The idea of sovereignty of the people offers a concept which allows searching for legitimacy of power. The legitimacy of power is one of the key structures establishing a relation between those who govern and those who are governed. Whether this relation is accepted, acceptable, functional, desirable or undesirable is a matter of finding the very definition of sovereignty of the people as such. The aim of this doctoral thesis, titled The Concept of Sovereignty of the People and the Political Party System in the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918 - 1938) and in the Czech Republic since 1993, is, firstly, to define the concepts of the people, on one hand, and sovereignty, on the other hand, in the historical, political and legal context from the ancient times up to now while reflecting the role of political parties in relation to the sovereignty of the people. Secondly, this thesis aims at exploring and describing the functioning of the party systems in the interwar Czechoslovakia and in the Czech Republic after 1993. Thirdly, this thesis seeks to answer the following questions: who represents the people in liberal democracies which are based on sovereignty of the people; how do the people exercise their power; and what is the role of the political parties in this process.

Notre doctorat se propose d'étudier les bases de construction du système partisan dans les pays post-communistes et les facteurs externes ou internes de son évolution. Les transformations après 1989 étaient supposées suivre une logique séquentielle comprenant quelques étapes incontournables - l'organisation des élections libres, l'adoption de nouvelles Constitutions, la réforme du corpus juridique et des administrations, l'harmonisation européenne, etc. Les attentes étaient que l'intégration européenne soit la force motrice pour une stabilisation graduelle des institutions et des normes juridiques et qu'elle contribue, à terme, à une progressive convergence des façons de faire est-européennes par rapport aux règles et pratiques en vigueur au sein de l'Union européenne. La présente recherche de thèse a pour objectif d'aborder la construction des systèmes de partis politiques dans les pays de l'Europe centrale et orientale dans un triple logique: celle des caractéristiques structurelles des arènes politiques, des jeux stratégiques des acteurs politiques et du rôle de la variable européenne. Or, malgré l'avancement de l'intégration dans l'Union européenne, l'atmosphère d'une crise permanente se développe au sein des PECO, ainsi que des cycles de désillusion qui accroissent les chances pour les partis non traditionnels et populistes de trouver leur place sur les scènes politiques nationales. Notre recherche est menée de façon comparative et son champ couvre trois pays: la Bulgarie, la Roumanie et la Slovaquie. / Our research work proposes to study the basis of the construction of the political party systems in post-communist countries and the internal and external factors affecting their evolution. The post 1989 changes were supposed to follow a sequential logic comprising certain inevitable steps - organization of free elections; the adoption of new constitutions, judiciary and administration reform, European harmonization etc, The expectation being that European integration would act as the driving force towards a gradual stabilization of the institutions and of the legal standards and that it would contribute, ultimately, to a progressive convergence of East European practices with those already in place within the European Union. The objective of this research thesis is to tackle the construction of the political party system in Central and Eastern Europe in the triple logic of: the structural characteristics of the political arena, the strategy of the main political actors and the role that the European variable played. Despite the progresses of the integration within the European Union, the atmosphere of permanent crisis and the "cycles of disillusionment" within the CEEC increase the chance that non-traditional and populist parties find a place within the national political scenes. Our research is conducted in a comparative way and its scope covers three countries: Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia.