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

The year 1989 was a turning point for many of the communist states in Europe (including former Czechoslovakia) as it ended the monopoly of the Communist Party and opened the way for the return of a democratic system based on free elections at various levels of public power. This path to democracy, however, was not easy, as the communist systems were based on nomenklatura power, which was represented by the right to appoint officials at various levels; this power was an assurance of a hierarchical, highly centralized political system (Mitchell & Arrington, 2000). The renewal of the standard democracy, which took place at various levels of public administration (national, regional, and local), required complicated decentralization reforms (Horvath, 2000). In 2000, 14 regions as regional self-governing units were established.

At the local level, the decentralization in Czechoslovakia was complicated, as in 1991, 78% of small municipalities had a population of less than 1,000 (Klusáček, 2008); these were lacking in human and other resources (Bryson, 2008). The number of small municipalities grew after 1989; while in 1990, the Czech Republic consisted of approximately 4,100 municipalities, in 2016, there were approximately 6,250 municipalities, 77% of which had a population of less than 1,000. In terms of the Czech Republic, these are municipalities that are small in population—the law stipulates that the minimum number of inhabitants for the new municipality is 1,000. In the Czech legislation, municipalities are defined as the basic local self-governing units. After the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU in 2004, the development of small municipalities also depended, among other things, on their ability to use funds from rural support programs efficiently and rationally (Pělucha et al., 2013). From the perspective of small municipalities, the intermunicipal cooperation became very important, for example, with the project focused on the development of technical infrastructure (Řehoř, 2015; Soukopová et al., 2016). Small municipalities play an important role in the development of the rural regions in the Czech Republic. They have problems with effectiveness of their self-government, especially with executive powers delegated to them by the central government. These municipalities have relatively small budgets, which complicate their ability to make necessary investments, especially in the basic infrastructure and services, and also in basic administrative needs, which leads to a lack of money for qualified experts (Pászto et al., 2019).

The military sector went through a similar complicated transformation. In the period of communist Czechoslovakia, the military sector was treated with a high priority (Crane, 1988), while in the post-communist period, after 1989, a policy of demilitarization and demobilization was implemented. Furthermore, Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Soviet army between 1968 and 1991. In 1991, approximately 73,500 Soviet soldiers and about 57,000 of their family members were sent back to the Soviet Union (Tomek, 2016). In the following period, a massive reduction of the military sector in the Czech Republic took place. At the beginning of its independence in 1993, the Czech Republic had more than 130,000 persons serving within the Ministry of Defence; in the following years these numbers declined, especially due to the reduction of the obligatory military service and its eventual cancellation in 2003. Accordingly, in 2015 the number of servicemen within the Czech Ministry of Defence was lower than 30,000 (MO ČR, 2016).

The return of the Soviet army back to the Soviet Union and the reduction of the Czech military sector caused a formation of many so-called brownfields. These are usually insufficiently used or neglected properties (land, buildings, sites) with potential contamination that originate from the different types of previous activities (Klusáček et al., 2018). A large part of these brownfields is related to their former military use (Hercik et al., 2014). In the Czech Republic, the largest part of the brownfields was taken up by industrial brownfields (42.8%), followed by military areas (23.2%). Localities originally used for military purposes showed the biggest average area for size of brownfields, such as 15.9 ha per one brownfield (Osman et al., 2015). From the perspective of the municipal government, it is important that the military brownfields are located in large cities, where the detailed analysis is available, for example, for Brno (Frantál et al., 2015) and Karviná (Martinát et al., 2016), and also in small municipalities, where the probability of regeneration is increased especially by the proximity to the regional capitals and to the main transport axes (Frantál et al., 2013; Krzysztofik et al., 2016; Navrátil et al., 2019).

