certain limited success (Zielonka 2003). Although it is difficult to show a direct relationship, diplomatic signals from the United States and the EU coincided with a few sudden and unexpected changes in government policy, including the rapid conclusion of a treaty between Slovakia and Hungary, the end of efforts to expel DU deputies from Parliament, the softening of legal penalties for public criticism of state officials, and the abandonment of a proposal for considerably higher taxes on commercial newspapers. In the vast majority of cases, however, even vehement foreign criticism did little to alter the course of the encroachments undertaken by the Mecˇiar government. Western states found that their main bargaining chips— offers of EU and NATO membership—were in all but a few cases insufficient to prevent Mecˇiar’s encroachments (Samson 2001; Zielonka 2001). In fact, because both the EU and NATO insisted on respect for institutional accountability, the incentive of membership actually represented a clear disincentive for the third Mecˇiar government, which had built its power by dismantling institutional restraints (Krause 2003).56 To the extent that the EU and NATO contributed at all to the restoration of Slovak accountability, it was not through institutional influence but through the programmatic electoral appeals that are the subject of the next chapter (Malová and Rybárˇ 2003). International economic actors—multinational corporations and international lending organizations—look closely at factors such as rule

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of law and accountability when making their investment decisions, and the incentive of investment has proven powerful in compelling political as well as economic reforms. If international economic actors had set higher conditions for the Czech Republic than for Slovakia, such a difference might explain the Czech Republic’s higher levels of accountability. But this did not happen. In fact, investors approached the new Slovak Republic with greater suspicion and demanded higher standards of conduct from Slovaks than from Czechs. By 1992 the level of foreign investment was already considerably higher in the Czech Republic than it was in Slovakia, but there is no evidence that these particular investors engaged in any direct efforts to hold the Czech Republic to high standards of accountability or that relative lack of foreign investment in Slovakia enabled its governing coalition to pursue encroachments. Although foreign investment played a more important role in the Czech Republic, corresponding investments in Slovakia nevertheless totaled 5 percent of the country’s total gross domestic fixed capital formation (United Nations Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Europe 2001) and accounted directly or indirectly for at least 13 percent of its labor force. If the corporations with major investments in the country—including Volkswagen, Whirlpool, and Samsung— could not exert enough influence to maintain institutional accountability, it is unlikely that the addition of several more would have solved the problem. Furthermore, there is no evidence that foreign investors in the Czech Republic exerted a restraining influence. The direction of causality, rather, runs more clearly in the opposite direction: governments maintain accountability in an attempt to attract and keep foreign investment. If a government does not seek foreign investment—and the third Mecˇiar government clearly preferred to steer investment opportunities to domestic political allies—then the views of foreign investors will not play a significant role in shaping government policies.

Other Institutions and Accountability Weak institutional rivals helped Mecˇiar achieve unusual success in encroachment, but Slovakia’s institutional weaknesses were by no means unique. Czech institutions reveal themselves to be just as weak as their Slovak counterparts, and in some cases weaker. In attempting to defend themselves against immediate threats, many of Slovakia’s political institutions actually became more active and engaged than their Czech counterparts. This mobilization even included institutions that threatened to

