Carol Leff - The Czech And Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State

THE CZECH AND SLOVAK REPUBLICS

This series examines the nations of Europe as they adjust to the changing world order and move into the twenty-first century. Each volume is a detailed, analytical country case study of the political, economic, and social dynamics of a European state facing the challenges of the post-Cold War era. These challenges include changing values and rising expectations, the search for new political identities and avenues of participation, and growing opportunities for economic and political cooperation in the new Europe. Emerging policy issues such as the environment, immigration, refugees, and reordered national security priorities are evolving in contexts still strongly influenced by history, geography, and culture.

The former East European nations must cope with the legacies of communism as they attempt to make the transition to multiparty democracy and market economies amid intensifying national, ethnic, religious, and class divisions. West European nations confront the challenge of pursuing economic and political integration within the European Union while contending with problems of economic insecurity, budgetary stress, and voter alienation.

How European nations respond to these challenges individually and collectively will shape domestic and international politics in Europe for generations to come. By considering such common themes as political institutions, public policy, political movements, political economy, and domestic-foreign policy linkages, we believe the books in this series contribute to our understanding of the threads that bind this vital and rapidly evolving region.

The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation Versus State , Carol Skalnik Leff

Great Britain: Decline or Renewal? Donley Studlar

Spain: Democracy Regained , Second Edition, E. Ramn Arango

Denmark: A Troubled Welfare State , Kenneth E. Miller

Portugal: From Monarchy to Pluralist Democracy , Walter C. Opello, Jr.

FORTHCOMING

Albania , Elez Biberaj

Austria , Anton Pelinka

The Netherlands , Thomas R. Rochon

The Politics of Belgium , John Fitzmaurice

Ireland: The Challenge of Conflict and Change , Second Edition, Richard B. Finnegan

Modern Greece , Keith R. Legg and John Roberts

France: Grandeur or Decline? W. Rand Smith

Germany , W. Donald Hancock and Henry Krisch

Italy , Patrick McCarthy

Switzerland , Ulrich Kloti

Nation Versus State

Carol Skalnik Leff

Nations of the Modern World: Europe

First published 1997 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leff, Carol Skalnik.
The Czech and Slovak republics: nation versus state / by Carol Skalnik Leff.
p. cm. (Nations of the modern world. Europe)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-2921-3 ISBN 0-8133-2922-1 (pbk.)
1. CzechoslovakiaPolitics and government19451992.
2. Czech RepublicPolitics and government. 3. SlovakiaPolitics
and government. 4. Post-communismCzech Republic. 5. Post
communismSlovakia. 6. CommunismCzechoslovakia. I. Title.
II. Series.
DB2238.7.L44 1997
320.9437dc20 96-12080
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-2922-2 (pbk)

No one writes any book alone, however much colleagues, friends, and family may sometimes wish that could be the case. I owe thanks to my colleagues in the political science department and in the Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) program at the University of Illinois for their comments on the theoretical issues raised by the postcommunist democratization process, particularly Ed Kolodziej, Roger Kanet, Paul Quirk, and Gerardo Munck. Robin Remington deserves heartfelt appreciation for her scholarship, friendship, and insight in ways that go far beyond her editorship of this series. Special thanks to Andrew Green and John Lepingwell for the temporary diversion from their own research agendas to lend help with invaluable Internet resources; to James Krapfl for his close and intelligent reading of much of the manuscript; and above all to my familAlison, Ben, and Markwho allowed me to order them around like a drill sergeant during the final phases of the manuscript's preparation. I hope I've made it up to you. Finally, there are always people who richly deserve thanks for advice and support but who are unaccountably left unmentioned. You know who you are, and my appreciation is nonetheless sincere for the omission.

Carol Skalnik Leff

The collapse of European communism has not only created a new post-cold war global order; it has also created a new Europe in which the cold war divisions are eroding under the impact of a series of modest but persistent experiments in democratization and marketization in the east. It is no longer possible to study Western Europe without paying serious attention to the transformations under way in Eastern Europe. This is true for several reasons, the most dramatic of which occupy the headlines in the form of violent regional instability in the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. Before 1989, Western Europe was insulated from such upheavals and their spillover effects by Soviet dominance in the region. The collapse of communism meant the end of this insulationand the need to respond to conflicts with which existing institutions like NATO were not designed to deal. However, an equally important reason to pay attention to the east is the sustained effort of Central European countries to "return to Europe" by pursuing the unprecedented goal of converting communist economies into capitalist economies and redesigning moribund political institutions into functioning democratic mechanisms. In sometimes overly optimistic anticipation of success, these formerly communist countries are already lined up outside the doors of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), hoping for admission into a community of prosperity and security that none of these small and vulnerable countries can achieve alone.