ABSTRACT

On January 1, 1993, the Velvet Revolution was supplanted by the Velvet Divorce between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, creating two new states in Central Europe. The emergence of new states in the established late-twentieth-century international environment, particularly the peaceful emergence of new states, is a rare occurrence. The specific case of Czechoslovakia raises two additional questions-the riddle of the peaceful dissolution of an established state, and the paradox of a state that disintegrated even though the majority of its citizens favored its continuance. The disintegration of the state in 1992 was the culmination of a long history of failed Czech and Slovak efforts to devise a mutually satisfactory arrangement for coexistence in a common state. The federal structure and its minority veto provisions, the segmented Czech and Slovak party systems, the historically conditioned atmosphere of mutual distrust, and the differential impact of economic reform all combined to undercut the chances of a settlement.