ABSTRACT
The attempts to establish democracy and market economy in the Czech and Slovak Republics and in the countries of the former Eastern block have now lasted well over ten years. In the light of the complicated post-communist legacy, this may not have been enough time for democracy and markets to take firm root. But it has been sufficient time to observe general patterns of change and to detect an increasing variety among the ex-communist countries, whether in the development of political institutions, such as parliaments, or in the forms of governance and economic management or, indeed, in their levels of democratic consolidation. Why, then, do some countries succeed in consolidating their democracy and others fail? What accounts for their different forms and levels of institutionalization'? Do similiar institutional characteristics lead to the same form of institutionalization? Or does that form of institutionalization depend on economic performance, elite behavior, political culture or any other contextual factor? These are the broader questions this book intends to address, drawing on empirical explorations of the origins and functioning of the Czech and Slovak parliaments in their crucial formative years following the breakdown of the communist regime in 1989.
