[1] It is not common to witness, let alone take part in, the birth or renewal of a social science discipline, especially a birth that is not natural, but a case of "artificial insemination", in this case the result of strong social demand. Of course, it is also not common - though not extremely rare either - for the natural development of science, here the social sciences, to be interrupted for more than five decades, disrupting personnel and institutional continuity in several academic fields for more than two generations and severing, if not completely obliterating, all existing ties and traditions. All this proceeded purposefully and by plan, motivated by an ideology that demanded the destruction of those fields liable to use their independent roots to produce arguments questioning the monolithic fortress of the Marxist-Leninist worldview.
[2] The preceding paragraph describes the situation in Czechoslovakia, first during the Nazi occupation after 1939 and then, after a brief three-year intermezzo, for the next forty years following the "final" imposition of the totalitarian system of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa - KSČ). This situation was not ended until the events of 1989. The subsequent renewal of democratic principles had an impact on all aspects of society, including a wide range of academic institutions, universities, and research facilities. The process of acquiring a new self-identification and the discovery of the "normal" role of academic life in Czechoslovak (and then Czech) circumstances would in and of itself be worthy of thorough academic study. A specific, if not unique, genesis took place in the social sciences, especially in the field of political science. This field did not face the challenge of returning to its own pre-war traditions (as other social sciences did), for this was impossible. The developments preceding 1989 had liquidated all continuity, which meant that political science had to create the field anew. This text is (1) an attempt to describe the process of the birth of political science in the Czech lands following 1989 and (2) a description of the status and conditions that Czech political science has achieved at the beginning of the 21st century. This report intends to describe and, given the limited scope of the text, partially analyze the current state of Czech political science as it is, without any ambition (inappropriate in this context, anyway) to compare this condition with possible or ideal variants of understanding political science.
[3] Any attempt to identify a tradition of Czech political science appears somewhat problematic, due to the specific nature of the genesis of the social sciences in the Czech and Czechoslovakian settings.
[4] In the Czech lands, study of the broad, classical core of political science began at the end of the 19th century, i.e., in the period when Czech academia was being established. But political science was not established as an independent field of research; politics as an original social phenomenon, political parties, and questions of democracy were studied within the framework of sociology, economics, governmental studies, and law.
[5] During the inter-war period (1918-1938) the process of creating social sciences acquired a paradoxical context. In the enthusiasm accompanying the foundation of an independent Czechoslovak state and the complete break with the Habsburg era, the social sciences were assigned specific "nation-building" tasks. The thematic interests, methodology, and evaluation of the environment in which these fields developed were created almost exclusively by the leading figures of Czech public life of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - first and foremost,Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a professor of philosophy (see Opat, 1990). Among the factors that created this special atmosphere in the Czechoslovak political scene were Masaryk’s key role in the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire and his cooperation in exile withEdvard Beneš (also a sociologist) during World War I. Even more important was the privileged position that both of them enjoyed after 1918. This atmosphere was mediated by certain circles in society, including the print media and academia.
[6] Given these circumstances, it is essential to look also for the characteristic features that gradually shaped the newly emerging field of Czech political science: an emphasis on moral elements in politics, the demand for harmony between politics and ethics, contempt for the phenomenon of political power and for political authorities, skepticism toward the phenomenon of political parties 1 (Note1: During the First Republic, this led to the use of terms such as "partokracie" (partocracy) in the analysis of political and party systems.), an emphasis on national (ethnic) features, a more or less uncritical approach to the phenomenon of democracy, and, last but not least, a specifically Czech ideologizing of the concept of politics as a reflection of the debate on the "Czech Question". This debate, seen as a controversy over the meaning of Czech history, expressed a collection of philosophical, historical, sociological, and theological questions associated with the modern existence of the Czech nation and its independence (see Havelka, 1995). During the 1930s, a new theme emerged in social science disciplines: the role and status of Czechoslovakia in Central Europe and the possibility and probability of the Czechoslovak Republic surviving as an island of democracy in a sea of multiplying authoritarian and pre-totalitarian regimes.
[7] These features are reflected in the publishing activities of individual authors who dealt with Czech politics between the wars. In addition toMasaryk (Demokracie a politika - Democracy and Politics, 1912, Rusko a Evropa - Russia and Europe, 1921, Světová revoluce - World Revolution, 1925, and Cesta demokracie - The Path of Democracy, 1933) andBeneš (Politické stranictví - Political Partisanship, 1912, Povaha politického stranictví - The Nature of Political Partisanship, 1920, and Nesnáze demokracie - The Predicament of Democracy, 1924) 2 (Note2: Beneš, of course, only published his key theoretical text Demokracie dnes a zítra (Democracy Today and Tomorrow) in exile in 1941.), those worthy of mention includeJan Mertl (Politické strany. Jejich základy a typy v dnešním světě - Political Parties: Their Foundations and Varieties in the Modern World, 1931 and Co s politickými stranami - What is to be Done with Political Parties, 1938),Josef Ludvík Fischer (Soustava skladebné filosofie - The System of Structural Philosophy, 1931, Třetí říše - The Third Reich, 1932, and Krise demokracie - The Crisis of Democracy, 1933),Kamil Krofta (Stará a nová střední Evropa - The Old and New Central Europe, 1929), and other authors writing on the boundary of political science and sociology (Inocenc Arnošt BláhaArnošt Bláha,Emanuel Chalupný, etc.).
