You had a paper on Czech democratic consolidation in last twenty years. How do you judge it?
I am a little sceptical. Czech democracy we have seen in 1990s as kind of a leader in post-communist democratization is not the case since then. Problems began to occur in late 90s and in some aspects Czech democracy is now not developed that well as in some other post-communist countries, notably in terms what I call the bottom-up dimension – which is to do with relation between political structures, political elites and society, truly developed NGOs and involvement of the public and NGOs. Another thing which is common to other post-communist democracies is the serious gap between political elites and the public and this is major reason why I don´t think Czech republic is fully consolidated democracy. This does not mean that there is a threat to Czech democracy - it is there to stay, but it has not developed as some people expected. There are deficiencies in it, but no serious threats. For example communist party is in formal sense anti system party but has adapted in last years to working within a democratic system.
Why do other post-communist countries have heather democracies?
You can compare with Slovakia where NGOs´ environment has been much heathier. The particular reason for it is that there were stimulants given to NGOs´ development by the threat to democracy back in the middle 90s in the era of Mečiar. That is something that did not happen in Czech republic and that is what encouraged there external support for NGOs´ development. It was part of an attempt to prevent Meciar from taking his authoritarian trend too far. But I am talking only about post-communist countries not post-sovient. If you compare Czech republic to Latvia, you would be too optimistic. But don´t make me wrong - my view of Czech democratization is positive to have some achievement but sceptical pointing out that everything is not marvelous.
I think there has been certain elite top-down arrogance with regard to the involvement of interest groups and policy making and also government respect to NGO development and I hope that changes. It may come with the generation change and the end of the old politicians of the transition and the current president. Further positive change will take time. Generally is Czech society fine, you have got some minority problems, but not such serious ones as they have for example in Latvia with Russian minority.
Why do you consider NGOs so important for consolidated democracies?
Because they involve people in many important issues outside the party structures and that is even more important in post-communist countries because of the disbelief of the parties which goes back to the communist period and to the fact that politicians are seen as having benefited from corruption in economic transformation process. So it is a healthy sign if you have NGO involvement quiet independently of the political parties. Parties are very essential in liberal democratic system but NGO fill that kind a bottom-up dimension I was taking about which is important and rather crucial component in achieving fully democratic consolidation. In England we have problems with members of parliament using public money for their own expenses as you have, so I am not looking down to the Czech republic here. But if you get NGOs involved it creates environment that forces elites not to behave like that. That is the most important thing that needs here to happen in next ten years.