You will find below an outstanding story about an IPSA member.

26.11.2009, Tomáš Piňos

Until recently Vladimíra Dvořáková was known mainly as a political scientist. Now the nation knows her especially as that courageous woman who disclosed corruption at the Law Faculty of the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň and even said that there are mafia structures dealing with university degrees.


Dvořáková claims that she is not afraid of some vengeance, however she admits that some people threaten her or at least try to frighten her.

At first sight Dvořáková looks like an inconspicuous person, one could think that she is just a clerk working for some public authority for many years—not making trouble either for herself or for anyone else—living her life in a drab ordinariness. However, when you meet her and look into her eyes, you can see that there is something inside which is definitely not drab. There is a deep passion for what she is doing and a big courage to say it loudly.

Her professional career started quite inconspicuously at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague where she studied history and Russian language in the times of the stiff communist regime, at the end of the 1970s. Most of her classmates probably went on to be teachers of history and Russian at Czech schools. That was not the case for Dvořáková whose aspiration to do something more interesting brought her to the Latin American Department of the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

There she had a chance to study the modern history of Latin America and be concerned with changes of totalitarian regimes to democracy in that part of the world. She also had a unique chance to access foreign publications and sources which were inaccessible for most people in the communist country. “The communist authorities did not mind that we were concerned with the end of right-wing dictatorships in countries like Chile or Argentina. That is why I had a very good space to find something out about those far-away countries and their regimes of those times,” Dvořáková said.

Two worlds mixed: politics and business

According to many of her colleagues, Dvořáková was one of those people who established political science in the Czech Republic after the change of the regime at the end of the 1980s. Until that time nothing like political science was taught at Czech universities. One could expect that Dvořáková started to teach political science at the Faculty of Arts or at some other faculty specialized at humanities but instead, she started to teach at the Political Science Department of the Faculty of International Relations of the University of Economics (VŠE) in Prague.

However, she rejects that a university which is designed rather for businesspeople and lovers of numbers than for political scientists would be a strange environment for her. “I love to teach at [the university] and I have a lot of great colleagues there. Besides, we can combine political science with economics. It is very interesting to explore and see how politics and politicians influence economics or how the world of business influences politics. And our department of political science is unique in this aspect,” Dvořákova said proudly.

Among the students Dvořáková is mostly popular, her lectures are usually full of people and students say that it is very interesting to listen to her as her lectures are not only “boring” political theory but she is able to talk in a gripping and sometimes even funny way that makes those lectures exceptional.

Strict teacher

However, she does not have to be popular for everyone as she is also able to act strictly and vigorously. Dvořáková said that when she has some tough discussion with her colleagues, they want to enforce something different and she wants to make them follow her will, she uses something that she calls a phenomenon of a strict teacher. “Many people who grew up in the communist regime can still remember those female teachers who were very strict. So when I want to enforce my will, I use a facial expression of such a strict teacher, everyone gets scared and does what I want,” she said. However, she added that she does it only in very exceptional cases.


One of her colleagues from the Department of Political Science, Jan Rataj, said that he has never experienced this and that Dvořáková has been always kind to him, although she is his boss. “I would say that what is crucial for her is a rational expertise of her subordinated colleagues. In our department many people with very different opinions meet and for her the only important thing is if the concrete person is able to do his or her job. If a person appears who is dull, she is ready to say goodbye very soon,” Rataj said.

He added that Dvořáková managed to popularize political science both in her country and abroad, that she has been to many international institutions and that she is the perfect type of political scientist to not only teach the science at a university but also to comment on current political events in the media. “When she comments on the events, she tries to be objective. You can feel her attitude somewhere [beneath the surface] but she always tries to avoid categorical conclusions,” Rataj said.

Dvořáková is very good in comparative political science, specifically in comparing the political systems of Latin America, according to another political scientist, Jiří Pehe from New York University in Prague. “No one else basically does it in the Czech Republic and that is her big contribution. I almost always agree with what she writes or says. She has a very good sense for the local situation and she has never yielded to any political pressures,” Pehe said.

Should she be afraid of mafia?

Pehe also said that he highly admires Dvořáková for her attitude towards the recent scandal at the Faculty of Law in Plzeň. Dvořáková is the head of the Accreditation Commission of the Ministry of Education, which found out that many university degrees were given to influential politicians, policeman and businessmen without these people having to pass all of the studies required. Dvořáková was the one who found the courage to say that there is even a mafia structure around the faculty which organized these frauds. “It impresses me that she has expressed a courageous civic attitude, although it could be quite dangerous for her. I would say that rather politicians should have said that and started to solve the situation. Unlike them, Dvořáková does not have bodyguards,” Pehe said.

Dvořáková herself said that she would not like to exaggerate that and that she has already said everything that she could say and now she does not have any secret information which would be the reason for some people to do her wrong. However, she admits that her life has changed since the moment she started to talk about mafia. “Some people try to threaten or discourage me, they send me SMS messages or e-mails which are not very pleasant. Some try to provoke me and send me an SMS in which they write that they want me to come to some place and take some information from them. I simply do not react to it,” she said.

Dvořáková admits that the work in the Accreditation Commission is not much fun; however she wants to do it as it is important to watch the level of the university education in this country. “Mostly I try to deal with universities and their representatives as with colleagues and help them to solve the problems they have. In the case of the Law Faculty in Plzeň the situation got out of control and it became clear that there is a real mafia structure. I could not help myself but say it loudly so that something could be done about it. It was a security risk for the state. I could not be quiet,” she concluded.


WHO IS VLADIMÍRA DVOŘÁKOVÁ
Born: Feb. 11, 1957, Karlovy Vary, West Bohemia
Education: 1981, history and Russian language at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Pragu.
Work experience: Since 2006, head of the Accreditation Commission of the Ministry of Education; since 1994, professor of political science at the Faculty of International Relations of the University of Economics in Prague; 1981–1994, professor, Oriental Institute of the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic.