Summary: The chapter traces both the indisputable successes of Czech political science as well as persistent problems that have characterized the discipline since its founding in 1990. First, a descriptive overview of the discipline, its institutions, academic journals and students as well as its academic personnel is provided. Second, prevailing research practices and publication strategies of Czech political scientists are analysed. Two practices in particular are critically evaluated: academic inbreeding and publishing in domestic journals often run by the department of the author. The chapter is based on original data obtained through a survey of the heads of departments, coding of articles published in Czech political science journals, and participant observation by the authors.

Introduction

In the Czech Republic, the development of the academic discipline of political science is linked to the political changes that the country has experienced since 1989. The fall of communism resulted in the opening of academic space. With the brief exception of the 1960s during the short period of the Prague Spring, political science as such did not officially exist throughout the 41 years of the Czechoslovak communist regime. Such discontinuity has strongly impacted the development of Czech political science since 1989. The first departments were established only in 1990 at the Charles University in Prague, Palacký University of Olomouc and Masaryk University in Brno. Currently, Czech universities include fifteen departments of Political Science and/or International Relations (Kouba, 2011, p. 362) signalling a huge growth of the discipline. There are also centres of political science research unaffiliated to universities but carrying out political science research, such as the Institute of International Relations (Ústav mezinárodních vztahů) and the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Sociologický ústav AV ČR).

Although the discipline currently enjoys a higher degree of institutionalization than in its founding period (Šanc, 2009), there remain many unresolved challenges that may hinder its development. Chief among them are the small portion of high quality research that would be internationally competitive, the limited dialogue of the Czech community with international political science, and limited cooperation even among those in the Czech political science community.