Explaining different paths of democratization: The Czech and Slovak republics

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Abstract
Since the ‘velvet divorce’ in January 1993, the Czech and Slovak Republics seem to have developed in completely different directions: towards a role model and a problematic case of post‐communist democracy, respectively. This supposedly sharp difference in development provides in itself a very interesting topic for study; it also offers a very useful means of evaluating the many theories that have been offered to explain (un)successful processes of democratization in Eastern Europe, by comparing the two countries in the light of their degree of ‘democratic consolidation’, thereby establishing in greater detail ways in which they differ. On this comparative basis the strengths of the main theories that have been put forward to explain different paths of democratization in the region more generally, and in these two republics in particular, can be tested. That experience shows how, relatively independently of existing social structures and institutions, political elites create and maintain a particular opportunity structure of political competition or conflict which, in turn, may develop its own momentum, which may endanger democracy.

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