DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP AND PROGRESSIVE GOVERNMENT IN FACE OF PUBLIC DISINTEREST: LOCAL POLITICAL ELITES AND CIVIL PUBLIC IN POST-COMMUNIST TOWN

The Czech Republic, together with other post-communist countries of Central Europe, still struggles (nearly 30 year after the collapse of communism) to build a strong civil society and to perform democratic leadership and good government, securing the principles of democracy and the rule of law. In our own empirical research, we have focused on the progressive political changes occurring on a municipal level in the Czech Republic. We have surveyed three small-sized towns that have undoubtedly performed – within our research timeframe – sound democratic leadership and good government. This multi-case study combines both qualitative and quantitative methods aimed at both the local political elites and the civil public, and their mutual reflexivity. The local governments of the three towns performed democratic leadership and good government, despite very little (or the absence of) positive feedback from the local civil public. However, in all cases, the local political factions performed crucial legitimizing and deliberative functions in order to compensate for this weakness. In the one metropolitan suburban town in our study, compared to the other two peripheral towns, a higher concentration of civic elites resulted in a greater intensity of protest-like participation. Consequently, the building of a stronger political reputation was more difficult. Surprisingly, in all three towns, we found no clear correlation between the level of education and the orientation towards liberal values.