Tomáš Klvaňa on Czechast: power, populism and why democracy cannot be taken for granted
Political scientist and analyst Tomáš Klvaňa has spent decades moving between academia, journalism, politics and international public affairs. In an interview for Czechast, he reflects on advising Czech presidents, working with the United States, and teaching American students in Prague. Klvaňa also speaks about the decline of traditional media, the rise of populism, and why liberal democracy is facing one of its most difficult periods in decades.
From communist Czechoslovakia to American academia
For Tomáš Klvaňa, teaching remains the most stable anchor in an unusually diverse career. “My most important professional identity is probably a teacher,” he says. Klvaňa has taught at New York University Prague since 2001, educating generations of American students in Central Europe.
His intellectual outlook, however, was shaped much earlier. Klvaňa was 23 when communism collapsed in 1989. “I do have meaningful recollections from the totalitarian communist regime,” he says, adding that the experience “still shapes my thinking until this day.” After studying journalism and social sciences at Charles University, he worked for Radio Free Europe and later moved to the United States.
He earned a PhD at the University of Minnesota and began teaching at American universities in the mid-1990s. “I was teaching undergraduate students with very limited English at the time,” he recalls with a smile. “It was a fantastic experience because I really learned a lot. I still pity my first students.”
Inside politics and the limits of power
Klvaňa’s career later took him directly into Czech politics. In 2003, he became spokesman and adviser to President Václav Klaus — despite having previously published critical articles about him. “The media dug them up and republished them,” Klvaňa recalls. “And Klaus said, ‘What did you write about me?’”
The experience proved short-lived. After roughly six months, Klvaňa decided to leave. “I realized I just didn’t want to work with him,” he says bluntly. “He held the same views then as he holds today — about the European Union, transatlantic politics and Russia. He just wasn’t saying them out loud.”
From inside the Castle, Klvaňa says, politics looked very different from how it is often portrayed. “What may look like a carefully thought-through process from the outside is often very chaotic,” he explains. “Very ordinary human elements come into decision-making — people’s weaknesses, animosities, personal relationships.”
Despite the disagreements, the experience was professionally formative. “I learned how politics really works from within,” he says. “And that’s something you simply cannot get as a journalist or an academic observer.”
Missed warnings, media decline and democracy under pressure
One of the most consequential episodes of Klvaňa’s public career came a few years later, when he served as the Czech government’s envoy for the planned US missile defense radar. The project ultimately failed, but Klvaňa now sees it as an early warning.
“It was the first time we encountered sophisticated Russian propaganda in Central Europe,” he says, recalling claims that the radar would endanger local populations. “People stayed against it, even when we brought experts, generals, and scientists to explain what it really was.”
The radar, he argues, was never just about technology. “For the Czech government, the more important reason was to have an American base on our territory,” Klvaňa explains. “When you have an American base, you are protected on a higher level. Russians understood that very well.”
Today, as Executive Director of Aspen Institute Central Europe, Klvaňa focuses on structural threats to democracy — particularly the transformation of media. “The old journalism model has collapsed,” he says. Advertising revenue has disappeared, newsrooms have shrunk, and serious foreign coverage has become increasingly rare, especially in small markets like Czechia.
At the same time, politicians increasingly bypass journalists altogether. “They can now go over the heads of the media and speak directly to voters through social media,” Klvaňa says. “But that also means they are not challenged. Influencers will not ask tough questions.”
The result, he warns, is a more emotional and confrontational politics. “We are in a transition period,” Klvaňa says. “Politics has become more engaging, but also more dangerous. Some of the ideas coming from populist movements are fundamentally threatening to liberal democracy.”
Engagement is rising, he acknowledges — but so are risks. “We cannot treat figures like Donald Trump as a fluke anymore,” Klvaňa says. “They represent something real and serious in politics.”
Invoking a familiar proverb, he concludes: “We do live in interesting times. But that saying was meant as a warning, not a blessing.”
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Czechast, Radio Prague International
Czechast is a regular RPI podcast about Czech and Moravian culture, history, and economy.
