7. The party and political systems in the Czech Republic and their impacts on the political culture

Lecturer: Pavel Pšeja


Objective: To gain an understanding of the general development of the Czech party and political
systems and of their nature.


Lecture: In this lecture the students will be informed about the major parties operating within the
Czech party system, the basic characteristics of the system as such, and the developments within
the system in the last fifteen years. Some attention will be paid to the structural aspects of how
party and political systems function and to key structural patterns and inefficiencies exhibited in
the Czech political system.


Assigned reading:

Fiala, Petr; Mareš, Miroslav; Pšeja, Pavel. “The development of Political Parties and the Party
System”. In Večerník, Jiří, Matějů, Petr, eds. Ten Years of Rebuilding Capitalism: Czech Society
after 1980.  Praha: Academia, 1999, pp. 273-294.


Additional reading:

Večerník, Jiří; Matějů, Petr, eds. Ten Years of Rebuilding Capitalism: Czech Society after 1989.
Praha: Academia, 1999.

Grzymala-Busse, Anna Maria (2002), Redeeming the communist past: the regeneration of communist
parties in East Central Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.


Issues for discussion:

The main political parties in the Czech party system.

The basic stages of the development of the Czech party system.