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Economic Policy-Making and Parliamentary Accountability in Czech Republic
Mansfeldová, Zdenka
Mansfeldová, Zdenka
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czechrep.pdf
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Abstract
"The transformation in the Czech Republic, or Czechoslovakia, started as a convergence of two main processes – a change from a socialist command economy to a market economy, and from an authoritarian regime to a political democracy. In addition, there was the division of the Czechoslovak Federation in 1992 and the challenges of creating an independent state. Since the very beginning, the country has striven for a "return to Europe", which in practise means striving for inclusion in international institutions, especially accession to the European Union. When the communist regime collapsed in November 1989, there were no readily available guides on political transformation, but there was a group of economists who throughout the 1980s prepared for this outcome by systematically organising their ideas in seminars and discussions and developing a theoretical framework of steps to be taken to pursue reform. Shortly after November 1989, they established themselves in the Civic Forum (Občanské fórum), and after the first elections they assumed key government positions and were able to launch the goals of the required reforms.1 The first steps of transformation were thus strongly influenced by luminaries or intellectuals, and this was reflected especially in the approach to economic policy-making (for more see Chapter 1). Their choice was the neoliberal approach -- the belief that the aim of public policy is to give people the freedom to define their space, which should not interfere with the freedom of others; once this conception of freedom is attained everything else would take its proper course. Efforts to speed up implement of the reform programme and the underestimation of the relationship between economy and the law led to the "privatisation with the lights out", which in the second half of the 1990s resulted in a number of problems. The one consequence of these problems was the fall of Klaus' government at the end of 1997."(pg 4)
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2002
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With permission of the license/copyright holder