[8] The actual standing of political science in this period is evidenced by the fact that it was not possible to study political science as a separate university subject in the Czechoslovak Republic. The Independent School of Political and Social Sciences (Svobodná škola politických a sociálních nauk) established in 1929 failed to receive accreditation as a university. Political topics were studied in other academic fields. This means that the institutional process of fission in the fields of law and economics, in which two very distinct methodological schools were formed during the inter-war period and each associated with one of the two leading Czech universities (the Prague normative school atCharles University and the Brno positivistic school atMasaryk University), did not take place in the field of political science. During this period, there was no journal exclusively focused on politics; politics was discussed in sociological journals. Sociální revue (Social Review), Časopis Svobodné školy politických a sociálních nauk v Praze (Journal of the Independent School of Political and Social Science in Prague) and Parlament (Parliament) were published in Prague, while Sociologická revue (Sociological Review) and Index (Index) were published in Brno. After a mere twenty years of autonomous development, World War II brought Czechoslovak academic studies to a halt. This meant that the social sciences completed only the initial phases of development and that no definite and lasting foundations for political science in the Czech lands had been laid.
[9] Even in the period following World War II, when political science experienced an unprecedented level of expansion, the situation in Czechoslovakia did not return to normal. However, the interim period from 1945 to 1948 did witness the emergence of several institutional initiatives (for example the establishment of the School of Political and Social Sciences in Prague - Škola politických a sociálních věd; the first student graduated from the School in 1949, and the School was closed in 1952) and remarkable texts (Neubauer, 1947). Soon afterward, however, the possibility of free and independent research in the social sciences was definitively ended with the assumption of power by a totalitarian communist regime that relied on Marxist-Leninist philosophy as its explanatory worldview. The term "political science" was blacklisted, its place taken by "scientific communism" as the sole tool and methodology for explaining social processes. All existing academic institutions were, of course, robbed of all channels of information, and contacts with the West were broken. The perceived ideal was to be Soviet science, including its confused entry into the social sciences. The majority of experts either found themselves in exile or in communist prisons and work camps; at best, they were only forbidden to publish and/or lecture.
[10] The all too brief intermezzo in the second half of the 1960s brought a certain change in association with the careful political liberalization that culminated in the Prague Spring. This included a loosening of publishing activities (e.g. Tlustý and Klofáč, 1968, texts byLubomír Brokl,Miroslav Jodl,Pavel Machonin, Zdeněk Mlynář, andJan Škaloud, as well as the translation of several key works of political science into Czech) and institutional initiatives. A key move in this area was the foundation of the Czechoslovak Association of Political Science (Československá asociace politické vědy, 1964), a step brought about by the participation of several Czech and Slovak academics at theInternational Political Science Association (IPSA) world congresses in 1961 and 1964 and by the need for academic representation abroad. Additional institutional activities included the renewal of political science as a field of study atCharles University in Prague and at Comenius University in Bratislava (both in 1967) and projects initiated by the Institute of the State and Law of the Czechoslovak Academy of Science (Ústav státu a práva Československé akademie věd). All of this, together with the opportunities for contact with developments abroad, had a major impact on creating an open atmosphere in social science circles, reflected in a return to a number of themes taboo up to that time. The early, violent end of this era meant a new revision, and soon afterward Czech academics moved into the reality of "normalization" in the 1970s, whose first phase was accompanied by the repression of the individuals who had participated in the reform movements and which later moved to replace political science with "scientific communism". The partial relaxation of state control in the late 1960s cannot be seen as constituting any sort of continuity; while the developments of the era were clearly an attempt to renew the possibility of studying politics, there was no relationship to the situation before 1948 in either the scientific or the personal sense.
[11] The final two decades of development of communism in Czechoslovakia prior to 1989 did not lead the authorities to relax ideologically and reorient toward guaranteeing a stable everyday status quo, as took place in Poland and Hungary (in the spirit of the definition of a "post-totalitarian" region by Linz and Stepan, 1996: 42-51). In the social sciences this meant a total isolation from the developments in Western social sciences and no changes in social science paradigms. Basically, "official" research produced nothing, and only individuals (Petr Pithart,Václav Benda,Rudolf Kučera, and Milan Šimečka in Slovakia, etc.) 3 (Note3: Western political science circles (with the notable exceptions of Roger Scruton, Jacques Rupnik, and the geopolitical theorists) were, in fact, only minimally interested in the internal development of the Soviet bloc.) maintained sporadic contacts with the dynamically developing world of social sciences. Separate "islands" of intellectual freedom formed around these individuals and operated either within or on the margins of political dissent structures (e.g. apartment seminars in Prague, the "Underground University" in Brno, some Christian associations, etc.).
[12] In spite of this, during the 1980s the place to look for the future members of the political science community was universities and other academic institutions, primarily departments of history, law, sociology, and area studies (e.g. the Oriental Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Science - Orientální ústav Československé akademie věd), where even at this time descriptive-analytical or statistical-analytical research was being carried out, i.e., methodological options that were as non-normative as possible. This does not apply, however, to departments of philosophy, which functioned en bloc as departments of Marxism-Leninism. In any event, a compulsory part of all university studies (not just in social sciences) was to pass courses in the history of the international workers’ movement, the history of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Marxist-Leninist philosophy, political economy, and scientific communism and atheism. The study of philosophy was in effect limited to the history of ideas.
