DIRECTIONS of ELECTORAL PROCESSES in PRESENT- DAY SLOVAKIA Yevheniy HAYDANKA
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VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2, JULY 2021 AUTHORITARIZATION OR DEMOCRATIZATION: DIRECTIONS OF ELECTORAL PROCESSES IN PRESENT- DAY SLOVAKIA Yevheniy HAYDANKA THE CONCEPT OF NATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE SLOVAK RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS Radoslav ŠTEFANČÍK and Eva STRADIOTOVÁ IS CULTURE A SPECIAL ‘HUB’ POLICY AREA FOR CO-CREATION? Sanja VRBEK and Irene PLUCHINOTTA POLITICAL MAP OF ARGENTINA AFTER 2019 ELECTIONS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES Katarína BROCKOVÁ, Rudolf KUCHARČÍK and Tetyana ZUBRO GLOBAL AND NATIONAL PARADOXES IN RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 CRISIS Marjan MALEŠIČ COVID-19 AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (POLICIES): A YEAR OF PERILOUS AD-HOC SOLUTIONS Milan BRGLEZ, Boštjan UDOVIČ and Amalija MAČEK THE RUSSO-CHINESE AND CENTRAL ASIAN FOSSIL FUELS TRADE: DIVERSIFICATION AND THE GEO-ECONOMIC BALANCE OF POWER Davor BOBAN and Valentino PETROVIĆ JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 2 EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-Chief General Editor Miro HačeK Peter Csányi ................................................................. ................................................................ University of Ljubljana University of Economics in Bratislava Faculty of social sciences, CAAPPI Faculty of International Relations Kardeljeva ploščad 5 Dolnozemská 1, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia 852 35 Bratislava 5, Slovakia [email protected] [email protected] General Editor General Editor Jurij ToplaK Simona KuKovič .................................................................. .................................................................. Alma Mater Europa ea University of Ljubljana European Center Maribor (AMEU-ECM) Faculty of social sciences, CAAPPI Gosposka ulica 1 Kardeljeva ploščad 5 2000 Maribor, Slovenia 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia [email protected] [email protected] ...................................................................................... Articles appearing in JCP, are abstracted and indexed in following bibliographical databases: Scopus (SNIP IF=0.55/2018), Web of Science ESCI, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, International Political Science Abstracts, ProQuest Political Science, International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS), JournalSeek, UlrichsWeb, I2OR Database and Universal Impact Factor. EDITORIAL BOARD Marjan BREZOVŠEK, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Ladislav CABADA, Metropolitan University Prague, Czech Republic Fernando CASAL BERTOA, University of Nottingham, UK Đorđe GARDAŠEVIĆ, University of Zagreb, Croatia ViCtoria GRAHAM, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Pavol HRIVIK, Alexander Dubcek University of Trenčin, Slovakia Lars JOHANNSEN, Aarhus University, Denmark Kenneth KA-LOK CHAN, Hong Kong Baptist University, China Damir KAPIDŽIĆ, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Rudolf KUCHARČÍK, University of Economics Bratislava, Slovakia Lisa MCINTOSH SUNDSTROM, University of British Columbia, Canada RiCCardo PELIZZO, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan EriC PHÉLIPPEAU, University Paris Nanterre, France Meredith REDLIN, South Dakota State University, USA Andrius ŠUMINAS, Vilnius University, Lithuania MiChael TKACIK, Stephen F. Austin State University, USA Taro TSUKIMURA, Doshisha University Kyoto, Japan Pablo VIDAL, Catholic University of Valencia, Spain Nebojša VLADISLAVLJEVIĆ, University of Belgrade, Serbia Werner WEIDENFELD, University of Munich, Germany Reuben WONG, National University of Singapore, Singapore George Vital ZAMMIT, University of Malta, Malta Mattia ZULIANELLO, University of Birmingham, UK CO-PUBLISHERS Faculty of International Relations University of Economics in Bratislava Dolnozemská 1, 852 35 Bratislava 5, Slovakia Centre for analysis of administrative-political processes and institutions (CAAPPI) University of Ljubljana, Faculty of social sciences Kardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Alma Mater Europaea - European Center Maribor (AMEU-ECM) Gosposka ulica 1, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia DESIGN CAAPPI, Ljubljana. Journal of Comparative Politics is published twice a year, in January and July. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 AUTHORITARIZATION OR DEMOCRATIZATION: DIRECTIONS OF ELECTORAL PROCESSES IN PRESENT-DAY SLOVAKIA Yevheniy HAYDANKA ............................................................................................................................................................................ 17 THE CONCEPT OF NATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE SLOVAK RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS Radoslav ŠTEFANČÍK and Eva STRADIOTOVÁ ............................................................................................................................................................................ 