The former military training areas, which ceased to be used for military purposes, are specific types of abandoned areas. At the beginning, the establishment of military areas was connected with a reduction of residential functions of selected areas by removing the settlements and involuntarily transferring the local inhabitants. The first delimitation of areas for military purposes took place in the area of the current Czech Republic during the time of the Austria-Hungary monarchy in the period before the First World War. This phenomenon developed even more during the 1920s and 1930s, yet an excessive growth of military areas did not start until the Second World War, during the German occupation and the intentional removal of the Czech municipalities in the regions of Benešov, Brdy, and Vyškov. It continued during the era of Stalin's communism in the early 1950s when, according to the Soviet military strategy, soldiers lived and were trained there for most of the year. For example, the establishment of the Ralsko military area in 1951 led to an almost total abandonment of the territory, and, apart from the accessible agriculture segments, all the grassy areas remained uncultivated and started to overgrow (Skaloš & Engstová, 2010). By the mid-1950s, eight military areas covered an area of more than 200 municipalities predominantly located in the areas where Germans had lived before their expulsion after the end of the war in 1945. In 1950, during the Stalin era, there were huge experiments—for example, Prameny's military training area in West Bohemia was canceled after a few years of operation, as there were plans to use this area for mining of strategic uranium ore, and it was replaced by a new military training area (Hradiště) in the same region.

In the period after 1989, the number and size of the military training areas also changed at the territory of the present Czech Republic. In 1991, after the Soviet army left and went back to the Soviet Union, the number of military training areas decreased from eight to five (Boletice, Brdy, Březina, Hradiště, and Libavá), as three military training areas (Ralsko, Dobrá Voda, and Mladá) were closed (Kubisa, 2010). The final decrease of the military training areas occurred on 1 January 2016, when operation of the military training area of Brdy was terminated and it was transformed into the Protected Landscape Area. The process was related to many challenges for local administrators (Klusáček et al., 2019). The area of the four remaining military training areas was reduced, and all settlements with civil inhabitants were intentionally excluded from these areas (Table 1). Six entirely new municipalities thus emerged with a majority of inhabitants from the military training areas, only a small number of inhabitants became a part of the municipalities in the surroundings.

The last reduction created a very special type of municipalities, as the settlements, being under military control for 70 years, have become independent municipalities and were required to manage their development on their own. The new municipalities obtained buildings and infrastructure (housing buildings used by soldiers, water and sewage systems, roads, abandoned churches, and other sites), which were transferred to them for free from the ownership of the Czech Ministry of Defence, but many of these were neglected and underfinanced.

The main objective of this article is to analyze the decisions of the newly elected self-government of the six new municipalities, which were applied during the first 18 months of independence when the area started to develop once again. This territory used to be administrated by the Ministry of Defence for many years and the local inhabitants lived under very special conditions, as they did not have any rights to own the property (all of which was owned by the military sector), were not allowed to elect the representatives of their municipalities, and thus could not make democratic decisions about the development of their municipalities.

A very important factor for the development of abandoned and neglected areas is the cooperation of different groups of stakeholders (Alexandrescu et al., 2014; Alexandrescu et al., 2017). The case of six new municipalities could be perceived as a unique social experiment, as the nondemocratic system of the local government, which took care of and made decisions for the inhabitants in a paternalistic way, survived here until the end of 2015. Other Czech municipalities (including municipalities affected by a cancellation of three military training areas in 1991) underwent a complex development during the post-communist era at the end of the 20th century. They gradually adapted to new conditions related to the advancing globalization and Europeanization at the beginning of the 21st century, and their representatives gained the knowledge and experience necessary for the efficient management of their municipalities. At the same time, the situation regarding the settlements in the territory of the military training areas was quite different, as the army made the decisions (not always the right ones) and took care of the local population. It is possible to say, with some exaggeration, though, that in the case of these settlements the paternalism of the communist system was replaced in 1989 with paternalism of the army.

