Czech Politics: From the West to East and Back Again Book

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the Czech political past and present. Giving first an overview of the Czech history before 1989 and the Velvet Revolution, the authors then analyse the recent Czech political system and culture that has formed since 1989 against the historical background of political transformation. In their interpretation, the events of 1989 are not to be seen as a political breakthrough, but as just another chapter of the continuous evolution of the idea of 'Czechness' and the challenges it faces. The Czech politics has so far been the subject of numerous books and articles that, nevertheless, tend to focus either on specific segments of the Czech politics (e.g. parties and the party systems, features and functions of the political system, particular policies, public opinion, etc.), or on the general description of the political developments. However, these accounts fail to provide the full story of the Czech politics - the political system of the country is just a part of a broader picture, of a narrative that consists of the historical realities but also of the myths, self-perceptions, and ideas of the Czech identity. This book intends to recount the story.On this basis, the book elaborates the major sectors of the political transformation of the Czech Republic in the last 25 years without resorting to a mundane presentation of well-known data; rather, it aspires to show how the recent developments in all these sectors are interwoven with the long-term process of (re-)creating the Czech identity and self-perception, and that they develop in such a way that makes it possible to understand them as interdependent elements of a great narrative of the fundamental features of the Czech politics.Read More