Abstract
The goal of the paper is to systematize and analyze the political actors at the local and regional level and its relations with the national level in the Czech Republic. The rise of new political movements, the growth of populism and changing electoral behavior can be observed not only at the national level, but also at the local and regional level.
In addition with specific legislation, conditions for candidature and number of different political actors at the local and regional level in the Czech Republic, the theme is worth of the interest. The issues related to local or regional parties or other actors at this level have been already examined by several scholars (in the CCE countries, for example, Balík, Jüptner, Ryšavý, Illner, Klimovský, Pinterič and others).
Similarly, the number of authors elaborated on the internal structure of political parties and movements. The ambition of this paper is, however, to integrate both approaches and offer a comprehensive approach to political actors at the local and regional level in the Czech Republic, in terms of both different types of actors and their internal structure and relationship with the national level.
First, the actors will be identified and systematized according to their occurrence at the local and regional level; in the second part of the article the actors will be analyzed based on the functioning and the internal structure. The conclusion, in addition to clarifying the wide range of actors, is to explain the specifics of local and regional "party" systems and to clarify their effects both towards the center and towards each other.