Twenty Years after the Iron Curtain: The Czech Republic in Transition

Authors

JANÍK Zdeněk

Year of publication 2010
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Juniata Voices
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Education

Citation
Web http://www.juniata.edu/services/jcpress/voices/
Field Political sciences
Keywords civil society; communism; democratization; political culture; political institutions; totalitarian regime; transition
Description In November last year the Czech Republic commemorated twenty years after the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. The twentieth anniversary invites thoughts, many times troubling, on how far have the Czechs advanced on their path from a totalitarian regime to a pluralistic democracy. The paper summarizes and evaluates the process of democratization of political institutions, transition from a centrally planned to a free market economy, and transformation of the civil society. Although political and economic transition has been at large accomplished, democratization of civil society is a road yet to be taken. The paper primarily focuses on causes accounting for failures, incomplete missions, and rocks that have constantly blocked the road of transformation from a closed to a truly open and autonomous civil society unburdened with the communist past.

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