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be weak links in Slovakia’s efforts at democratization: a traditionally autocratic church, a nascent associational sphere, a media prone to selfcensorship, and an HZDS-appointed president and judiciary. These institutions demonstrated considerable courage in upholding institutional accountability, even though doing so sometimes required each to look beyond immediate interests to advance the interests of all. Of course, Slovakia’s institutions faced a real threat to their continued existence, but the evidence suggests that Czech institutions had little if any capacity to offer a more effective resistance against institutional encroachments. The Czech president found himself ignored even by a relatively moderate government. The Czech Constitutional Court could have done little more than its Slovak counterpart. Czech firms, unions, and civic associations found themselves marginalized even in their own immediate spheres of interest. If in 1994 crossed wires had sent Slovakia’s parliamentary deputies to Prague, Mecˇiar’s coalition could have pursued its program of institutional encroachment without much more institutional opposition than it faced in Slovakia. Correspondingly, a Czech majority coalition transplanted to Bratislava in 1994 would have felt right at home and could have continued in its path. No “perverse institutionalizations” (Valenzuela 1992) would have forced it to make more encroachments than it actually did. Something akin to this hypothetical exchange of parliaments actually happened in 1998. The Dzurinda government in Slovakia proved capable of functioning without significant encroachments, and the civil society institutions activated under Mecˇiar continued to perform a watchdog function. By contrast, comparable institutions in the Czech Republic showed little protective capability, even in the face of significant changes to electoral law that threatened to increase significantly the power of the country’s two largest parties at the expense of others. That institutional context should matter so little offers strong evidence for the central role played by parties and party coalitions in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and the limited role of other forms of institutional accountability in new democracies. Although important for maintaining and building a satisfying democracy, presidents and courts, associations and churches, mass media and public demonstrations simply could not impose accountability on determined majority coalitions that controlled the legislative and executive branches and refused to be bound by external restraints. Opponents of these governments could only harass and distract, in the hope that this would preserve the basic rules of the democratic political game long enough for opposition parties to bring about political change by winning elections.

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Conclusion: Toward More Effective Restraints More than any other set of institutions, political parties shaped democracy in Slovakia and the Czech Republic during the 1990s. The paths of the two countries diverged primarily because their party systems became increasingly different over time and began to reconverge only with the electoral defeat of Slovakia’s HZDS-led coalition. It was true of both countries, however, that government efforts at encroachment proved difficult to stop. Differences between the Slovak and Czech cases point to specific elements of party competition that pose a significant threat to institutional accountability. The parties and party coalitions that proved most dangerous in Slovakia and the Czech Republic differed systematically from those that did not. The rejection of institutional accountability by party leaders is a rather obvious necessary condition, but it is far from sufficient. Encroachments require support—if only tacit—from many quarters. In parliamentary systems, antiaccountability leaders must gain a strong and acquiescent party base and usually the support of other party leaders (who must in turn maintain the support of their respective bases). They may be aided in this pursuit by asymmetries of political power: a single party leader who lacks strong intraparty rivals, and a single party without strong rivals in Parliament or the government coalition. Mecˇiar, unlike his counterparts in the Czech Republic, found it possible after 1994 to dominate the governing coalition, in part because of the weaknesses of his coalition partners and parliamentary opponents. Mecˇiar’s concerted effort also created an unusually strong party organization that permitted him to squelch dissent while at the same time keeping party supporters actively mobilized. Václav Klaus in the Czech Republic accomplished some of these institutional goals, but he did not gain a sufficient level of dominance within his own party until after the party itself had lost its predominant position in Czech politics. The institutional asymmetries that threatened accountability in Slovakia (and to a lesser extent in the Czech Republic) do not lend themselves to easy remedies. There are few practical methods for enforcing intraparty democracy within parties and little reason for thinking that such efforts could artificially maintain a balance of power. Charismatic leaders have a tendency to shape structures around themselves regardless of the wording of party statutes. Democracies cannot simply forbid such parties and must therefore attempt to contain them and keep them from acting on their more dangerous impulses. Here, the Slovak and Czech cases offer useful insights.

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Although the Slovak-Czech comparison does not shed light on the “big” institutional debate between presidentialism and parliamentarism, it does offer insights into the relative advantages of various electoral systems as “instruments of democracy” (Powell 2000) and as mechanisms for preserving accountability. The clearest way that leaders of new democracies (and perhaps in older democracies as well) can shape party behavior in ways that are good for accountability is to avoid institutional frameworks that overemphasize short-term electoral accountability at the expense of long-term accountability among institutions. In practice, those who write constitutions for new democracies should anticipate and actively discourage situations in which a single party can win a disproportionately large share of seats and form a government without the need to negotiate with other parties or institutions. Particularly dangerous in this regard are frameworks such as the Westminster model used in the United Kingdom and many former British colonies. The Westminster model encourages two-party competition and blends legislative and executive functions. The political history of the United Kingdom proves that democracy can thrive in such a system, but only as long as other formal and informal mechanisms exist to guarantee institutional accountability. When such ancillary mechanisms are absent, a parliamentary majority (based on a popular plurality) is free to do as it chooses. Without the restraint of tradition, it may well choose to undermine institutional protections surrounding political competition and undermine the very electoral accountability that Westminster systems are supposed to create (Powell 2000).57 Better institutional design is not the only necessary precaution, however. Both Slovakia and the Czech Republic employed highly proportional electoral systems that gave parliamentary representation to multiple parties. These competing interests slowed institutional encroachments and created opportunities for opposition parties to recover and respond, but Mecˇiar still nearly overcame the obstacles through a combination of good fortune, skillful coalition making, and intensive party building. Given the limits of even the best institutional frameworks, the most effective—ultimately the only—way for democracies to avoid encroachment is for voters to support parties that support institutional accountability even when it is in their short-term interest to pursue encroachments. This task is more complicated than it might seem, however. The attitudes of Slovakia’s parliamentary deputies offer a first glimpse that even strong elite support for institutional accountability may prove irrelevant if it is concentrated among those parties that

