Transition, constitution-making and separation in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

This article discusses political developments in Czechoslovakia and the two successor states from November 1989 to the end of 1992. Three main topics are explored: the failure to write a new constitution for Czechoslovakia, the breakup of the country, and the making of new constitutions in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The author argues against the view that the breakup of the Czechoslovak federation was analogous to the breakup of the Yugoslav or Soviet federations. Instead he suggests the inherent instability of any two-member federation as the structural cause, and economic conflicts as the triggering cause, of the breakup.