[13] A second group of potential members of a renewed or reestablished field of political science were those in exile, of course divided into two generations. The first, older generation included individuals who left Czechoslovakia after 1948, includingIvan Gaďourek (University of Groningen), Jiří Nehněvajsa (University of Pittsburgh), and Mojmír Povolný (Lawrence University). The second generation of exiles was recruited from those who often occupied important positions in Czechoslovak academia in the 1950s and 1960s and who espoused Marxism-Leninism. Paradoxically, only their active participation in the 1960s reform movement drove them from their homeland. Within this group, there is a clear difference in standing between the first wave, especially Zdeněk Mlynář (Innsbruck) 4 (Note4: Zdeněk Mlynář is an interesting example of the private odyssey that a number of Czech (Central European) intellectuals went through after World War II. Originally an enthusiastic communist and an active participant in the process of forming the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, in the 1960s he was one of the key members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and in 1968 the head of a research team (called "Mlynář’s Team") examining reform of the political system at the Institute for the State and Law of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Subsequently, he was an important figure in anti-normalization circles and later, in exile, a professor of political science in Innsbruck, Austria.), and the second, which dates to the 1970s, when a number of individuals from the fields of political philosophy and theory found themselves outside the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (e.g. Václav Bělohradský in Trieste, Miroslav Novák in Geneva). The degree of these individuals’ influence on Czech political science after 1989, however, varied greatly (see below).
[14] As already stated, in the Czech setting, the development of social science has been discontinuous, lacking the possibility to follow earlier, primarily inter-war traditions. In this sense, the concept of "paradigm shift" is not an apt description of the process at the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s. Marxism-Leninism had not achieved its 40-year exclusive position in Czech academia as the result of free and open discussion - although leftist-oriented academic circles in the inter-war period and after 1945 should not be ignored - but by the repression of all other ideas and by total control over the formulation and testing of theses dealing with social processes. In this sense, to speak of Marxism-Leninism as a scientific paradigm would mean accepting the forms of communist science. On the other hand, it remains true that the build-up of political science after 1989 was accompanied by an atmosphere disparaging of Marxism, and in this sense the association of a "paradigm shift" is not entirely mistaken.
[15] The situation of a "changing elite" appears to be much simpler. As already stated, given the official nonexistence of political science in communist Czechoslovakia, it is not possible to speak of any sort of continuity. Even on a practical level, departments and institutes of Marxism-Leninism were (fortunately) not a source for the new political science community. The realities of a state under communist rule necessarily meant that any officially accepted attempt to foster political science had to strictly follow the lines laid down by the leading communist party and its ideology, which entailed severe distortions. In other words, anything proposed as political science before 1989 (naturally with the notable exception of dissenters) had to collaborate with the communist regime, thus further cementing complete discontinuity. Modern historians, specialists in constitutional law, political sociologists, and experts in various regional studies founded various departments of political science. Only on this individual level can some elements of continuity be seen - and here, too, only with the era prior to 1989 and with the 1968 generation. The disruption from developments before 1948 is almost complete.
[16] It can therefore be said that, given the model of its founding and establishment, Czech political science after 1989 has managed to reach a status precisely and exclusively under the precondition that it would not be connected with institutions and individuals associated with the era prior to 1989, especially with the omnipresent and omnipotent institutes of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, political economy, and scientific communism and atheism dating from this period. This automatically disqualified a great number of departments, primarily though not exclusively at technical universities, where the trend toward a turnover in personnel can barely be perceived. This is why departments of social sciences at some universities are not included in the overview of the development of Czech political science departments, even though some of their members have tried to gain officially recognition as political scientists.
[17] Searching for the roots of political science at the departments of constitutional law (at the Faculty of Law, Masaryk University in Brno - Právnická fakulta Masarykovy univerzity v Brně) or at the departments of legal theory (at the Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague - Právnická fakulta Karlovy univerzity v Praze) is a methodological error based on both a mistaken perception of the methodological-theoretical foundations of legal studies, and, on a practical level, on the varied development of Czech legal studies in the inter-war period and before 1989. For this reason, the authors of this article have the clear (normatively neutral) opinion that there is no reason to include constitutional law in a survey of Czech political science.
[18] As the previous lines make clear, if Czech political science was to prove its ability to establish itself as a modern and independent field of study, it also had to develop new institutional structures. Basically, in the first half of the 1990s, three different lines of institutional development were observable: (1) new departments of political science were established at universities, (2) specialized research institutions were developed, and (3) some departments of constitutional law, Marxism-Leninism, etc. strove to establish themselves as regular political science institutions. The latter attempt soon proved generally unacceptable, and mainstream Czech political science rejected incorporating its proponents and representatives, though certain exceptional individuals formerly belonging to this developmental line did succeed in gaining recognition for their ability to work professionally under new circumstances.
[19] Departments of political science emerged almost immediately after the fall of the communist regime in November 1989; nevertheless, this took place only in the most important centers - at Charles University in Prague and the Masaryk University in Brno (both in 1990). In the course of time, these departments at the Faculties of Arts and of Social Sciences (Prague - Filozofická fakulta a Fakulta sociálních věd) and the School of Social Studies (Brno - Fakulta sociálních studií) acquired the status of being the most advanced political science institutions in the country. In the same year as these departments, the Department of Political Science and European Studies at theUniversity of Palacky in Olomouc (Katedra politologie a evropských studií Palackého univerzity v Olomouci) was founded and in several years became another - in fact the last new - important center of Czech political science. Recently, in close connection with the foundation of new, regional universities, other political science departments have appeared, but they have not operated long enough to permit us to assess their contribution to Czech political science. Moreover, the most prominent scholars in the field tend to work in Prague or in Brno.
