On the Way to Limited Competitiveness: Political Consequences of the 2011 Electoral Reform in Hungary

This article tests the effects of a new electoral system in Hungary that was introduced by the governing FIDESZ party in 2011. We are especially concerned with the shape of single-member district (SMD) level electoral competition following a significant transformation that tends to be viewed as serving FIDESZ's goal of preserving its constitutional majority. The results show not only transformation of Hungarian electoral politics between 2010 and 2018 elections but also the fact that the return of bipolarization is far from reality in Hungarian electoral politics. On one hand, the reform resulted in an increased number of districts with clear dominance of the two strongest parties nationally, but on the other hand, this trend was connected to asymmetrical bipartism, with clear advantage of the FIDESZ. Furthermore, there was a persistently high number of SMDs where the competition took place between the FIDESZ and one of the third-place parties.     

Testing Duvergerʼs law: strategic voting in Mongolian elections, 1996–2004

Recent empirical research on voting in single-member districts, based on extensive data-sets of election results, has demonstrated the general (although not universal) validity of Duverger’s law (i.e. that the average outcome under plurality rule is generally consistent with two-party competition). This article tests Duverger’s law through analysis of a data-set covering Mongolian parliamentary elections in the period of 1996–2004. The results show consistent, but not linear, movement towards the Duvergerian equilibrium in Mongolia, with large part of the districts conforming to the Duvergerian norm of two-party competition. Duverger treated his law merely as an important tendency but insisted that social forces are the main determinants of the number of political parties. The main factor that limited Mongolian voters’ rationality, and created problems with their strategic ability to distinguish and abandon hopeless candidates, was weak institutionalization of the Mongolian party system. Finally, I prove that the emergence of bipolar party politics was not an immediate process and will continue over a series of elections, supporting the so-called “learning hypothesis.”     

A Spatial Analysis of Czech Parliamentary Elections, 2006–2013

This article presents a spatial analysis of the parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic between 2006 and 2013. Among most political parties with long-term parliamentary representation, right-wing parties had higher support in areas with a high development potential and left-wing parties in areas with a low development potential. However, similar congruence between electoral support and development potential was not found in the case of most new parties. Spatial regression analyses then show that class conflict has ceased to be the unambiguous primary factor of political competition in the Czech Republic. This finding is further supported by the often inconclusive estimates for most new parties, which showed their ability to mobilise voters from different social classes.     

The relationship between competition and efficiency of waste-collection services in the Czech Republic

This paper examines the role of the competition on the waste-collection market. Based on the case study of the Czech Republic, we evaluate the influence of competition intensity on supply side of the market on efficiency of waste-collection services. The rate of competition was approximated by the number of submitted bids to public tenders and efficiency was measured by per capita expenditures for municipal waste-collection services. We developed two regression models – the first model verified a competitive effect on the public procurement market for the provision of waste-collection services; the second model identified factors that affected municipal expenditures for waste-collection services per capita. We concluded that the competition in the waste-collection market increases by organising open tenders for suppliers at regular intervals, by adapting the duration of contracts to economic life of fixed assets, by sustaining pressure on service providers through a change in suppliers or the distribution of contracts among jurisdictions.     

A Sociology of Dependence in International Relations Theory: A Case of Russian Liberal IR

This article addresses the question of interaction between Western and "non-Western" international relations (IR) by analyzing liberal theory of IR that is emerging in contemporary Russia. We argue that, despite a growing diversity within Russian scholarship of liberal orientation, it remains largely a product of Western, particularly American, intellectual hegemony, and more so than any other theoretical perspective. As compared to two other existing traditions in Russian IR—realism and critical studies—liberalism remains the most dependent and therefore must be explored before any other traditions as a crucial case for understanding the dialectic of cultural dependence and hegemony in production of global knowledge. We argue that the greater dependence of Russian liberal IR results from its relatively weak indigenous tradition, perception of Russia's material weakness as opportunity, and greater availability of Western research funds. We also discuss an alternative, less dependent version of Russian liberal IR, and opportunities that its existence implies for development of a global, de-centered international relations theory.