№ 3 - 2001
Shimov Ya.V.
Civil Society and the Ruling Elite in the Transition Period: the Czech Variant

The subject of the article is Czechia’s experience in the key sphere of post-communist transformation — the sphere of shaping and adjusting harmonic relations between civil society and the ruling elite. The author points to the prior conditions that determined the comparative quickness and easiness with which the Czechs gave up socialism. The reasons and circumstances are described that led to the “divorce” of Czechia and Slovakia. Czechia’s polinical evolution in late 1990s is considered with especial thoroughness. The author argues that the relations between the state and civil society in Czechia retain forms of confrontation, therefore there is no question yet of completion of the post-communist transformation process in the country.