[20] The Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics in Prague (Fakulta mezinárodních vztahů Vysoké školy ekonomické) has a peculiar position in the current structure of political science university departments in the Czech Republic. While this institution deals with international aspects of trade and economics, two of its parts - the Department of Political Science (Katedra politologie) and the Jan Masaryk Centre of International Studies (Středisko mezinárodních studií Jana Masaryka) 5 (Note5: For the sake of simplicity and because of the substantial personal and scientific overlapping of these institutions, we cover them later in the text and its appendices under the general heading of the Faculty of International Relations. Nevertheless, both authors wish to emphasize that these institutions occupy important positions in Czech political science.) - play an important role in Czech political science. Extensive publishing activities, the presence of some first-rate political scientists, and also notable international activities and memberships enable us to view these institutions as among the main elements of political science in the Czech Republic.
[21] Specialized research institutions were given a special position within the framework of Czech political science from the very beginning. In fact, only two institutions of this kind proved to be functional and durable enough to survive; nonetheless, both of them exert great influence on developments in the political science community. Today, the International Institute for Political Science (IIPS - Mezinárodní politologický ústav) in Brno and the Institute of International Relations(IIR - Ústav mezinárodních vztahů) in Prague serve as leading scientific organizations focused primarily on research, publication programs in the field, and conferences. Each institute publishes a specialized journal (see below).
[22] The IIPS was founded in 1990 by a small group of Czech social scientists who had been forced to go into exile under the communist regime (Mojmír Povolný, Lawrence University in Appleton and Ivan Gaďourek, University of Groningen, should be mentioned here again). After a period of several years during which the Institute focused primarily on the study of general developments in the Czech and Slovak societies and on sources and possibilities of Czechs and Slovaks cohabiting in a single state, from about 1995 on, the IIPS began to stress the necessity of conducting a broader range of activities. This trend resulted in the introduction of several comparative research programs analyzing, among other problems, politics in Central and Eastern Europe (including the Baltic area), European integration, the foreign policies of selected countries, etc.
[23] The Institute of International Relations (IIR) was founded as an institution specialized in international politics and in many respects was and still is an organization spectacularly different from the International Institute for Political Science (IIPS). The IIPS is affiliated with Masaryk UniversityInstitute of International Relations (IIR), but its staff consists of no more than three full-time researchers, and research work is usually done by groups of part-time researchers selected for a particular task; the is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which, naturally, in some cases channels the Institute’s research aims and priorities), its staff has about twenty members, and its range of particular programs is also conspicuously broader. The Institute of International Relations (IIR) focuses on security analysis, European integration, developments in the Balkans, Czech-Slovak relations, Czech-German relations, and a series of other ad hoc projects.
[24] Dramatic changes in the institutional structures, connected with building up personnel almost completely from scratch, were followed by a re-emergence of scholars persecuted by the communists and/or living in exile. Vladimír Čermák, the author of a brilliant five-volume monograph Otázka demokracie (The Question of Democracy), an excellent political philosopher, and now a Justice of the Constitutional Court, is probably the most important representative of the former category; the latter, more numerous, is represented e.g. by Václav Bělohradský, Rudolf Kučera, and Miroslav Novák (see above), and the founders of theInternational Institute for Political Science (IIPS) in Brno. Although no one can doubt that these scholars contributed immensely to the development of Czech political science, their influence peaked in the early 1990s. In the course of the last decade, they were gradually replaced by a younger generation (Vladimíra Dvořáková, Petr Fiala, Michal Klíma, Jiří Kunc, Blanka Říchová, Maxmilián Strmiska, etc.); only Miroslav Novák still plays a very important role in the discipline; his works are among its best products.
[25] While there is a limited but important influx of formerly persecuted scholars, there are no departures of Czech political scientist at present. Even though increasing numbers of students spend part of their study years at a foreign university, we do not know of a single case of a political scientist of any importance leaving the Czech Republic to work abroad. Naturally, to consider this proof of the self-sufficiency of Czech political science, on the one hand, or of generally high public esteem of its representatives, on the other, would be a dangerous self-delusion. No research has been done on this matter, but we may conclude that the basic reasons are that (1) research frequently focuses on the problems and needs of the Czech Republic, thus addressing a very limited audience, and (2) though it includes some top-level scholars, the political science community in the Czech Republic is too small and, compared with its Western counterparts, underdeveloped in the scope of its topical orientation. This in no way lowers the high value and prospects of research done in the fields of political parties, policy analysis, comparative political science, etc.
[26] As repeated throughout this text, there is a remarkable discontinuity in the tradition of Czech political science. But the history of the inter-war development of Czech political science, even in the broader context of the genesis of Czech (Czechoslovak) democracy, was widely discussed throughout the 1990s, and an attempt was made at its revitalization. In fact, the devotion of a (generational) segment of the social science community to the atmosphere of Masaryk’s Czechoslovakia not only represents part of the "folklore" of Czech politics, but, in its own way, also a very important characteristic exerting influence on the Czech academic community, including political science.
[27] Efforts in this direction were especially marked in the first half of the 1990s, and in this sense, the initial phase of the formation of political science in Czech academia may be called the stage of searching for one’s identity. This process was affected by the existence of markedly varied ideas about the fundamental tasks of the social sciences and especially of political science, given its relationship to First Republic "morals", and thus created a strong divisional criterion in its own way.
