Catch Up and Overtake the West: The Czech Lands in the World-System in the Twentieth Century

This article interprets the modern history of the Czech lands by using the world-system approach. The author shows that it is plausible to distinguish between the political and economic semiperiphery, and it is important not only to use these terms at an international level but also within the state borders. The Czech lands were during the existence of the world-economy part of its semiperiphery, and they were in the interstate system part of its semiperiphery or periphery. Although there were ups and downs in their economic and political development, the position of the Czech lands in the modern world-system has been relatively stable since the sixteenth century. The author sees the late nineteenth century when the process of industrialization spread to the Czech lands as a period of catching up the core of the world-economy. The twentieth century was on the other hand characterized by a weakening of their economic position (disintegration of Austria–Hungary, great depression, inclusion in the soviet bloc, and post-communist transformation) and the unstable political position of either a relatively independent country (the politically influential interwar Czechoslovakia, the years before the Stalinist take over, 1968, and the years after 1989) or a semicolony (of Austria–Hungary, Nazi Germany, the Stalinist Soviet Union, the USA, Germany in part, and the EU). It does not seem that the semiperipheral status of the Czech lands can change in the near future.