J 2022

Strange Bedfellows : A Hyper-pragmatic Alliance between European Liberals and an Illiberal Czech Technocrat

HLOUŠEK, Vít and Lubomír KOPEČEK

Basic information

Original name

Strange Bedfellows : A Hyper-pragmatic Alliance between European Liberals and an Illiberal Czech Technocrat

Authors

HLOUŠEK, Vít (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution) and Lubomír KOPEČEK (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution)

Edition

East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications, 2022, 0888-3254

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Článek v odborném periodiku

Field of Study

50601 Political science

Country of publisher

United States of America

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

References:

Impact factor

Impact factor: 0.700

RIV identification code

RIV/00216224:14230/22:00118765

Organization unit

Faculty of Social Studies

UT WoS

000572750100001

Keywords in English

Andrej Babiš; the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE); ideology; Europarties; Czech Republic

Tags

Tags

International impact, Reviewed
Změněno: 31/1/2022 23:09, Mgr. Blanka Farkašová

Abstract

V originále

The article deals with the membership of the most important Czech political party, ANO (meaning “yes” in Czech), led by Andrej Babiš, in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Our goals are to reconstruct how Babiš’s party joined ALDE and to discuss the ideological differences between ANO and ALDE. The paper shows that ALDE’s offer of membership in 2014 was motivated by a pragmatic need to bolster its own position in the European Parliament; ANO, meanwhile, needed to anchor itself in European politics. Andrej Babiš’s technocratic and illiberal view was not apparent at the beginning, but more importantly, this did not matter to ALDE. ALDE’s Czech “point of contact,” ANO’s foreign policy expert and the leader of its party group in the European Parliament, Pavel Telička, made ANO’s membership credible. However, as a Euro-optimist, Telička was not compatible with ANO’s flexible ideological character in the long term and the party group split up. A comparison of the parties’ European Parliament election manifestos and positions on crucial controversial European issues clearly reveals a deep division between ALDE and ANO and their fundamentally opposed ideological positions. We describe the findings as a new hyper-pragmatic trend in the creation of Europarties, which weakens their ideological cohesion.

In Czech

Článek se věnuje členství ANO Andreje Babiše v Alianci liberálů a demokratů pro Evropu (ALDE). Cíli článku je rekonstruovat cestu ANO do ALDE a debatovat ideologické rozdíly mezi ANO a ALDE. Text ukazuje hluboký rozdíl mezi ALDE a ANO a fundamentální neslučitelnost jejich ideologických pozic, což dokládá hyperpragmatický trend v podobě Eurostran.

Links

GA17-02226S, research and development project
Name: Političtí podnikatelé: Česká republika v komparativní perspektivě
Investor: Czech Science Foundation

Files attached