Environment and Democracy in the Czech Republic: The Environmental Movement in the Transition Process

Since a handful of environmental activists helped to bring down the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, the arena of environmental politics has offered a valuable lens on the transition process, providing a unique insight into the contradictory and highly contingent relationship between democratisation and neo-liberalism. Environment and Democracy in the Czech Republic offers a radical perspective on the democratisation process, revealing the extent to which the consolidation of a politically efficacious and diverse civil society is far more complex than the earlier generation of commentators acknowledged. The environmental movement has not flourished under political democracy; its radical activists have been marginalized and targeted by the state, their ideologies and strategies compromised and their critical voice silenced. Yet the book concludes that whilst the mainstream environmental movement has become institutionalised and appears incapable of representing community interests, the environmental issue retains the capacity to mobilise, this time against the neo-liberal agenda of the democratic government. This definitive account of the evolution of the Czech environmental move