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are out of power. Although opponents of accountability were not much more numerous in Slovakia’s parliament than in the Czech Republic’s, their concentration on one side of Slovakia’s political spectrum created possibilities for Mecˇiar that had no parallel in the Czech Republic. When attitudinal and institutional differences align to create the issue divides discussed in Chapter 1, they change the whole nature of the political contest. As the next chapter shows, when issue divides develop around questions of accountability—as they did in Slovakia in the mid1990s—they create the possibility of rapid changes in the course of democratic development. As with the other aspects of party difference, furthermore, the questions of issue divides do not simply rest at the level of party elites but rather have roots in the attitudes of those parties’ voters.

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4

political outcomes in slovakia and the czech republic depended on parties, but parties depended on voters. Indeed, the party characteristics most closely associated with accountability violations were those most dependent on voters’ preferences: the popularity of particular leaders, the effectiveness of organization, the viability of coalitions, and the strength of parliamentary opposition. Yet it is too simple to say that voters in the two countries got what they wanted. Schedler (1999b) emphasizes the potential for a connection between institutional and electoral accountability, but he also emphasizes the complexity of that connection: “Rulers develop an interest in binding themselves through institutional mechanisms of accountability if voters punish them at the polls should they fail to do so,” but for governments to “discover the beauties of horizontal [institutional] accountability,” voters must be “both able and willing, and able to signal their willingness, to ‘throw the rascals out’ of unaccountable office” (334 – 35). The Slovak and Czech cases introduce yet more complications to this already-complex relationship. To understand the relatively greater strength of institutional accountability in the Czech Republic than in Slovakia during the 1990s, it is necessary to understand both the decisions of elites and the attitudes of voters’ toward accountability and toward political parties.1 Outcomes depended on whether voters favored accountability and on whether they thought that accountability was an important enough issue to shape their political choice. The question becomes further tangled to the extent that many—if not most—voters cast their ballots

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with something other than accountability on their minds and in their hearts. The impact of attitudes toward accountability thus depends in part on attitudes toward other political goals and on reasons for voting that have little to do with attitudes at all. In the terms of the model introduced in the first chapter, the different political trajectories of Slovakia and the Czech Republic depended less on raw attitudinal differences between the two countries than on differences in the relationship between attitudes and political choice, a relationship referred to in this book as an “issue divide.” The diverging and reconverging paths of the two countries reflected dissimilarities in issue divides related to questions of accountability, the economy, and the nation. The appeals of clientelism and charisma also played a role in shaping the two countries’ political differences, but these tended primarily to enhance already-existing issue divides.

