Until 2012 the Czech Republic was almost unambiguously classified as a parliamentary regime. However, in 2012, the previous scholarly consensus concerning the classification of the Czech Republic dissolved, and ‘post-Duvergerian’ scholars now regard the Czech regime as semi-presidential. The article works with the original Duvergerian definition into which it introduces the new concept of semi-presidentialism, which is based on presidential powers. The article applies this new concept to the Czech regime for the period since the first directly elected president, Miloš Zeman, took office. Enjoying a legitimacy advantage, Zeman broke with the constitutional conventions that had hitherto been followed and appointed a cabinet headed by Jiří Rusnok without consulting with the parliamentary parties and in opposition to their original opinion. This attempt to change Czech parliamentary practice nevertheless failed: the Rusnok cabinet lost the vote of confidence in parliament and further attempts by Zeman to shift constitutional practice in favour of the Office of the President and to acquire greater influence over the Executive were unsuccessful. The Czech political regime should therefore still be classified as a parliamentary regime.
In terms of political performance the Czech Republic of the 1990s was considered as a very successful post‑communist country. Today’s situation is different. The Czech Republic felt into deep political inefficiency. This paper aims to show the core and causes of the current crisis of the Czech politics. It briefly introduces the rather temporary and circumstantial success of the Czech politics in the 1990s. Then it analyzes the onset of the crisis as well as reasons, which led to a deterioration of the Czech politics at the turn of the 21st century. It recognizes three essential dimensions of the Czech political inefficiency: a crisis of confidence when it comes to politics, a crisis of the Czech party system and the weakness of the Czech parliamentary regime.
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