The project is aimed at an empirical analysis of the ways (and levels) at which political stances and allegiances have been formed and expressed in a society that forms itself in a period of transition from authoritarian to democratic regime. The impact this has had on the political process and the development of civil society will be taken into account as well. The concrete case to be analysed - by conceptual means of contemporary political and social theories - in the Czechoslovak and particularly Cze ch society, in tentative comparisons with other countries of East and Central Europe.The general thesis to be pursued is that 1) in the historically unique situation of an abruptly open space of competitive party politics, the latter tends to colonize th e process of adopting and expressing politically relevant identities and interests within society; 2) the absence of a developed civil society - understood here as a sphere of articulating and institutionalizing collective interests and identities - thus

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