The methodology is based on the analyses of available information and data related to the six new municipalities created by reducing the area of the three military training areas of Boletice, Hradiště, and Libavá on 1 January 2016 (Figure 1). The issue of the six new municipalities, which is a very interesting social experiment, was discussed in detail in the Czech media. For this reason, responses to this issue were examined in the mainstream media, specifically news articles and radio and television reports from January 2016 to June 2017. In addition, available statistical data were used, and the information that was published on the website of the new municipalities was analyzed. In the new municipalities, a field survey took place in July 2017, during which 12 interviews were held with selected actors important for the municipal development (Table 2). Two interviews were held in each municipality—one interview with an elected representative of the local government, a mayor, or a member of the municipal council; and the second interview with another significant actor of the local development, for example, a local entrepreneur or a representative of a school or NGO. The objective was to cover a variety of ideas and different perspectives from respondents of various backgrounds. One interview took approximately one hour and had a semi-structured format. During the research we first contacted the representatives of self-governing bodies and then, based on their recommendation and local knowledge, we chose other interviewees. This method of data gathering was complemented by nonparticipant observations that took place during the public meetings of individual municipal councils to learn more about the opinions of other people who actively participate in planning the local development. During the spring of 2017 (before in-depth interviews were conducted to ensure the anonymity of the researchers), six public meetings were visited.

The territory of our interest consisted of six new municipalities that were created on 1 January 2016. The territory of these new municipalities was part of the military training areas in the period between 1950 and 2015, and during this military era, the inhabitants did not live in municipalities but in the so-called settlement units of the military training areas. The main objective of the research was to identify the most important issues or challenges addressed by the elected representatives of the municipal self-government in the first 18 months of the independent existence of their municipalities. The following characteristics are typical for all the studied municipalities: low numbers of inhabitants, low population density compared to the national average (the average population density of the Czech Republic was 133.8 inhabitants/km² on 1 January 2016), and a high number of the parts of the municipality, or settlements (Table 3). In terms of the population, it is important to mention that all newly created municipalities had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and that their formation was thus contrary to the original version of the Act on Municipalities No. 128/2000 Coll., which in paragraph 21 specified inter alia that a new municipality may be created by a separation of a part of the municipality, yet must have at least 1,000 citizens. The Czech government decided that new municipalities created by reduction of military training areas may not fulfill this condition with regard to a specific history of the territory. The voice of local population was also taken into account as the majority of population of these settlements showed a willingness in the 2012 polls (referendums) to live in independent communities.

Surely, some settlements joined the surrounding communities. For example, in the case of the Boletice military training area, a new municipality, Polná na Šumavĕ with 183 inhabitants, was created on 1 January 2016, but the number of inhabitants of Kájov municipality increased by 68 inhabitants, the Křišťanov municipality by 7 inhabitants, and the Ktiš municipality by 19 inhabitants. The settlements that became part of the surrounding municipalities have not been a subject of our research as they became part of the municipalities with long-term experience of self-government, and, in most cases, there was not a significant increase in the total number of their population due to the reduction of the military training areas. In other words, small former military settlements were usually amalgamated with larger municipalities. For example, the municipality of Kájov had a population of 1,733 on 1 January 2015, and a year later on 1 January 2016, thanks to the amalgamation with a former military settlement with 68 inhabitants, it showed a total of 1,823 persons. For this reason, the research was focused on six new municipalities, in which the municipal self-government started from scratch.

Before 1989 there were no democratic elections in Czechoslovakia. After the crumbling of the Soviet system in 1989, the democratic principles that had existed before the Soviet invasion, returned—people could vote for their representatives in parliament (central government) and for their representative at local level (municipal self-government) as well as at regional level (regional self-government). Nevertheless, the inhabitants of military training areas (MTAs) even after 1989 and until 2015 lived under special conditions—they could vote for central and regional government, but they could not vote for their representatives at the municipal level. They had other limitations as well. For example, they could neither make their own decisions about their local development, nor could they own real estate, such as houses or apartments, or gardens that they used. At the MTAs, everything was owned by the Czech army. If the inhabitants wanted to increase the comfort of their house—for example, to install new roofs or windows, or to insulate the house—they could ask the military administration, which always involved a long bureaucratic process with an uncertain outcome, or they could invest their own money. The decisions at the local level were also made by the military administration. The army's practice to secure the needs and requests of the local population had some positive effects—for example, the latter did not have to pay for municipal waste disposal or the fees associated with supporting schools and schoolchildren's activities. All of these fees were paid by military financial resources. Yet negative effects, like reduction of certain civil rights at the military training areas, also took place.

