ABSTRACT
As a relatively small country in the heart of Europe, the Czech Republic is not a major foreignpolicy actor. Nevertheless, it does have its own national interests to protect and extend, and as a member of major Western political, economic, and security communities (chiefly the European Union [EU] and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO]) as well as other international organisations, it has expanded possibilities of doing so. However, aside from successfully attaining the fundamental objectives of EU and NATO membership, the Czech Republic has often been less than effective in pursuing and achieving its foreign-policy goals. The problem is not so much the definition of basic national interests, on which a broad consensus amongst political actors and within society exists, but rather the inability to achieve a consistent and coherent strategy for promoting those interests and disagreement over specific foreign-policy goals. For this failure, the high degree of polarisation between political elites and a fragmented institutional system for foreign-policy decision-making are largely to blame.
