ABSTRACT

The campaign to create an electoral alternative involved the widespread mobilisation of civil society and especially of youth. This chapter presents the results of a research project by the Slovak Academy of Sciences to investigate the creation of civil society in Slovakia and the role of youth within it. The need to build a civil society, after its destruction by the Communist regime and in the context of a newly created state, was an important challenge. Civil society is very important for articulating and defending the different interests of citizens and in controlling state power”. Civil society represents the sphere of the spontaneous association of people on the basis of their partial, mostly non-political interests; the sphere of self-organisation and self-regulation. An important factor in maintaining the burst of activity in civil society has been the affiliation of Slovak Republic with the European Union, and its membership in the Council of Europe.