Hence, because of these circumstances, neither the local population that lived at the military training areas had experience in voting in municipal elections, nor the newly elected municipal officials had experience with the municipal management. They faced a unique task of how to develop the local democracy in municipalities that had been managed for decades by various armies (Czechoslovak and Soviet Army, and after 1993 the Army of the Czech Republic). They focused primarily on ensuring the basic needs of the municipalities. Yet, surprisingly enough, attention was also paid to rescuing the local landmarks and the remainders of the historical memory—and also to the development of cooperation within various networks of actors, which might help overcome the typical isolation as a consequence of the legacy of the era of the military training areas. The following subsections are devoted to the above-mentioned problems.

The local administration of the six new municipalities, which were created due to the reduction of the military training areas, focused at the beginning of their existence on ensuring the basic functions that were necessary for the local population. While in the previous period, the basic functions were ensured by the army (e.g., dealing with administrative issues of the local population, maintenance of the housing stock, operation of schools, deliveries, repair of local roads, collection of waste, public lighting, maintenance of water resources or a wastewater treatment plant), after the establishment of new municipalities, the elected self-government was in charge of these matters. The first representatives of the local self-government were elected in the first communal elections, in which a huge share of voters participated; yet the situation of the elected municipal representatives was not easy as the municipalities were facing depopulation between 2001 and 2011 (as shown in Table 4). The representatives of the municipalities had to secure a stabilization of the population. A slight increase in the population number may be recorded between 1 January 2016 and 1 January 2017 in all municipalities with the exception of Kozlov municipality, where the municipal council ceased to exist 11 months after the first elections. The municipal council was not able to come to an agreement regarding basic priorities of the development of the municipality. In the second exceptional municipal election in 2017, the participation in the polls was significantly lower and reached 58.9% of the voters.

The representatives of the new municipalities try to stabilize or possibly increase the number of the population, as the population number is crucial in deciding how much money the municipalities receive from the government based on the governmental policy of the Czech Republic (Act on Budgetary Rules). The larger the population is, the more money the municipality receives. The municipalities focused on taking various measures while attempting to stabilize the population number. In the sphere of the housing policy, activities were primarily focused on repairing the housing stock and attracting new inhabitants to live in empty flats owned by the municipality, for example, in Mĕsto Libavá, while elsewhere the housing stock was privatized, as it was in the case of Doupovské Hradiště. In the areas of the six municipalities, there are both family houses (Figure 2) and blocks of flats that were built during the military training era for the employees of the army (Figure 3). Frequently, some part of the blocks of flats were transferred to the municipal ownership in a bad technical condition. It is also necessary to stress that even in Doupovské Hradiště not all houses were involved in the privatization process. Houses with more flats were excluded, as there were concerns that their privatization could lead to a formation of a ghetto—which means that a house with more flats would be purchased by private persons or companies that aim to move poor people there, whose rents are then covered by a governmental policy supporting housing for poor people. The social policy is thus abused in this way. This phenomenon of “doing business with poverty” is quite usual in the peripheral rural regions of the Czech Republic (see Růžička, 2012).

A similar approach and concern might be seen in Mĕsto Libavá, where family houses were privatized, but all blocks of flats (255 flats) have been kept in the municipal ownership so far. Some flats have already been rented and the potential inhabitants are being lured by low rents and a possibility to drive through the military training area when commuting to Olomouc, which is an economic center of the wider region. A problem of empty houses is an issue in Luboměř pod Strážnou too, yet its rather peripheral location makes its attractiveness for newcomers even more complicated. Moreover, this municipality's population is quite small. Generally, it can be stressed that there is a certain mistrust toward the developers from outside of the municipality, who might significantly increase the rents for the present tenants after purchasing their houses. The municipalities also expressed their concerns over the new contracts for the tenants, as these might be only for a fixed period of time, or that the empty flats could be occupied by socially deprived people from big cities.

Next, measures were focused on the facilities of the municipalities—for example, an elementary school and a nonexistent local food store, which was the case in Mĕsto Libavá. At the beginning of the municipality's independent existence, only a temporary mobile store was available. This problem was solved when the store was rented by a local inhabitant. Similar problems with reopening of local food stores, keeping the local post office, or reopening the local pub were handled in Polná na Šumavě, too. In Mĕsto Libavá, there was a problem with the source of fresh water, in which residues of uranium were found (this problem was not related to its previous military use).

