The Third Sector and Organised Civic Participation in the Czech Republic

This paper tries to answer the question, whether NGOs are an effective form of interest representation of citizens and social groups. In the first part it concentrates on definition of nongovernmental sector as an institutionalised part of civil society. Further the contribution delineates following roles of NGOs: participative, service, and interest role. It is particularly the interest function within which NGOs create space for representation of interests and needs. In the second part it analyses barriers on civic sector in the Czech Republic, we point out the following ones: communication between civil society and the state, unsatisfactory legal environment, financing in general as well as its structural changes following the Czech accession into the EU, inadequately developed corporate giving. Last but not least we stress individual barrier – post-communist citizen is rather organizationally passive and indifferent in his relationship to civic sector