The Importance of Attitudes Like their counterparts throughout the world, voters in Slovakia and the Czech Republic cast their ballots for an unimaginably wide variety of reasons, but one set of reasons tended to predominate: political choice in both countries depended to a high degree on attitudes related more or less directly to the political stances taken by parties. Separate streams of evidence suggest that these “programmatic” reasons for voting prevailed over the charismatic qualities of leaders or the individual benefits provided by clientelism. Voters themselves tended to evaluate their voting as programmatic. On a series of Central European University (1992 –96) survey questions that asked respondents to specify what they liked about particular parties, about one-fifth of all respondents in both countries referred directly to specific policies or political ideologies; whereas another fifth made more general reference to party program, performance, or credibility. In the same surveys only about one-quarter of the responses in both countries mentioned other clearly identifiable nonprogrammatic reasons for party voting, such as affection for particular political leaders, the relationship between parties and social groups, and particular aspects of party organization. Less subjective evaluations also confirm the strong programmatic basis on which Slovaks and Czechs tended to choose political parties. One of the starting points for determining the “programmatic structuration of party competition” is Tóka’s (1997) calculation of the degree

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to which particular parties possess their own, unique “issue advantages.” He derives his results from a series of questions on Central European University surveys that asked respondents “to tell which parties were the most, and which one was the least likely to pursue various political goals.” From these responses, Tóka calculates the degree to which a party is expected by the population as a whole to pursue a particular goal by subtracting the number of “least likely” mentions from the number of “most likely” mentions as a share of the entire population. Using data from the 1992 survey, Tóka finds the programmatic structuration of Slovak and Czech party systems to be extremely similar, and he concludes that “many more Czechs and Slovaks than Hungarians, [or] Poles can point to one or another party as the ‘owner’ of an issue” (20). Applying this method to all seven Central European University surveys conducted between 1992 and 1996 confirms Tóka’s initial findings. Every major party in the two countries received a strong issue ownership score on at least one issue, but no party received strong ownership scores on more than seven of the twelve issues studied, suggesting an awareness among respondents that no party would be equally likely to pursue every goal.2 Both the stability of issue ownership over time and distinctiveness of party ownership profiles were slightly higher in the Czech Republic than in Slovakia, but the differences were extremely slight and may have been artificially exacerbated by the choice of questions used in the survey.3 An important starting point for comparing the similarity of elite and mass attitudes is the aforementioned large-scale 1994 survey of parliamentary deputies sponsored by the University of Leiden and a similar survey from late 1993 sponsored by the University of Amsterdam. These two surveys include responses from the full spectrum of Slovakia’s political elites regarding policy questions. A comparison of party deputies’ responses with those of party voters on mass public-opinion surveys conducted around the same time reveals extremely high levels of correlation in both countries on questions such as the legal status of abortion, and nearly as high for questions regarding the proper degree of income distribution.4 Elite-level questions from the Leiden survey about the treatment of minority groups and government obedience to the law also show a high correlation between deputies and party voters in Slovakia. (Unfortunately, no available surveys of the Czech Republic from this period contain analogous questions.) The results of surveys conducted with party elites in the Czech Republic by Miller, White, and Heywood (1993), by Kitschelt, Brokl, and Mansfeldová (1994), and by

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the author (Krause 1996b) show a similarly strong relationship between the attitudes of elites and those of their supporters, as does the author’s own survey of twenty-one parliamentary deputies in Slovakia (Krause 1996 –97). As with the University of Amsterdam surveys, correlation on economic questions proved to be somewhat higher in the Czech Republic, whereas correlation on national and cultural questions was higher in Slovakia, a pattern that reemerges repeatedly with great significance in the sections to follow. It is also possible to assess the similarity between mass and elite positions by comparing opinion surveys of party supporters with party programs and public statements by party leaders. A systematic content analysis of nation-related items in the programs of political parties in Slovakia demonstrates an extremely strong relationship between parties’ public statements and the responses of party supporters on important political questions (Krause 1998b). The correspondence between the views of party elites and those of party voters appears to have been as least as strong in Slovakia as in the Czech Republic. There is no sign that the two populations differ meaningfully in the resonance of programmatic appeals in general. Two questions follow: How did the two populations differ in their response to particular issues? and, How did these differences relate to differences in the political outcomes of the two countries?