It is crucial that the new municipalities are provided with basic infrastructure (such as a food store, elementary school, pub, post office), which was laconically commented on by a mayor of Mĕsto Libavá: “municipalities without a pub, food store and school are written-off.” It is necessary to mention that these services were significantly subsidized by the army in the past and that the administration of Mĕsto Libavá is trying to secure its own subsidy scheme that would keep these services in operation for the future (e.g., subsidies for the local elementary school). Due to the lack of financial sources and contributions from the government (to which the school is not entitled because of the low numbers of pupils), municipal subventions based on a rental of the local municipal pastures or a creation of hunting area are discussed. The case of the elementary school in Mĕsto Libavá is quite exceptional as Mĕsto Libavá is a larger municipality in comparison to the other five municipalities, where attention is primarily focused on keeping the basic infrastructure (e.g., a food store or a pub in Polná na Šumavě).

It has to be mentioned that all the new municipalities had a relatively rich support from the army and during the transition period several investments funded by the army were made here. On the other hand, these investments were strongly criticized by local people as inadequate because they could not compensate many previous decades of insufficient funding. For example, a company owned by the army (Military Forests and Farms Company in Doupovské Hradiště) created a central water supply and sewage systems in one part of the municipality. In Mĕsto Libavá, the army invested in the repairs of the local road and a water supply system. In this case, the transfer of the housing from the army to the municipality ownership raised a discussion about the bad technical condition of the transferred houses. Mĕsto Libavá also gained 300 hectares of forests that represent another potential source of income for the municipality budget, yet at the same time, such properties also generate maintenance costs. All the new municipalities also received significant financial aid from the government. It was decided that during the first two years of the existence of the new municipalities, they would receive per capita two times as much money from the budgetary rules of the government than the other municipalities. Moreover, during the first nine months of their existence, the army assisted in municipal waste disposal. Another compensation from the state was that the new municipalities received two hectares of land per inhabitant to facilitate the beginnings of the economic life of the municipalities.

New municipalities took over large areas with numerous local landmarks related to the religious beliefs and historic memory of the settlement. They included churches or ruins of churches, neglected cemeteries as remainders of the original German population, and cultural places. The modern history of these areas has been quite dramatic. The area of the new municipalities was primarily settled by Germans until the end of WWII (Table 5), after which the Germans were expelled. Thus, a natural development of these areas was profoundly disrupted, first, by the expulsion of Germans, then, after a partial resettlement, by people from Czech inner lands. Later, the military training areas were established there and the local Czech population was removed to other parts of the country. Significant population decrease occurred between 1950 and 1961. The original concept of the communist planners was that they would completely move the population away from the MTAs and the local economy (agriculture and forestry) would rely on a commuting labor force from municipalities outside the military area. Such a plan was never realized. A total destruction of the local settlements was avoided only due to the need to accommodate the army's employees who were vital for the smooth operation of the military training areas—soldiers and civil employees of the army, workers of the forests located at the MTAs, and farming companies (Vojenské lesy a statky ČR, s.p., 2020).

After the establishment of the new municipalities, a large part of the local landmarks was found to be in bad condition. The totalitarian power viewed these landmarks as relicts of a feudal or capitalist system and did not consider them worthy of protection and maintenance. An attitude of the Soviet army to the local German cemetery in Mĕsto Libavá represents a vivid example of this kind of approach. In the area of the cemetery a gym for soldiers was built, while hundreds of graves were destroyed (only three gravestones were preserved) and human remains were excavated and moved someplace within the military training area (Tauberová, 2015).

