ABSTRACT

This chapter highlights the Czech advantages over the Slovaks, in most respects the Czech and Slovak Republics have both been among the more fortunate of the postcommunist states. In Slovakia, where the first prime minister, Vladimir Meciar, alternated in power with two successive coalitions that failed subsequent electoral tests, there seems to have been a radical disconnection between the political groups prepared to govern and those capable of gaining popular support. All democratizing political systems must confront the need to regulate political behavior; corruption erodes government accountability to the public by undermining the integrity of its formal program, the program that it was elected to implement. The center has not been particularly responsive to such regional concerns, which could be addressed more effectively by intermediary levels of government between Prague and the localities. Thus, postwar Western Europe moved toward the construction of multilateral institutions that would reinforce mutual cooperation on the basis of the "democratic capitalist peace".