The study focuses on budget policy implementation at the level of local governments in Slovakia in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. The research problem focuses on identifying shortfalls in initially planned funds to local government budgets caused by the COVID-19 crisis and the potential ways individual local governments in Slovakia have been able to cover them. The aim of the study is to identify the accepted crisis mechanisms for solving financial shortfalls in local budgets due to the pandemic situation. In the descriptive-analytical study qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Available information on Slovakia indicates several main findings. It has been confirmed the pandemic had negative effects for of all local governments nationwide, regardless of the status of the town or municipality. The municipal fiscal imbalance as a result of the Covid-19 crisis and municipal financial resources are not commensurate and the most important tool that municipalities have the opportunity to use is their reserve funds. Consequently, they have become highly dependent on repayable financial assistance from the state. The authors contribute to the ongoing debate about the current Covid-19 crisis and its consequences for local government finance.

This paper deals with the issue of participatory budgeting as one of the newer tools of political participation. Its aim is to characterise the current situation in the Slovak Republic at two levels of territorial self-administration (self-governing regions and municipalities). To reach defined aims, it monitors the existence of legislative settings at the national level, the existence of individual settings at the observed levels and subsequently the practical application of the participatory budgeting itself. Procedures associated with the study of documents are used in article; the obtained data are summarized, described and compared mutually. In addition to laws and regulations issued by self-government units, the source of data is also the regional and local self-government units’ official websites. In the absence of one universal definition of the participatory budgeting rules at the national level, the findings have shown that there are relatively extensive conditions for implementing participatory budgeting with its specific settings defined by self-administrations. In Slovakia, participatory budgeting is only gradually introduced into the internal rules, which reflects a relatively small number of municipalities or self-governing regions, which ultimately use it effectively.

This is an exploratory cross-case analysis of political communication strategies of selected youth political organizations on the social network Facebook. The main objectives of this paper are to capture the topics and frequency of posting of Youth Political Organization on Facebook. Secondary, the study aims to capture the analytical approach categories/objectives: themes and actors. It focuses on the 3-month period from December 2020 to February 2021. Relevant youth political organizations in Slovakia and the Czech Republic are compared with youth political organizations operating at the European level. The organizations either belong directly to the kin political party or have the status of a supporting organization. At the European level, they are also affiliated to a European political party or are a supporting organization of a European political party. The data source is the official profiles of youth political organizations on the social network Facebook. Data processing is based on content analysis of published posts. Content analysis focuses on topics, the frequency of topics, the occurrence of keywords in the overall set of posts, and identifying attitudes to topics. The obtained data are evaluated by descriptive statistics. The presentation of the data is supplemented by tables, including graphical processing using the Voyant Tools text analysis tool. Key findings indicate that COVID-19 pandemic is the most communicated topic both on national and European level. Czech and Slovak cases seek to gain support or create conflict based on selected topics, while European level forms an area of cooperation among organizations.

Criticism of the EU has become a common feature of political communication in Central and Eastern Europe and it is often tied to broader concerns about democratic erosion and distrust in institutions. This study investigates how anti-EU rhetoric was employed on Facebook by political actors in the Visegrád countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) during the 2024 European Parliament elections and how it relates to the populist style of communication. Drawing on a comparative content analysis of more than 6,000 posts, the study examines how messages that negatively target the EU incorporate elements of populist rhetoric and emotional tools, such as fear speech and patriotic symbols. The findings show that populist actors were the most frequent users of anti-EU messaging, with anti-elitist framing as the strongest and most consistent rhetorical strategy, often accompanied by other emotional tools. Despite political differences, anti-EU campaigning showed consistent regional patterns. This article contributes to research on political communication by offering a regional comparison, incorporating visual analysis, and challenging the idea that negative messaging is a reliable strategy for mobilising audiences online.

Technological advances and the use of websites have become mandatory tool for any political entity trying to succeed in the competition for votes. The main objective of the study is to identify the level of effectiveness of political communication on the websites of selected political parties in Slovakia. The evaluation is based on the application of the framework for functionality and effectiveness of communication of political parties and their candidates on websites. According the framework applied, the partial objectives represent the identification of information flows on website in five different ways: from the bottom up, from the top down, horizontal, asynchronous and synchronous. A structured review of the research on the issue provides a basic perspective for identifying similarities, differences, challenges, and positives, as well as the possibility to carry out a comprehensive confrontation with the study’s findings. The analysis focuses on the environment of the Slovak Republic, looking at the example of eight selected political parties from the period of the last elections – 2020. The data collection used techniques according to the nature of the examined indicators set according to the framework. To evaluate the data, we apply basic statistical analyses with a comparative form of presentation. The findings demonstrate a medium to higher degree of effectiveness of the communication of selected political parties on the websites. The quality and scope of the information provided on websites is also currently related to the length of time in the party system, regardless length of representation in the parliament. According to study results the deficits primarily appear when providing answers to questions outside of published information, using an interactive form of content or more active cooperation with partner websites. The observed state of the selected cases demonstrates the one-way nature of the provision of information from the subject to the recipient.