After the fall of communism in 1989, some reconstruction was done. For example, St. Martin's Church in Polná na Šumavě was reconstructed in 1992–93, but the majority of the local landmarks were transferred to the new municipalities while still in neglected condition. Thus, the representatives of the new communities were faced with a dilemma: whether, and to what extent, they should focus on the local landmarks or whether they should concentrate instead on more urgent tasks of the municipality, such as its basic operations. For example, Mĕsto Libavá started to restore St. Anna and St. Jacob Maior Church in Stará Voda, which is the only building remaining from the former German village. Mĕsto Libavá collaborates with the Association for Embellishment Lubavia (2020), which gained some money for the church renovation from the former German inhabitants of Stará Voda. The mayor of Mĕsto Libavá perceived the care for the structure not only as a concern for a cultural and religious landmark, but also as an opportunity to develop local tourism. Figure 4 illustrates a plan of the municipality of Mĕsto Libavá, which was trying to collect gravestones from the destroyed German cemeteries at the territory of the former military training area and thus remember the German history of the municipality. There is a plan to build a columbarium by the church in Mĕsto Libavá, where people could remember their ancestors. It is interesting that some of the former German inhabitants wished to be buried in Mĕsto Libavá, as it is a land where their ancestors had been buried. Similarly, by using financial contributions from the expelled Germans, the church in Kozlov was reconstructed.

Some other landmarks are still in a devastated condition. For example, the local mayor of Svatobor in Doupovské Hradiště tried to persuade the municipal council of the necessity to invest in reconstruction of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (Figures 5 and 6), (acquiring the subvention was conditioned by 30% involvement of the municipality), but it was rejected as it was not a priority for the development of the municipality. Some other landmarks fully disappeared—for example, St. Bartholomew's Church in Bražec served as an army warehouse until 1953 to be demolished ten years later. Marques et al. (2015) emphasize that the endeavor to recover historic memory is of crucial importance for the local communities, since it helps them to build a new local identity that would follow the interrupted history of the municipality.

The restoration of German cemeteries in the former German regions at the territory of the current Czech Republic is a highly sensitive issue as it might cause conflicts among inhabitants at local communities.¹ It has to be stressed here that before 1989, there was only one main interpretation of modern history celebrating the brave Soviet army liberating former Czechoslovakia from Nazi (German) occupation, which heavily affected a perception of historical events until today. Moreover, many Czechs have a strong skepticism toward new interpretations of Czechoslovak history as it is depicted, for example, by Heimann (2012). Generally speaking, modern history is a sensitive topic in the post-socialist societies, and even Heimann's book was published in the Czech language with a delay and with some problems (interview with Smetana, 2020). It is not easy for the new municipalities to solve the problem of landmarks in their areas as it was significantly influenced by the expulsion of the German population after 1945. Attempts to recover historic roots of the municipalities are even more complicated as today's municipalities are composed of several former settlement units with their individual histories. If settlement units create communities with shared local identities, it is important to have at least one candidate at the level of the settlement unit to enable the possibility to reach the descriptive representation of the unit in the council of the amalgamated municipality (Voda et al., 2017). We can state that attempts to renew local landmarks in new municipalities exist, yet there are problems, such as the very bad condition of the landmarks and the necessity to invest in them, which are essential to secure the needs of the local inhabitants.

The population that lives in the area of the new municipalities has been in partial isolation for a decade, because military administration took care of local inhabitants and was responsible for all aspects of local development. This was certainly not complete isolation, yet the communication and cooperation with other municipalities (or generally with various networks of actors) were rather unusual. One unique project focused on the improvement of sports facilities in Mĕsto Libavá (funded by the LEADER programme). The major part of the cooperation with other networks was strongly based on the attitudes of the army, yet local development did never belong to the priorities of the administration of the MTAs. Still, a cooperation with other municipalities, local action groups, and other networks is important for the local development and, among other, serves as a platform for sharing the knowledge concerning the potential funding for the local projects. The six surveyed communities did not experience any of this. The military training area Hradiště, though, was an exception, taking an active part in the local action group Vladař. The head of the military training area Hradiště was very successful in organizing the local social events—for example, balls, concerts, and events for children during Christmas—and was perceived by its local population as their “mayor.”

