15/10/2021

Czechia 30 years On: An Imperfect Oligarchy Without Emancipatory Alternative

The crisis of democracy is manifested in the Czech Republic above all by mass disillusionment with democratic politics, and by the open access of oligarchs to political power.

In their chapter, our researcher Daniel Šitera and his colleague Ondřej Slačálek from Charles University in Prague provides a guide to Czech elections results as a historical consequence of the politics of neoliberal capitalism in Czechia. Why do we confuse (neo)liberalism with democracy? Why does this lead us to a false moralist dilemma between "oligarchy vs. democracy", and why does this doom any emancipatory alternative in the result?
The chapter is published in the new book "The Political Economy of Eastern Europe 30 years into the ‘Transition’".