Šumava national park and interests ofd municipalities in its area: a case of post-material cleavage?
Abstract
Environmental activists binded to trees, demonstrations, petitions and disputes inside the ruling coalition are examples of phenomena that accompany a conflict about Šumava National Park. Although the conflict is based in a relatively small territory, it entered the general discussion and beside local governments and environmental groups it involves many other actors.
From the establishment of NP, the clash of two completely different sets of ideas occur. There are representatives of local governments on one hand, for whom the NP is one of the main sources of incomes, and environmentalists on the other hand, who seek the minimum possible interference.
This paper proposes to examine the present dispute through the concept of cleavages of s. M.
Lipset and S. Rokkan, with an emphasis on post-material dimension, which is connected with R.
Inglehart. It uses the definition of cleavage by S.
Bartolini and P. Mair.
The paper presents the context of the dispute, institutional settings of actors and the most famous manifestations of the conflict. It also analyzes the attitudes of actors and examines how the dispute is reflected at various levels of the political system and if fulfills empirical, normative and institutional aspects of chosen definition.