Abstract:The aim of the rural development programs is the stabilisation of rural population and forming the perspectives for increasing the quality of life for all social groups in the communities as well as in the region. Less developed areas suffer for a long term from the cumulated negative factors of economic and social development. Their detailed identification which is theoretically considered in this paper can help to improve the particular measures towards the removal of the most urgent problems. Key words:Czech countryside, quality of life, less favoured areas Abstrakt: Cílem rozvojových programů zaměřených na venkov je stabilizace venkovské populace a utváření předpokladů pro zvyšování kvality života pro všechny sociální skupiny v obcích a regionech. Méně příznivé (znevýhodněné) venkovské oblasti jsou dlouhou dobu ovlivňovány kumulací negativních faktorů ekonomického a sociálního rozvoje. Jejich přesná identifikace, která je v teoretické rovině posuzována v tomto článku, může napomoci zlepšit určitá opatření směrem k odstranění nejurgentnějších problémů.

Rural development is closely connected with the development possibilities of residential locations. Broken social ties are projected into its earlier development. The socialist way of life (from the end of the WW II until the end of the eighties) was ideologically formed by collectivist models. Social organisations were highly formalised and controlled from above. Thousands of new social organisations have emerged in the villages and in towns since 1989, mostly involving cultural, sports and social activities. Civil initiatives were slow in winning recognition in rural areas and some types of initiatives are still missing. A new impulse for their progress was the accession of the Czech Republic into the EU in 2004. Information is drawn from the sociological research projects of the Sociological Laboratory, Czech University of Life Sciences.

The development of agriculture in Czechoslovakia has a rich history. Some authors talk about two discontinuities (collectivisation and decollectivisation). However, in the almost hundred-year long evolution, at least four major turnarounds can be registered: the agrarian crisis at the turn of the century; the 1919 land reform; collectivisation after 1949; and transformation after 1989. The events of this century that acted as the most important impulses of social change are evidently WWI and WWII. Outside these events, the political-administrative form changed seven times during one hundred years (the Austro

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Czech countryside and agriculture entered a new phase of development in May 2004. The transformation period after 1989 has changed the employment conditions of rural population as well as the conditions of economic subjects functioning in the rural space considerably. Its multifunctional character is now shifting from the sphere of theoretical thinking to the expected reality of the nearest years. The fact that the necessary economic prerequisites and their social impacts are closely tied together stresses the necessity of forming such tools of following and evaluating of the rural development criteria which would be able to reflect in a relevant way important indicators of the positive and negative changes in the working and living conditions of the population. The contribution issues from the experience of empirical research and reflects its future orientation, methodological approaches and possibilities.