It is necessary to assume that the majority of the elected representatives of the new municipalities lack the long-term experience of establishing collaboration within various networks of actors on the upper-municipal level. The networking is then crucial for the development of small municipalities, as, for example, the development of tourism or the development of technical infrastructure (water supply networks, sewage systems, wastewater treatment plants) postulates cooperation with other municipalities. Small municipalities usually lack capacities, which may be illustrated by a statement of the mayor of Polná na Šumavě (March 2016): “Not only are we waiting for more tourists, but we are also happy to welcome the decent ones. Yet, there have not been many activities that would encourage tourism so far. It's too early, and there has not been time for this yet.”

Shortly after their founding, all new municipalities became parts of different associations of the municipalities, Nevertheless, it is still questionable whether the representatives of the new municipalities will be able to involve themselves effectively in the existing networks of municipalities, such as Associations of Municipalities, local action groups, Euro-Regions, and others. For example, the new municipality Luboměř pod Strážnou joined the association of the cooperated municipalities after 15 years of existence of this association. As a new member the former had difficulties, because it could not rely on informal contacts from the past. Similarly, Doupovské Hradiště and Bražec joined the Doupovské Hory association of municipalities that had been active since 2003. The question remained how the new municipalities would be accepted by other members and how they would adopt to the activities of the association, as the acceptance of new members by the old ones is not always positive. This attitude toward new municipalities was partly caused by the fact that some old municipalities near to the military training areas increased their area but did not receive any extra governmental funding, unlike the new municipalities. For example, Verušičky, with a population of 381 in 2015, increased its population to 499 in 2016 due to the inclusion of the areas of the former military training areas—Hradiště-Albeřice, Malý Hlavákov, and Sklárna—but did not receive any additional funds.

To establish an effective cooperation among the municipalities, experience and a friendly approach from other partners is necessary, yet in the case of more complicated matters, the special skills are essential, too (for example, when negotiating with international partners within Euro-region cooperation or with descendants of expelled Germans, or when trying to gain subventions for development projects). When considering the educational structure of the population of the new municipalities where people with lower levels of education prevail, it is obvious that it will be difficult to find people with special skills within the municipality. For this reason, the new municipalities will have to rely on the help of experts from higher levels of the public administration (the municipalities with extended powers, regions, and ministries) or experts from private companies, which usually requires additional costs.

A typical issue that requires a collaboration with other actors on the upper-municipal level is environmental protection. It has to be taken into account that the surveyed municipalities were founded by reduction from the military training areas (Libavá, Hradiště, Boletice), in which the areas of Natura 2000 were delimited by governmental regulation no. 19/2005 with threatened bird species. Regarding the nature of biodiversity, Boletice military training area is unique. It is located between the Šumava National Park, the Protected Landscape Area Blanský les (bordering the Czech Republic), and the Bavarian Forest National Park (bordering Germany), and altogether it forms a huge protected area with unique nature. Nevertheless, although biodiversity in both the former and current military training areas has been broadly researched (Luft et al., 2014; Guimarães et al., 2017), it is necessary to keep in mind that protecting the biodiversity is not the primary effort of the representatives of the new municipalities. Their primary aim is to secure the sources for the local population, for example, fresh water at a reasonable price (the local sources of fresh water are cheaper than the regional water supply systems).

Regarding environmental protection, we have to mention that the military training areas were often considered suitable places for locating facilities that are strongly refused by other municipalities (such as the repository for radioactive waste). For example, the Radioactive Waste Repository Authority conducted several analyses of geologic conditions in the area of the military training areas in 2006 and found suitable conditions in Boletice and Hradiště. Such plans were strictly refused by the protectors of the environment as well as experts on environmental issues (e.g., ornithologists), who highlighted the uniqueness of nature in the given areas and potential risks connected to the construction of the repository for the location of radioactive waste. When considering the environmental issues in the six new municipalities, it has to be mentioned that these sparsely populated areas are usually targets of not-so-popular development projects, as in the case of the municipal waste landfill in Doupovské Hradiště (in the Činov municipal part), where, in the area of 10 hectares, communal waste from the regional capital, Karlovy Vary, is stored.