[28] On the one hand, this created the possibility of once again forming the emerging field of Czech political science into a specific social phenomenon primarily focused on the obligations to cultivate this young democratic, and therefore very imperfect, political sphere. This meant the renewal of the "constructive" view of political science as basically a theoretical handbook of democracy, serving to raise and educate a newly democratic society. This range of tasks would in turn be reflected in the political science community’s tools and means. The followers of this orientation, being open to interdisciplinary approaches, focused (1) methodologically on a normatively ontological historicizing (and even narrative) approach, (2) stylistically on adopting a journalistic style, (3) thematically on the historical development of the Czech political system and on themes underlying this system (democratic theory, politics and ethics, political ideology, etc.), and (4) on presentation in the media.
[29] In contrast, the other variant concept of political science saw it as an independent, theoretical, and abstract social science, emphasizing empirical-analytical and descriptive approaches and carefully avoiding normative judgements. This was also reflected in the focus on professional texts and themes like political parties and interest groups, political and party systems, theories of transition and consolidation, political extremism and radicalism, etc.
[30] An interpretation of the clash this hints at is not simple and there has certainly been no definite outcome. On the other hand, what appeared to clash here were two different generations (those with backgrounds in the 1960s and those educated in the 1980s) and two divergent methodological approaches (a normative ontological approach versus an empirical-analytical approach). This division also has a regional and institutional aspect. The first group (with a degree of simplification) can be identified as "Prague" and the second works at the Department of Political Science of the School of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno (Katedra politologie Fakulty sociálních studií Masarykovy univerzity v Brně). A number of exceptions defy this classification, but this division is a fair representation of reality. A search for a similar division in inter-war legal studies (see above) has thus far appeared to be too ambitious a task.
[31] The process described indicates the up-and-coming generation of political scientists’ consciousness of the importance of methodological preferences. The current dominance of empirical-analytical approaches is also evidence of relatively rapid adaptation to contemporary issues in Western academia, especially by the younger generation of Czech political scientists. In this sense, the thematic priorities of political science in the West and in the Czech lands are basically in accord, in part thanks to ever-increasing contacts among both researchers and students. In parallel, Czech political science has shown a certain degree of immunity to some opportunistic and/or "politically correct" underlying themes in the social sciences (e.g. research on affirmative motivation, etc.). The authors have been led to this position by bad experience with efforts to renew the "social" roles of political science and their obligations from the point of view of self-identification as a social entity (nation, citizenship, etc.). In this sense, the social sciences in post-communist countries could provide Western academia with valuable "methodological" information.
[32] Remarkably, this general accord in theoretical and methodological approaches is not reflected by any relative importance of quantitative and qualitative research in Czech political science. While the research tools used in Czech political science are generally the same as in the rest of the world, quantitative analysis is seldom practiced. Put simply, collection, selection, elaboration, and evaluation of huge quantities of different data is frequently viewed as a costly and time-consuming method demanding immense amounts of time from scholars and their assistants; and in the final analysis, this exceeds the possibilities of individual departments and research institutions. On the other hand, this does not mean it is impossible to trace some influence of the quantitative approach in Czech political science. But this falls within the field of sociology. If we take into account that some researchers (primarily sociologists) tend to prefer this area and try to use the data as background for further analyses focused on political values and behavior, then this method does appear in Czech political science. Here we also must accept that sociology provides the key initiative in this form of analysis. In this sense, there is significant overlap between political science and sociology, epitomized in the special field of political sociology. Lubomír Brokl, Zdenka Mansfeldová, and Klára Vlachová-Plecitá are some of the most striking representatives working in this way.
[33] Some other disciplines at the intersection of various fields can be mentioned: political sociology seems to be most innovative and active in bringing new ideas into political science, and political philosophy and political economy play a role as well. While the latter represents a detached area whose representatives do not tend to browse in political science proper, the former offers some remarkable personalities, for example the aforementioned Vladimír Čermák and Václav Bělohradský (who also works in political sociology). Other areas significant in the Czech Republic and connected with political science are theory of law and research on problems of nationalism (primarily Miroslav Hroch). Pavel Barša, from 1999-2002 a fellow of the Central European University in Budapest and a specialist in problems at the intersection of political ideas, political theory, and nationalism, must also be mentioned. 6 (Note6: Selected texts falling within some of the fields described in this paragraph were added to the list of major works in Czech political science. See Appendices.)
[34] Taken altogether, theoretical and methodological orientation and approaches in Czech political science reflect the standard modes of operation, the most relevant exception being the quantitative approach; but there are some minor features specific to the Czech Republic. First, since political science in the Czech Republic is quite a new discipline, it follows that its approaches are new as well; consequently, the political science community still needs to learn how to refine its tools and make use of its possibilities. Second, as indicated earlier, it is precisely the discipline’s prevailing aim of a more or less value-free position and its increasing inclination to a non-normative focus, an attitude held primarily against any manifestations of social engineering, that paradoxically includes certain normative aspects. While these features are clearly products of the Czech Republic’s historical development, it is hard to predict how long their influence will persist.
