Civic Values in the Czech Republic in a European context

Our chapter aims to describe the contemporary civic values of the people of Czech Republic within a European perspective. The following indicators have been chosen to represent activities, attitudes, and values that may sustain a democratic civic political culture: political interest, feelings of political efficacy and active participation in civil society and politics. Also relevant are trust in people, life satisfaction, support for democracy and confidence in the political institutions of society as well as being proud of being a citizen of one’s country. The civic culture also includes political tolerance. Some of these aspects of the political culture, especially trust in people and participation in civil society have also been seen as indicators of social capital that is seen as important for the development and sustainability of democratic political systems. The analysis will be based on data from the fifth wave of the European Values Study (EVS) and the ninth wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) fielded in 2018. The surveys include several questions on the principle of democracy as well as evaluations of the way the democracy is developing in one’s own country. Based on them we try to answer the question where would one expect the people of the Czech Republic to be located on this variety of indicators of a civic political culture.

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