When negotiating with other actors of the development, it will be of key importance how the attitudes toward the reduced military training areas will develop. Although their area was reduced, they will continue to be used for military training. It is very important for the local population to have a guaranteed entry into the selected part of the military training areas, as these are directly adjacent to their new municipalities. The population of the new municipalities should also have a guaranteed transit through the military training areas, which may shorten their travel time to work or school. On the other hand, it was clearly declared by the army that an entry into the reduced military training areas will be limited (especially for tourists). Thus, it is far from certain whether the population of the new municipalities is granted such an exception in future. If not, the new municipalities could join those municipalities that criticize the military training areas for creating barriers within the local development and frequently make claims to the army. One of the examples is the Daskabát municipality, which has organized many activities to move the firing range to the central parts of the Libavá military training area, that is, farther away from the settled areas of the municipality, to reduce noise pollution for its inhabitants.

The researched new municipalities were forced to make important decisions and solve complicated issues within a short period of time after their foundation in January 2016, while in other municipalities such issues were gradually solved during a much longer period of time since the change of the political regime in 1989. The new municipalities that arose in the area of the reduced military training areas had an opportunity to avoid mistakes that had been made in the other “old” municipalities and to build on the previous knowledge, skills, and experience. Unfortunately, the possibility that the representatives of the new municipalities could cooperate and gain knowledge within various networks of actors was limited due to the lack of institutional and personal contacts. Such a situation significantly affected the decisions of the representatives of the new municipalities.

In our research, we found that housing is a key issue that has been solved by the representatives of the new municipalities. We discussed a basic dilemma of what to do with the housing stock that is located in the new municipalities and had been previously transferred by the army to municipal ownership. The municipalities have been solving this problem with utmost caution. They have focused on privatization of the selected part of the transferred housing stock, specifically the family houses, and have decided to keep the blocks of flats and rent them to the local people or to attract the new population to move to the municipality. The driving force of such a decision was the endeavor to avoid the purchase of these houses by controversial companies that systematically rent flats in the peripheral municipalities to poor people from large cities whose costs are funded by the government. Concerns about the formation of ghettos of people with low incomes clearly emerged.

Another challenge for the representatives of the new municipalities is the maintenance of the local landmarks that are frequently in poor condition after being in the possession of the army for decades. The majority of the municipalities consider protection and maintenance of the landmarks an important part of their activities, but at the same time, the representatives of the municipalities point out that there are more urgent tasks that need to be dealt with. The mayors state that the basic needs of their inhabitants have to be secured first.

The new municipalities have also focused on the issue of the involvement of their representatives in the networks of actors, primarily on the upper-municipal level. An accession of the new municipalities to the local associations of the municipalities has been successfully accomplished, yet a lack of experience with the management of the intermunicipal cooperation of the new municipalities is obvious. Still, the question remains if and how fast the positive effects of the cooperation on the local development are noticeable. The population of the new municipalities has been living for decades in settlements that had been parts of the military training areas and where practices of democratic governing on the municipal level were not applied. The key decision maker in these municipalities was the army, which primarily supported a military-style management of the area.

Many of the people got used to such a paternalistic style of living in military training areas, so not all of them were enthusiastic about the renewal of the local democracy. This specific attitude of the local people was accurately expressed by a statement on the web pages of the Doupovské Hradiště municipality: “Although it was not a will of all our inhabitants, we became civilians since January 2016 with everything that it includes.” This statement nicely refers to a certain nostalgia of the local population for the nondemocratic system that guaranteed them certain securities, which a majority of people in the democratic system has to secure by themselves. It may also refer to a modified type of nostalgia for the communist regime in the post-communist countries (Rekść, 2015), sometimes called by the term “ostalgy” (Klicperova-Baker & Košťál, 2017). Nowadays, it is not apparent yet whether the researched municipalities will develop successfully in the future and meet the requirements of the democratic society. Future local development will be influenced both by endogenous, proactive attitudes of the local actors of the development and by exogenous factors, such as settings of subventions and other governmental policies. Geopolitical factors seem to be of crucial importance too, due to the current unstable security situation in the world and, consequently, a rising importance of the military forces for the defense of the country and their preparedness for help during natural disasters. The future of the six new municipalities that were surveyed in our research is widely open to forthcoming challenges.

This work was supported by Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (grant TD03000261) and by institutional support of the authors (VUKOZ-IP-00027073).