Abstract
The paper discusses aspects of contemporary political culture of the Czech Republic. Theoretically and terminologically it is based on the concept of Almond and Verba's behavioural Civic Culture.
According to the civic culture (defined as a participatory culture "plus something else") is a necessary condition for stable democracy. The text deals with the following questions: Firstly, how to classify Czech political culture; Secondly, what idea of democracy is connected with the concept of the civic culture.
And finally, how to explain political apathy, alienation and low public participation in politics. The hypothesis is that relatively weak civic society and low activity of citizens is not in contradiction with the prevailing paradigm of so called elite-democracy.
The author analyses causes of the above phenomena and targets to illustrate that deep structural changes after 1989 have not necessarily lead to changes in the cultural sphere in terms of quality citizen development.