[35] Czech political scientists have not ignored questions of the transition of political systems, which has been a standard theme for political science since the 1960s. On the other hand, given the gaps in publishing, especially of books, in political science as a whole (i.e., including classical themes such as political philosophy, political ideology, political systems, etc.), the question for the Czech political science community has been and remains: what is to be done first? In a thorough attempt to find a suitable answer, we searched through university curricula and the topical foci of major works of political science in the Czech Republic, thus identifying the following areas of main interest.
[36] The background of some political scientists (Vladimíra Dvořáková, Jiří Kunc, and representatives of Ibero-American studies) resulted in an early orientation toward questions of the transition of political systems from undemocratic to democratic models. In the second half of the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century, many of the works published in the Czech Republic have focused primarily on studies of transition, especially questions of the post-communist countries, models of democracy ideal for countries in transition (Westminster versus consociational democracy), models of mediation of interests (pluralism versus corporativism), the center-regions relationship in the post-communist areas and its manifestations in party systems in Central and East Europe, and other aspects of processes of transition (Ladislav Cabada, Břetislav Dančák, Jan Holzer, Michal Kubát, Maxmilián Strmiska, and others).
[37] Consequently, even if transitology and consolidology have not assumed an exclusive position in the structure of political science research in the Czech Republic, they are undoubtedly major topics. Paradoxically enough, although in the first years of the 1990s problems of transitology as such went virtually unreflected, the more time passes after the events of 1989, the more attention is paid to them. In recent years, transitology is emerging as a truly separate and dynamic subfield with a prospect of further growth.
[38] While transition as a general phenomenon is currently a hotly discussed topic in Czech political science, several other specific and general fields are considered relevant problems in the discipline. What these fields have in common is their relevance to political and social processes that have occurred in the Czech Republic in the last ten years:
[39] The political system of the Czech Republic is obviously a "must" topic in national research; naturally, this is due not only to the obvious fact that political science cannot do without probing into the political mechanisms of the state, but also to the interconnectedness of the system and deep social and political transformation. Similarly, research on the party system of the Czech Republic seeks the causes determining the nature of the system, the character of its components, their relationships, and their probable future direction. The general development of the system on the theoretical and practical levels is also of great importance.
[40] While European integration was regarded as one of the key areas in political science research from the beginning of the 1990s, the problems discussed in this framework have undergone an impressive transformation. At first, the lead was taken by various analyses of the notion of European integration; these were predominantly practiced in the spirit of political philosophy. Consequently, the question of the relationship between the Czech Republic and the European Union occupied the stage; at present, although Czech-European relations still remain an obvious point of interest, the main current of research in the area is increasingly focused on the processes within the European Union and (but not exclusively or even primarily) on their impact on enlargement strategies.
[41] Security studies, another important research area in Czech political science, are based on assumptions analogous to those accepted in the case of European integration, i.e., the conviction that the national interests of the Czech Republic are to be reached by including the Czech Republic in Western European structures. Here, the main task traditionally was to describe and analyze possible sources of security dangers and to design appropriate developmental strategies. At present, the role of the Czech Republic as a member of NATO is often taken as a background for attempts to redefine security needs and tasks.
[42] Curiously enough, modern Czech and European history is also a frequently researched topic (Prague, Olomouc), even though - if we take a truly strict view - it is not part of the discipline at all. On the other hand, some scholars in the field see it as a source of information that was grossly distorted before 1989 and should now be researched anew and examined from the perspective of political science.
[43] The comparison of political and party systems presents difficult, but challenging questions, thus increasingly acquiring a status as the most progressive field of study (together with issues of European integration). Classical works by Giovanni Sartori, Klaus von Beyme, and their younger followers are being thoroughly and deeply discussed, thus serving as a starting point for proper research in the area. Miroslav Novák (Prague) and Maxmilián Strmiska (Brno) can be justly ranked among the top specialists in this field of research. Finally, political extremism and radicalism is a very important and innovative field of study in Czech political science. The connection between this research and the practical issues of preventing extremist and radical groups from carrying out activities that disturb the social peace plays a key role in the position of this research area. Miroslav Mareš in Brno and Zdeněk Zbořil in Prague are the top university specialists with this research agenda.
[44] Among other areas with some potential to grow and to assume a more relevant position are political theory (Brno, Prague), policy analysis (Brno), and election studies (Prague). All these subfields are in the process of establishing themselves as not only independent, but also rapidly flourishing research areas, possibly ousting modern history as one of the leading topics and thus impelling Czech political science further on its way to standard character.
[45] While the diversity of topics and views still does not correspond to the range customary in other (traditional) national political science communities, if we consider the "underpopulation" of the discipline’s landscape in the Czech Republic, we can recognize that Czech political science can meet strict criteria in proportional comparison. From this point of view, it might come as a surprise that the wide range of views has not resulted in a more variable institutional structure. In the final analysis, however, particular institutions usually tend to share one common interest, the education of students, and their research activities are more influenced by the personal preferences of their staff. In other words, the basic direction is the same, but different paths are taken.
[46] Organizational and institutional changes have proved to be essential for the theoretical, methodological, and thematic changes described above. The theoretical aim was the state’s withdrawal as the sole donor to (and guarantor of) academic institutions and an increase in the role of private sponsors. But here this principle proved to be in error or at least premature.