Accountability Attitudes: Minor Difference, Major Divide Because political attitudes relate closely to political preference in both countries, it is natural to conclude that Slovakia’s weaker institutional accountability during the mid-1990s simply reflected a population that was less convinced of the need for accountability. One line of reasoning common in scholarly literature (and even more common in the popular press) suggests that because Slovaks were more authoritarian, they were more likely to accept a more authoritarian leader. Available survey data, however, offers little support for that argument. Attitudes toward accountability did shape the diverging (and reconverging) political outcomes of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but not because the two populations held fundamentally different attitudes. More important by far were relationships between attitudes and political behavior. The emergence of a voter-level issue divide on questions related to accountability— corresponding to the divide among Slovakia’s

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parliamentary deputies found in the previous chapter—played a decisive role in shaping the swings between encroachment and restraint that caused Slovakia’s politics to differ so sharply from those of the Czech Republic.

Accountability as an Attitudinal Difference Many scholarly treatments of postcommunist democratization recognize the close relationship between elite and mass attitudes and conclude that Slovakia faced political problems because its population was simply too authoritarian for successful democratization (Ulcˇ 1993; Carpenter 1997; Meszaros 1999). Proponents of this view must of course explain the sudden turnaround of Slovakia’s democracy after 1998, but it is at least theoretically possible to contend that Slovaks had little inclination for accountability at first but later changed their minds. These arguments do not stand up to available attitudinal data (Henderson 2002). Finding appropriate data is the first challenge. Attitudes toward institutional accountability, although important for understanding Slovak and Czech democratization, are not easy to uncover. Except in unusual circumstances the principles that govern the interaction among institutions do not immediately concern ordinary citizens. Even if citizens did formulate opinions on the issue, the questions commonly used in opinion surveys often do not employ enough nuance to capture crucial differences. Even though the available set of questions and answers remains far from ideal, it is still possible to rely on a variety of questions about the use and abuse of political power and to piece together in mosaic fashion an image of public attitudes toward institutional accountability. The most frequently used questions focus on the manner of political leadership, with a particular emphasis on the degree to which leaders or their leadership should be strong (silné), hard, or firm (tvrdé, or pevné). Questions regarding “a firm hand,” “a strong hand,” “a strong individual,” or “a strong leader” were staples of comparative survey research in Slovakia and the Czech Republic during the 1990s. Other less frequent and less comparable questions involved the proper degree of legal restraints on political leaders and the need for opposition parties and independent media. Because pollsters tended to choose only one or two of these questions for any given survey, it is difficult to evaluate the consistency of response, but in the few surveys where multiple accountability-related questions appear together, they exhibited positive and statistically significant correlations (Academy of Sciences 1995;

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FOCUS 1992 –99).5 Although different in their phrasing, these questions share a common concern about the degree to which leaders encounter external restraint, and it is to these questions that this book refers when it discusses “accountability attitudes” and the “accountability divide.” Beginning in 1992 five comparative surveys conducted by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic employed a “strong-hand” question, and the results show Slovaks to be consistently more likely than Czechs to believe that it would “be better for our country to be ruled by a strong hand and someone who would clearly say what to do rather than lead discussions about different solutions to our problems.” The difference between Slovaks and Czechs averages almost nine percentage points and does not drop in any case below five. Yet among other surveys the results are far more mixed. Four surveys confirm this pattern found by the Academy of Sciences surveys (Central European University 1992 –96; Rose and Haerpfer 2003; FOCUS 1992 –99). Four other surveys conducted between 1991 and 1995 find a reverse pattern or find no difference at all (AISA 1991; Miller, White, and Heywood 1993; FOCUS 1992 –99; Academy of Sciences 1995). Discussing these results, the authors of the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Transformation and Modernization survey admit their “surprise” and acknowledge that “the differences of opinions between Czechs and Slovaks in questions of the development of democracy correspond poorly to the mass-media picture of the two republics” (Kroupa 1996, 2). Some of this instability could be explained by differences in the wording of questions, but results have little systematic relationship to the wording. Context likewise offers no simple answers. Kroupa argues that questions referring to a “strong hand” may systematically understate the differences between the two countries because Slovaks might associate the description with Mecˇiar, whereas Czechs would be more likely to associate the same term with the somewhat less extreme positions taken by Klaus (Kroupa 1996). Different wording yields no difference in results, however. A more explicitly neutral question asked by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Research (1993 –99) uses the phrase “strong leader” but limits the contextual differences by identifying a specific set of outcomes: “If we could find a strong leader who we thought could solve our country’s problems, I wouldn’t care if that leader took away many of the political freedoms we’ve gained since the fall of communism.” Responses to this question followed the standard pattern defined previously. Respondents in Slovakia were more likely than Czechs to prefer a strong leader—but the degree of difference was

