Transformation and its modernization elements: Comparing Czech Republic with Slovak Republic

The political development in Czech and Slovak Republics after the 1989 has made the changes in policy, economy and social life feasible. The development of market economy, including radical shift in ownership structure, involves significant modernization elements. These changes resulted first in sudden downfall of the standard of living and then in spreading feeling of personal insecurity that was fostered by the post-communist governments' disapproving attitude towards the increase in financial expenditures on social welfare. The public opinion survey Actors and Strategies of Social Transformation and Modernization scrutinized relationship between the potential individual and actual institutional actors of social transformation and modernization. It revealed that the majority of population under study manifest rather cautious, conservative attitudes to selected aspects of transformation and modernization. The respondents who expressed clearly their films opinions in favour of present societal changes have following group attributes: they are better educated and younger than the average. All other differences are rather marginal. The interrelation between the political orientations of respondents and their attitudes towards transformation and modernization is not statistically significant. As far as the institutional actors (president, government, opposition parties) are concerned, the role of president is perceived by the respondents as rather independent of political parties' politics in both the Czech and Slovak Republics. Considerable differences occur in Czech and Slovak respondents' perception of the transformation attitudes of Czech and Slovak government and opposition. There are similarities between perception of government in one state and perception of opposition in the other one in several aspects. Czech government is perceived by Czech respondents as the moving agent of transformation and, indirectly, of modernization, as well as ignoring the need of big investments in education and neglecting its responsibility for social welfare. Czech oppositions' attitudes are in average perceived as close to those of respondents, except the Czech opposition's demand of state interventions in economy. Slovak respondents do not perceive Slovak government as the main actor of transformation and modernization and the Slovak government's opinion are perceived by Slovak respondents as close to their own. On the other hand, of Slovak oppositions' attitudes differ considerably in Slovak respondents' opinion from the common opinion of people.