A Study On The Political Culture Of Czech Republic

Great changes in Soviet and East Europe had already occurred 20 years, as one of the Excellence Students from the change, Czech Republic was said to be a fully democratic society, which has surpassed some old capitalistic countries like the Great Britain and France in politics, and significantly widened gap with the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe in economy. After the drastic social changes in Soviet and East Europe and the transformation in domestic politics and economy, Czech Republic has realized the democratization in politics, the privatization in economy and the welfare of society with its good system design and proper adjustment in policy. Such a great success achieved in less than 20 years has been widely called the Miracle of Czech Republic.To such a traditional country like Czech Republic with a long history and rich national culture, its specific political culture must have played a very important role in its developing process of politics. Therefore, from the view of its traditional and modern political culture and on the basis of defining its connotation and analyzing its function, this article tries to find out the major characteristics of Czech's traditional political culture from its natural, historical, social, political and economic backgrounds, aiming at providing a profound understanding to the political development in Czech Republic. According to this, this article is divided into four chapters in addition to the Introduction and the Conclusion.Chapter One is as a general introduction to the full text, this chapter summarizes the definition and functions of the political culture, as well as the dominant political culture and political sub-culture, so as to provide a theoretical basis for the following chapters, and to make a clear definition to Czech Republic and its political culture.Chapter Two introduces the backgrounds and major features of the traditional political culture of Czech Republic. With some historical literature review, this chapter analyzes the social and historical conditions of this political culture from the physical geography, national cultures, religious culture, as well as the social backgrounds of politics, economy and culture in Czech Republic, so as to provide some historical materials for a systematic conclusion of the main features of the political culture in Czech Republic. On this basis, this chapter summarizes three features of the traditional political culture of Czech Republic, namely a political tradition centered in democracy and nomocracy, a national spirit focused on freedom and individual rights, as well as a cautious and pragmatic political psychology as a small state. Chapter Three observes the influences of the political culture of Czech Republic in socialist period on its political development. With an introduction to the dominant political culture and the political sub-culture of the Czech socialist period, this chapter focuses on analyzing the influences of the traditional political culture, anon-dominant political culture at that time, on the political development of the Czech socialist period, and tries to show the enormous influence of this traditional culture with a series of important events in its socialist period.Chapter Four focuses on the political culture of Czech Republic after the drastic change. With an analysis on the reconstruction of the political culture after the drastic change, this chapter further discusses how the culture has affected the choices of Czech's political, economic, social development and foreign policy after the transformation.