[47] It is possible (necessary) to interpret this statement within the framework of the position of Czech universities, whose most significant source of finances (through the 2001/2002 academic year) has been subsidies from the national budget. Logically, these are limited by the capacity of the Czech Republic’s post-communist economy and by the academic community’s limited ability to "blackmail" the government into providing increased funds in comparison with other aggressive pressure groups. This fact is not affected even by the students’ significant, constant, and growing interest in studying social sciences: for example, at Charles University and Masaryk University, ten times as many apply to study in the relevant departments as the latter can currently absorb. The question of tuition as a partial solution to the difficult situation in the Czech Republic has become highly politicized and faces an uncertain and unpredictable future. Nevertheless, beginning with the academic year 2001/2002, universities are permitted to admit a limited number of paying students. But even these students, if they show they are able to handle university studies by acquiring 60% of the ECTS credits needed to complete baccalaureate studies, are to be allowed to finish their studies for free.
[48] A second significant source of finances for universities is grants, which are of course designed exclusively for research (and not educational) activities and projects. But the state and the government budget dominate this area as the most significant donor to (and by extension, controller of) individual grant projects, thus influencing themes, methodology, results, outputs, etc. What is more, the state controls the widely criticized system of distributing these funds. While the role of private institutions, foundations, associations, and centers is not insignificant, it remains a secondary source.
[49] Nevertheless, the role of private institutions is slowly growing - at a slightly accelerating rate. After a new law was enacted permitting the creation of private universities, some institutions of this kind have been or are being established, in spite of huge financial, operational, and formal problems; therefore, if their internal capacities and external limits allow them to keep up in the long run and strengthen their competitiveness, they may become another "pillar" of political science research. Two examples are New York University Prague, founded in 1999 as a local branch of New York University, and the College of Public Administration and International Relations in Prague (Vysoká škola veřejné správy a mezinárodních vztahů), which completed its accreditation process in Autumn 2001. However, some features of this kind of institution make it impossible to regard them as fully comparable to public universities. The most important of these features is the legal limits on the functions private universities and colleges may perform: the law defines private educational institutions at the university level as organizations whose task consists in filling gaps in the supply offered by state universities. In other words, the relationship between public and private universities is stipulated as complementarity, rather than competitiveness.
[50] Research supported by political entities, e.g. political parties, plays a special role. Given the Czech public’s generally critical view of questions relating to the financing of political parties, this does not play a significant role in terms of the needs of the academic community. From this perspective, the Czech media can be seen as playing a more active role, allowing their customers to "survive" with the relative poor and sequestered Czech market in public opinion research. Given these facts, it appears that the most promising solution for a large number of Czech researchers and institutions is to focus on projects using the more liberal parameters of support offered abroad in various fields of social science.
[51] The first thing to be stressed here is that Czech public discussion suffers from the existence of two divergent ideas of what political science, its tasks, and its objectives are. This point is addressed in more detail in Chapter 6, so here we merely highlight a certain gap between the topics discussed in the country’s newspapers and leading magazines and those emphasized in the discipline itself. In some cases, the same topic may be discussed, but handled differently. As mentioned before, political science focuses predominantly on an empirical notion of the world and society, while the media and public devote much more attention to normative aspects, often taking them as criteria that should decide on the nature of the discussion. The questions of Czech political parties, the electoral system, and the position of the president are among the themes most debated in the public space, while such international topics as European integration and security problems are usually left to circles of the Czech intelligentsia and have not met with much public attention. On the other hand, political science in the Czech Republic sees the foci of its own interest in precisely these international themes, thus standing on the same ground as the intelligentsia, but maintaining reserve in the clash between the empirical and the normative approach; among the other issues, it elaborates especially the problems connected with the Czech party system, but on a purely professional basis. The other two themes are examined as well, but more as a consequence of public demand than because of their status as important problems.
[52] These trends can also be seen in the contents of Czech professional journals. The Czech political science community is not too numerous: just over 2,000 people, including students (see Tables 1 and 2), and even this number was reached only in recent years. It follows that, reflecting developments within the discipline’s expanding community, purely political science journals appeared only several years after 1989; in the earlier years, other journals, like Sociological Review (Sociologický časopis), offered space for political science texts. Now, six specialized political science journals unambiguously take the lead, serving the community well.
[53] The most important and most successful is the quarterly Politologický časopis(Journal of Political Science), published since 1994 by the International Institute for Political Science in Brno (Mezinárodní politologický ústav). This was the first scientifically reviewed political science journal in the Czech Republic. It offers studies, shorter articles, and reviews and also publishes materials from conferences and discussions on various topics. Foreign authors as well as Czech scholars contribute to the journal.
[54] Politologická revue (Review of Political Science) is generally seen as the JPS’ biggest competitor and its Prague-based counterpart. This journal emerged in 1994 and is published by the Czech Political Science Association (CPSA) (Česká společnost pro politické vědy; see below). It is published twice a year and offers articles, studies, and reviews, but also interviews and reports of important events in the Czech Republic and abroad. As an official journal of the Czech Political Science Association (CPSA), it also provides information about changes in the political science community in the Czech Republic.
[55] Mezinárodní vztahy(International Relations), published by the (Ústav mezinárodních vztahů) in Prague four times a year, is another leading theoretical journal. As its title suggests, the journal focuses on the discipline of international relations and its subfields. It prints articles on theoretical and practical aspects of international relations, security issues, and global problems; moreover, it offers reviews of major works in the fields. It is the only Czech journal offering in-depth studies of current problems in international relations.
