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The aim of this article is to analyse the efforts made by the OSCE to contribute to the political settlement of the Transdniestran conflict. As the OSCE is one of the mediators in this conflict, the article begins by considering theories of international mediation and explains the factors that influence the success or failure of mediation efforts. Following this theoretical part, the article continues with an analysis of these factors with respect to the conflict in Transdniestria. It deals with the nature of the Transdniestrian conflict and its causes, describes the parties involved, explains the historical background of the conflict, and analyses its international context, i.e. the role of third parties. The following chapter focuses on the nature of the mediator (i.e. the OSCE) and its mediation activities, and attempts to explain the OSCE's mediation efforts. The article concludes that the absence of a political settlement to the conflict results from a combination of factors that are both embedded in the nature of the conflict and in the nature of the mediator. Adapted from the source document.

This paper aims to develop a simple, rigorous, and generally applicable analytical framework for investigation of the ability of international institutions to shape the political contestation among actors in international politics. To achieve this end, it discusses the key conceptual problems of the existing notions of the functioning of international institutions and offers steps to address these problems. It partially reformulates and formalizes the currently used concepts of effectiveness and robustness of institutions and builds upon them the concept of institutional capacity, which captures the quality of the institutions' work in a more complex and analytically rigorous manner. Subsequently, the paper discusses how the concept of institutional capacity can be applied to the study of the political systems of international organizations and presents a list of 24 criteria that are suitable for assessments of their functioning. Adapted from the source document.

The case study deals with the issue of the European Union as an actor in international relations. While based on an analysis of the first common EU naval military mission, EU NAVFOR Somalia, code-named Atalanta, the article intends to shed more light on how the EU paves the way to its getting recognized as an international actor. The author assumes that the EU aims at facilitating the process in two key dimensions: the virtual (i.e. material) and the intersubjective (i.e. idealogical) dimension. The consultation is meant to contribute to the epistemo-methodological debate about the essence and origins of the international recognition of the EU. Adapted from the source document.

This article aspires to overcome the barriers to a dialogue between the problem-solving and critical approaches to international peacebuilding. From the perspective of modern constructivism hypotheses are formulated concerning the influence of international peacebuilding on the development of sustainable democratic self-governance in the target countries. The hypotheses are tested on two cases of international initiatives in the post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina -- the cases of the defense and the police sector reforms. The empirical analysis then validates the hypotheses, and the results are presented in charts. The main idea of the article is that adherence to the principles of liberal governance in the course of international peacebuilding is considerably vital for the build-up of liberal peace in the target country in itself. Adapted from the source document.

Constructivist attempts to focus on analysis of the European identity, including the foreign policy dimension, rely almost exclusively on textual and verbal discourse. But discourse as such is not limited to textual and verbal acts; graphics and visuals, including political caricatures, constitute an integral component of discourse as well. The aim of this contribution is to analyse how the European Union's identity as an actor of international relations could be imagined by studying a sample of political cartoons from The Economist. Based on the analysis, I conclude that although the European Union is not imagined as an antithesis to a standard international actor, The Economist still imagines it as a player that is not entirely equal to other players. Adapted from the source document.

The article deals with the phenomenon of the naval blockade in peacetime. Instituting a naval blockade is an extensively used policy in international politics, both in history and in the contemporary world. The peacetime naval blockade is firstly defined and theoretically classified. This is followed by an analysis of several peacetime naval blockades, which serves to illustrate the limits of the effectiveness of such blockades. The analysis comes to the conclusion that there are many limitations on the effectiveness of the peacetime naval blockade, the most significant being that this kind of blockade has no formal rules and no background in international law. It also comes to the conclusion that an effective naval blockade in peacetime must be based on a complex approach and be part of a package of diplomatic measures. Also, it appears that such blockades themselves can have some deeper psychological effects, not only economic, political or military ones. Adapted from the source document.

This article explores the question of whether the increasing importance of religion in international relations is also reflected in the role the Roman Catholic Church plays in the formulation of Czech foreign policy. In the first half of the study we will briefly investigate in what ways the role of the Church is described in the key documents of Czech (foreign) policy and how the Church-politics relationship is interpreted in the Czech media discourse. Our attention will be dedicated primarily to the thematic analysis and the actorness of the Church. In the article's second half, we will focus on the way(s) the Church is trying to change the situation of its relation to Czech politics, which is currently unfavourable to it. We will identify three fundamental strategies that can be used by the Church as a reaction to its expulsion from the public sphere and also assess their empirical presence in the Czech milieu. Adapted from the source document.

An interview with international affairs scholar Robert Jervis is presented. Adapted from the source document.

Significant international attention has been directed to the most pressing problem of the financial crisis of 2008/2009 -- global liquidity shortages. The use of adequate foreign exchange reserves during the crisis helped alleviate pressures. However, this was only partially effective in a number of important cases. Some countries also needed to rely on external official financing. The aim of this article is to compare and analyse the main sources of official global liquidity -- foreign exchange reserves, bilateral swap lines of central banks, regional financial arrangements arid IMF resources. To reach effective outcomes in relation to the accumulation of FX reserves and a strengthening of the global financial safety nets, effective international coordination will be necessary. Adapted from the source document.

The publication is the result of a three-year observation of Czech companies' relation to quality, particularly their awareness of the fact that the quality of their products is a factor of competitiveness of the entire enterprise. The research was carried out using a questionnaire survey in companies in selected sectors. Based on the research of relevant specialized literature, research questions were formulated in the field of product quality, product quality monitoring and control, degree of customer satisfaction, and competitive advantages and disadvantages. Partial analyses were carried out from 2008 to 2010, and only those questions that remained completely unchanged in the individual reporting periods were subjected to mutual comparison. In addition to the survey, the financial indicators of the individual participating companies were analyzed in each year. This enabled the authors to monitor the situation of the company not only in the context of issues of quality, but also relate the results of this survey to their actual financial success. To split the businesses into two groups according to their financial performance five indicators selected on the basis of the research literature and experience with previous similar studies on a similar subject were used