engleski

The Many Faces of Liberalism: Liberal Parties in Central Europe

The first objective of this paper is to draw attention to liberal parties, a party family previously neglected and poorly researched. The next task is to provide a detailed description of the liberal parties that have emerged in European post-communist party systems. Further, I wish to classify and place these parties into a broader context. Liberalism as a political ideology has many faces. This diversity reflects itself in the various shapes liberal parties take. Thus, an important part of this paper is a classification of post-communist liberal parties in the EU into party subtypes. This should occur according to the following criteria: pro-European/Eurosceptic, cosmopolitan/nationalist, socially reformist/socially traditional and state- oriented/market-oriented. These criteria can determine whether a party is a social liberal or a classical liberal party. Further, we can group parties according to their level of support for European integration. Finally, we can differentiate liberal parties into those advocating a post-national, cosmopolitan approach to politics and those wishing to maintain a clear national outlook. Following that is an attempt to detect common traits shared by liberal parties in a subregion of post-communist EU – Central Europe, comprising the Visegrád Group (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) and Slovenia and Croatia.

liberalism ; party system ; policy convergence ; EU ; Central Europe

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