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almost imperceptible, averaging only three percentage points in the period between 1992 and 1999 and never exceeding six percentage points. Other potential contextual differences can be avoided by excluding reference to “strong men” altogether and using questions that leave less to the imagination. Surveys conducted by Plasser and Ulram employed questions about “the dissolution of parliament and the abolition of parties,” which obtained far less overall support in either country than questions about “strong-man” rule (1996). When this more specific question on Parliament and parties was asked in the Slovak and Czech republics as part of the New Democracies Barometer surveys between 1992 and 1998, it yielded no consistent pattern and a mean difference over time of only two percentage points.6 Likewise, on a U.S. Department of State survey question about the necessity for democracy of “at least two strong political parties competing in elections,” Slovak and Czech response differed on average by only one percentage point across several years of surveys. Other questions produced a similar pattern of overall similarity punctuated by occasional samples showing large differences. In their efforts to explain the unexpected similarity between Slovakia and the Czech Republic on accountability questions, the researchers responsible for the Academy of Sciences’ Transformation and Modernization survey (1995) pointed to other questions that showed majoritarian tendencies among respondents from Slovakia: two questions—“An important element of democracy is the protection of the rights and freedoms of those who lose elections” and “A parliamentary opposition is indispensable for the good of a country”— evoked differences of nearly ten percentage points. These conclusions do not receive unanimous support, however. Of the five other available surveys that include questions about majoritarianism, three showed Slovaks to be more majoritarian, and two others found respondents in Slovakia to be slightly less likely than their Czech counterparts to agree that “the majority has the right to decide even at the expense of the minority” (FOCUS 1992 –99). All of these studies found margins of difference that were considerably smaller than those obtained by the Transformation and Modernization survey. The same irregular pattern emerges in responses to questions that contrast freedom of expression and state control. A broadly phrased question asked by Central European University about the importance of “preserving freedom of speech and democracy in our country” found only a small difference between Slovaks and Czechs, a difference that declined gradually over time and nearly disappeared by the final

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Central European University survey. Several related questions regarding specific aspects of free expression found similarly small gaps and even occasional reversals in the expected differences between Slovaks and Czechs. A 1991 AISA survey found Czechs more likely than Slovaks to believe that “everybody should have the right to publish what they want” by a difference of eight percentage points, but a FOCUS (1992 –99) survey conducted in the following year found Czechs more likely to believe that “to prevent moral decline, it is necessary to censure magazines and movies.” In a similarly contradictory pair of surveys, the Academy of Sciences’ Transformation and Modernization survey (1995) found a ten-percentage-point difference in mean scores on a question on the need “to monitor the press, radio and television so that they do not jeopardize the policy of democratic government”; whereas a 1994 FOCUS survey found Slovaks and Czechs in almost perfect agreement on the degree to which “government should directly control the activity of television, radio, and the press” (FOCUS 1992 –99). The same FOCUS survey found that Slovaks and Czechs disagreed by less than one percentage point about the importance of rights of free speech and free assembly and by only two percentage points about the right to a free press. A U.S. Department of State question about the need for “freedom to criticize the government” in democracy produced almost identical responses by Slovaks and Czechs, with differences averaging only two percentage points in four surveys conducted between 1993 and 1999. Slovaks and Czechs thus cannot be differentiated on the basis of majoritarian thinking or respect for rights any more easily than on the basis of desire for a strong leader. Even taking into account differences in the contextual meaning of these questions, the differences between Slovaks and Czechs were so small that it is difficult to attribute to them the major differences in political practice that emerged during the mid-1990s. If institutional accountability depended solely upon popular preferences, then the Czech Republic, with a very similar set of attitudes in its own population, avoided Slovakia’s fate by a margin of only two or three percentage points. Of course, popular preference alone does not determine accountability among institutions. If it did, then all those postcommunist countries whose populations expressed greater preference for a strong hand than Slovakia—a list that includes not only Russia and Belarus but also neighboring Poland and Hungary—should have faced similar problems with institutional accountability (Rose and Haerpfer 2003; U.S. Department of State Office of Research 1993 –99). Furthermore, if raw

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popular preference indeed determined outcomes on accountability questions, then the level of accountability in Slovakia should have followed the relatively stable course indicated by the opinion surveys rather than abrupt reversals described in Chapter 2.