34 IS CULTURE A SPECIAL ‘HUB’ POLICY AREA FOR CO-CREATION? Sanja VRBEK and Irene PLUCHINOTTA ............................................................................................................................................................................ 53 POLITICAL MAP OF ARGENTINA AFTER 2019 ELECTIONS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES Katarína BROCKOVÁ, Rudolf KUCHARČÍK and Tetyana ZUBRO ............................................................................................................................................................................ 66 GLOBAL AND NATIONAL PARADOXES IN RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 CRISIS Marjan MALEŠIČ ............................................................................................................................................................................ 81 COVID-19 AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (POLICIES): A YEAR OF PERILOUS AD-HOC SOLUTIONS Milan BRGLEZ, Boštjan UDOVIČ and Amalija MAČEK ............................................................................................................................................................................ 98 THE RUSSO-CHINESE AND CENTRAL ASIAN FOSSIL FUELS TRADE: DIVERSIFICATION AND THE GEO-ECONOMIC BALANCE OF POWER Davor BOBAN and Valentino PETROVIĆ ............................................................................................................................................................................ PARTICIPATE For further information on submissions, please consult the guidelines at http://www.jofcp.org. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS ◎ vol. 14 ◎ no. 2 ◎ 2021 4 AUTHORITARIZATION OR DEMOCRATIZATION: DIRECTIONS OF ELECTORAL PROCESSES IN PRESENT-DAY SLOVAKIA Yevheniy HAYDANKA1 ……………………………………………………………………….…………………………………… V-Dem experts have proposed an empirical methodology to determine the dynamics of authoritarianism/democratization of the electoral process (Electoral Democracy Index). In the Slovak Republic, the successful institutional reforms of the late 1990s and early 2000s, followed by the deepening and implementation of Euro- integration processes, were among the main factors affecting the electoral process democracy level. Factors influencing the authoritarianization of electoral processes include the relationship between the voter turnout and the electoral process transparency, radicalization of the political party space, and the dominance of one political actor in the party system and government structures (SMER-SD). Slovakia managed to go through all possible stages in the electoral process dynamics, this accounting for the complex democratic transformation of the country, e.g.: the decline of authoritarianism (1993–2000), stagnation (2001–2016), and increasing authoritarianism (2017–2019). In early 2020, parliamentary elections, following a deep political and governmental crisis, became an electoral snapshot of Slovak society. Key words: V-Dem; Electoral Democracy Index; electoral process authoritarianization; electoral process democratization; Slovak parliamentary elections. 1 INTRODUCTION A number of exogenous and endogenous factors determine the success or failure of transition countries on their path to a consolidated democracy. An effective and transparent electoral process is a necessary political mechanism that ensures political pluralism in the making. Eventually, the quality of the political elite and the level of political (electoral) activity of citizens can dramatically increase the new democratic regime legitimacy. On the other hand, in the post- socialist era, electoral fraud and administrative resource abuse are often looked upon as much more effective means of legitimizing hybrid political regimes 1 Yevheniy HAYDANKA, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Trnava University, Slovak Republic. Contact: [email protected]. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 5 (those belonging neither to the old model of authoritarianism nor to underdeveloped political procedures of the new democracy). Following more than two decades of democratic transformations, some post- socialist countries tend to lean to the authoritarian leadership. For instance, a more liberal type of the so-called “illiberal democracy” (Zakaria 2007) manifested itself in the Slovak Republic (Wiatr 2018, 8). Among other former socialist countries, Slovakia is the one with traceable struggles between authoritarian and democratic tendencies in electoral processes. The country was able to overcome the complexities of the post-socialist era and successfully complete the formation of new democratic elites in the 1990s. In 2000, Slovakia implemented effective institutional reforms with the purpose of Euro-Atlantic integration, trying to adapt to the new conditions, arising out of EU membership. In the second decade of the 2000s, the Slovak party system begins to display signs of monopolization, this fact leading to the development of what could