Kvantitativní analýza působení vyšetřovacích komisí Poslanecké sněmovny v letech 1996–2006
The Commissions of Inquiry of the Czech Chamber of Deputies: Quantitative Analysis of their Functioning between 1996 and 2006

Summary/Abstract: This article analyzes one of the most controversial subjects of the Czech political system, the Commissions of Inquiry of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. Such commissions are regularly established to lead enquires on important events of public interest. Review of scholarly sources offers two contrasting views of commissions. Either they function as a tool of the entire Parliament to control the executive, or as a tool of parliamentary opposition against the government. Both competing hypotheses are tested by employing quantitative methods. The data come from a completely new dataset created by the author that is based on voting patterns of political groups in cases related to commissions of inquiry. Graphical and numeral results of statistical analysis confirm that commissions in the Czech Chamber of Deputies usually serve as an instrument of political struggle between opposition and government (coalition). This claim, however, is only tentative and needs to be supported by further qualitative analysis of the functioning of commissions of inquiry.

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