Return of the Local Democracy to the Territory of the Military Training Areas (Case Study the Czech Republic)

Abstract

The return of the local democracy to the military training areas raises a number of complex challenges even under the conditions of a democratic state. In the municipalities that were established in the Czech Republic on 1 January 2016 by a separation from the territory of the military training areas, a nondemocratic paternalist system has dominated for many decades at the local level, which in some cases was deepened by a presence of the foreign Soviet army. While other municipalities in the post-communist period after 1989 have undergone a complex development and have gradually responded to new challenges (e.g., the use of subsidy titles, intermunicipal cooperation), and, in the case of the settlements in the territory of the military training area districts, nondemocratic local paternalism was preserved until the end of 2015. In the first phase of their term, the elected representatives of the local government primarily focused on securing the basic functions of the municipality (issues of housing and basic amenities of the village—school facilities, shops), saving local sights as remnants of historical memory, and developing cooperation within different networks of actors on a general level (e.g., issues of tourism development, environmental protection).

Regeneration of Post-Agricultural Brownfield for Social Care Needs in Rural Community: Is There Any Transferable Experience?

“…In this context, it might be mentioned that the Vranovice municipality can be described as a socially coherent rural community that is very much rooted in local traditions that are rather rare in other parts of the Czech countryside (more religious people with a strong tradition of folk legacy celebrations can be found here). It seems to be more difficult to jointly agree on a new development vision in communities that lack a strong sense of communality and togetherness (e.g., [ 33 ]). Future research activities in this field might focus on seeking the answer to whether centralized brownfield regeneration strategies are sufficiently taking the specifics of endogenous development of peripheral communities into account.…”

“…This has been analyzed rather rarely so far. Additionally, attention was more targeted on a large-scale rural post-mining brownfield [ 31 ] or on the sites where the occurrence of post-military brownfields and heavy soil contamination prevails [ 32 , 33 ].…”