Abstract
The last decade of change in the Czech Republic has introduced a market economy, a pluralistic political system, and democratic values of liberalism, freedom and individualism. In this context, Czech society identified quick integration with Europe and its security system as a political priority. Both politicians and the public recognised that reform of the Czech Republic’s own internal and external security systems would be a precondition of this integration process, and so began to pay significant — if selective — attention to it. Internal security issues — and in particular the establishment of democratic oversight of the intelligence services and the reform of the police — were given priority. In contrast, military issues were de-prioritised. Czech society was convinced early on of the armed forces’ loyalty to the new government and of the reality of democratic civilian control. Once these issues were addressed, society’s attention turned to more vital economic, social and political problems. As a result, the reform of the Czech armed forces became the almost exclusive concern of the politicians in the Ministry of Defence, and senior military officers. It was only after NATO accession and the Kosovo crisis that Czech society began to pay more attention to specifically military issues. This process was intensified by the events of 11 September 2001.
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Notes
See Marie Vlachová, ‘Democratic Control of Armed Forces in the Czech Republic: a Journey from Social Isolation’, in Andrew Cottey, Timothy Edmunds and Anthony Forster (eds), Democratic Control of the Military in Postcommunist Europe: Guarding the Guards (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
See Marie Vlachová, ‘Professionalisation of the Army in the Czech Republic’, in Anthony Forster, Timothy Edmunds and Andrew Cottey (eds), The Challenge of Military Reform in Postcommunist Europe: Building Professional Armed Forces (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).
In 1996 only about 40 per cent of Czechs trusted their armed forces, while in 2001 two-thirds of the population expressed their belief that the military was a trustworthy institution. See Jiří Hendrych, Armáda a společnost České republiky, kontinuální výzkum 1996–2001 (The military and the society — a continual survey) (Ministry of Defence: Prague, 2002), 12.
Martin Potůček (ed.), Průvodce krajinou priorít pro Českou republiku (A guidebook of the landscape of Czech priorities) (Praha: Gutenberg, 2002), 346–7.
Marie Vlachová and Štefan Sarvaš, ‘Czech Soldiers in Peacekeeping Operations in Former Yugoslavia’, in J. Callaghan, M. Schoenborn and J. Kuhlmann, Warriors in Peacekeeping: Points of Tension in Complex Cultural Encounters (Garmisch-Partenkirchen: The Marshall C. George European Center for Security Studies), 2003.
Zdeněk Dvořák and Ladislav Halberštát, Možnosti personálního marketingu pri profesionalizaci AČR (The possibilities of human resources marketing to recruit personnel for all-volunteer forces) (Prague: Ministry of Defence, 2001).
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© 2003 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Vlachová, M. (2003). The Integration of the Czech Armed Forces into Society. In: Forster, A., Edmunds, T., Cottey, A. (eds) Soldiers and Societies in Postcommunist Europe. One Europe or Several?. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523081_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523081_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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