Czechoslovakia

At the early part of the 1990s, a major change in ideology was changing the face of Eastern Europe. With the collapse of the Soviet authority in 1989, many of the Eastern European countries claimed their independence, and started the process of Democratization in a Post-Communist environment. On January 1, 1993, almost three years after they claimed independence, the first Czechoslovakian constitution was ratified, thus putting the wheel of Democracy into motion. For a little more than ten years, Czechoslovakia has been fashioning itself into a more Democratized country. I am going to examine the validity of Democracy in Post-Communist Czechoslovakia. Through examining the oversight power of social institutions, the economy, national and domestic policy and government structure, I will make an overall assessment of Democracy in Czechoslovakia.

In December of 1992 a constitution was drafted for the new Czech Republic, which was going to replace the former Soviet government. The constitution was placed into effect on January 1, 1993. It took the Czech government only three years to construct and ratify a national constitution. In this constitution, the principles of Democracy were outlined. It granted universal suffrage to all persons over the age of 18, limited the presidential term to only five years, created a bi-cameral legislature, with a system of checks and balances, and granted basic human rights to all citizens. In its ten year history, the document has never been changed. The fact that the document took only three years to create and please everyone to the point of ratification, is a good testament to the speed with which Democracy took shape in Czechoslovakia.

An important part of a Democratic system is...

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...he fall of Communism popularly elected officials are in office, there is a greater diversity in the administration of its social programs, their economy is one of the best and most free among Post-Communist countries. Despite the major improvements the country has made since Communist rule, Czechoslovakia still has improvements to make, primarily dealing with the economy and corruption. I see that the level of corruption is a major problem to Democratic principles. Czechoslovakia must make reforms on governmental corruption in order to advance further in their Democracy. However, it is my conclusion that Democracy will succeed in Czechoslovakia. They have made too much progress in a short amount of time to be pessimistic of Democracy's success. The people have proven that Democracy is what they will and the mentioned variables show that is what they are doing.