[56] Far fewer theoretical articles and studies on international themes are offered by the monthly Mezinárodní politika (International Politics), which is also published by the Institute of International Relations (IIR) (Ústav mezinárodních vztahů). This periodical focuses on global politics and economics; on a regular basis it also offers appendices of European Union documents. It deals primarily with "hot" questions of current international activities, pays a lot of attention to area studies, and follows fresh developments in various parts of the world. It is the only journal that targets readers outside academic circles, thus presenting itself as a link between part of the nonprofessional public and academics.
[57] Politika v České republice (Politics in the Czech Republic), published every two months, monitors political activities in the Czech Republic. This journal assumes a unique position within the range of the discipline’s journals, serving as a sole sources of detailed information about events and processes in Czech political life. It describes developments in the parliamentary system (with sections titled Government, President, Parliament, and Constitutional Court), in party politics (giving detailed overviews of all the major parties’ activities), and in economic and foreign policy; it also reproduces important documents. Founded in 1997, it directly continues the tradition of the journal Building of a State (Budování státu), which was first published in 1990.
[58] Finally, the quarterly Středoevropské politické studie (Central European Political Studies) was founded in 1999 as an on-line magazine. It is a unique undertaking in the Czech political science community, not only because of its electronic form, but also because it is multilingual. Contributions to the journal are published in their original languages - Czech, English, or German. There is also a printed version, published annually, which offers a selection of the most interesting texts of a volume. This journal, as well as the one described in the previous paragraph, is published by the International Institute for Political Science (Mezinárodní politologický ústav).
[59] This lively journal publication activity is accompanied by steady growth in the publishing of original works by Czech political scientists; these books usually have a high-quality professional background and need not fear critical comparison with foreign works of the same kind. On the other hand, these books are seldom published in languages other than Czech. Exceptions include Miroslav Novák’s Une Transition Démocratique Exemplaire? (published by CEFRES in Prague) and Jiří Večerník and Petr Matějů, Ten Years of Rebuilding Capitalism (published by Academia in Prague). The latter, however, is an interdisciplinary symposium (the editors are sociologists) including, among other texts, a contribution on the development of the Czech party system (authors Petr Fiala, Miroslav Mareš, and Pavel Pšeja). On the other hand, foreign-language texts published in journals or symposia both in the Czech Republic and abroad seem to be growing more numerous (for details, see Table 3).
[60] Troublesome is that virtually no databases have been built up. Until now, no need has been felt to create a resource of this kind, since the low number of members of the Czech political science community means that a general survey can be maintained without such a tool. Nevertheless, the time is probably coming when some databases will have to be created - for example, when collecting data for Table 6, the authors of this text were hindered by the lack of a database of articles in Czech political science journals. Manuals are subject to the same lack of interest; textbooks, on the other hand, are increasingly becoming a common part of the Czech literature in the field. From the very brief Pozvání do politologie (Invitation to Political Science - Vladimír Čermák, Dalibor Houbal, Petr Fiala) to the much more thorough, but a little too specific Základy politologie (Basics of Political Science - Karolína Adamová, Ladislav Křížkovský), the basic textbooks have long been established in the field. In recent years, some authors have made ambitious attempts to write textbooks in specialized fields within the discipline. Of these, Přehled moderních politologických teorií (The Overview of Modern Theories in Political Science) by Blanka Říchová and Moderní analýza politiky (Modern Policy Analysis) by Petr Fiala and Klaus Schubert are top-quality works whose scientific value indicates that Czech political science is well advanced and able to act as fully matured discipline. The latter work is also the most successful example of cross-border cooperation.
[61] Twelve years after it was founded as a separate field of study, Czech political science finds itself in a dichotomous state. On the one hand, in areas where it is most advanced, we can justly speak of the high level of its knowledge and scientific performance, both underlined by rich publication and teaching activities; on the other hand, where research is limited or has not been initiated at all, the field is still in its infancy. Though it is extremely difficult to predict the future of the discipline, political science in the Czech Republic can progress not only through internal advancement, but also through international cooperation.
[62] This kind of cooperation can build on several different lines of international contact that have already been established in recent years. These contacts can be pursued on three levels - individual, institutional, and organizational. While the two former are easy to understand and are limited only by the particular capabilities of the acting individuals and institutions, the third level consists in cooperation practiced through professional associations. On the individual level, lots of personal contacts have been established in the course of the last decade, thus connecting Czech political science with all the relevant countries of the world - from Russia through Western Europe to the United States. On the level of institutions, almost all departments and research institutions have already made agreements with partners abroad; naturally, these agreements influence the development of the respective institutions, but they don’t have the capacity to modify the character of the discipline as such. Seen from this point of view, with some exceptions to be addressed later, the only relevant level is that of the associations.
[63] In fact, two key organizations of this kind operate in the Czech Republic - the Czech Political Science Association (CPSA), an umbrella organization for all working in the field, and the Association for the Study of International Relations (ASIR - Asociace pro studium mezinárodních vztahů), an independent association of scholars specialized in international relations. Compared to the overall situation of the discipline in the Czech Republic, the first of these organizations, the Czech Political Science Association, has an unbelievably long tradition: it was established as early as 1964. In the period of 1964-1969, the Association undertook a lot of activities, including participation inInternational Political Science Association congresses and workshops; as the repression following the suppression of the "Prague Spring" increased, the Association’s operations were brought to a virtual halt. After 1989, it was renewed and became the only organization covering the whole political science community. At first, it focused on arranging lectures and seminars, later also beginning to organize workshops of Czech political scientists and to arrange conferences on various topics, e.g. transition to democracy, problems of globalization, etc.
