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Reconstruction of the state: Lobbying against political corruption in the Czech Republic
Author(s) -
Perottino Michel,
Stauber Jakub,
Šárovec Daniel
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of public affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.221
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1479-1854
pISSN - 1472-3891
DOI - 10.1002/pa.2054
Subject(s) - distrust , politics , language change , legislature , czech , state (computer science) , context (archaeology) , competitor analysis , political science , public administration , public relations , face (sociological concept) , political communication , political economy , sociology , law , economics , management , social science , art , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , literature , algorithm , computer science , biology
High level of distrust in political elites accompanied with a strong perception of corruption in Czech Republic has led to an increase of several anti‐corruption nongovernmental organisations' activities. About 18 organisations have created in 2013 an open coalition and established a project called “Reconstruction of the State” (Rekonstrukce státu). This project is oriented towards political parties and political elites to lead them to adopt nine anti‐corruption legislative proposals. This paper analyses how the project operates in its formal and informal aspects, which communication means are preferred and how the lobbyists interact with the politicians and political parties. Apart from the analysis of publicly available pieces of information from the project's website and official printed materials, semistructured interviews with activists and field research were performed. It can be seen that Reconstruction of the state has been most successful regarding agenda‐setting, but in the context of the legislative process, it has to face many obstacles either from legislators themselves or competitors with different goals.