Accountability as an Issue Divide The lack of direct relationship between attitudes about accountability and the actual exercise of accountability raises important questions: If the attitudes of Slovaks and Czechs differed little in their preference for accountability, then either Slovaks got more than they wanted or Czechs got less. What kept at least one of these two populations from having the kind of government it wanted? What prevented the translation of relatively moderate views about accountability into a moderately accountable government? The beginnings of an answer lie in the relationship between accountability attitudes and party preference. A difference in the connection between attitudes and political choice can produce a significant effect on how those attitudes translate into political outcomes. Despite their importance, the connections between attitudes and political behavior are not always obvious and often require a more thorough investigation. Surveys rarely ask respondents to explain why they voted for a particular party, and in any case it is difficult to construct a set of questions that captures the real complexity of such decisions (which may account for the rarity of such questions in surveys). Even when such questions do appear on surveys, they rarely reveal much of a connection with political choice. It is therefore necessary to use a variety of indirect methods to show the relationship between what people believe and how they vote. One of the most methodologically sophisticated approaches to the relationship between attitudes and votes appears in Kitschelt et al.’s (1999) analysis of four cases in Central and Eastern Europe. They use a variety of statistical tests to calculate the relationship between attitudes and party preference, measuring indirectly the “degree to which politicians of rival parties find it worth advertising policies in the hope of swaying voters who may otherwise opt for alternative parties” (255). Looking both at elite and mass opinion, they offer standards for determining the degree to which particular issues structure party competition. Unfortunately, the surveys used by Kitschelt et al. do not include questions about accountability, and accountability issue divides therefore do not play a significant role in their analysis, nor does their elaborate quantitative

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survey include Slovakia. Furthermore, the tests applied by Kitschelt et al. do not detect other significant differences between Slovakia and the Czech Republic regarding the accountability divides. It is necessary, therefore, to reexamine both Slovakia and the Czech Republic using other sources of data and other methods for extracting useful results from the available information. Kitschelt et al. begin their assessment of issue divides by looking at the salience of particular issues. They acknowledge, however, that salience does not lend itself to direct measurement, even at the level of political elites, where party programs and legislative agendas help structure opinions. At the mass level, patterns of salience emerging from survey data are difficult to interpret, particularly on relatively vague questions touching on accountability. Few surveys during the 1990s asked about the importance of accountability-related issues, and few respondents in either country mentioned questions of accountability among the main problems of the day, opting instead for more immediate questions of health care, crime, and the standard of living.7 Faced with the same lack of resources for evaluating salience, Kitschelt et al. examine the relationships among survey responses on a range of attitudinal questions, contending that more salient issues tend to encompass a larger number of specific issues and not just one or two minor points. This method suggests a considerably stronger accountability divide in Slovakia because relationships among accountability-related questions (the need for a strong leader, government control of television, respect for the constitution, and the acceptance of legal transgressions by leaders for the public good) prove stronger there than in the Czech Republic. Kitschelt’s second measure, coherence of attitudes, poses smaller challenges of measurement but greater challenges of interpretation. Surveys of both countries repeatedly show a narrower distribution of accountability-related attitudes within party electorates than in the population as a whole, suggesting the emergence of specific party profiles. On average, accountability-related opinion distributions for major parties were slightly narrower for major parties in Slovakia than for those in the Czech Republic, and the difference increased over time. An alternative measure of coherence—the average correlation between support for particular parties and support for accountability—produces parallel results (Central European University 1992 –96; Miller, White, and Heywood 1993; Academy of Sciences 1995). The clearest and most significant differences between Slovaks and Czechs emerge from Kitschelt’s third indicator: the distinctiveness of

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