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In recent years, ideas of conscience and the liberty of conscience have become ever more salient in public discourse. Historically, these concepts have been used to mark out a certain scope of freedom and protection in moral, political and legal conflicts. In our time, individual conscience is frequently used to legitimate objections to, for instance, military service and medical interventions like abortion and vaccination. So too in Sweden – a country widely described as one of the most modern and secularized societies in the world. In this volume, a group of researchers in history, human rights, law, ethics and sociology of religion address some of the most central issues around conscience and the liberty of conscience in Sweden from the middle ages to the present. By situating conscience and liberty in wider intellectual, social and political settings, the essays provide alternative ways of thinking about the most intractable problems surrounding these concepts – the relationship between law and morality, the tension between individual and collective freedom, as well as the role of religion in public affairs. This volume will create new avenues of research for scholars and students interested in challenges related to conscience and liberty: both those in ethics, politics and law seeking a historical perspective, and those in history who want to tie their studies to the present.

Religious institutions are kind integral areas, in which spatial complex is subordinated to social complexes. Intellectuals as order of society owns big influence as idea on forming integral area relatively and as realities. Total institutions are invariable kind of integral area from many year. Sacral area is not enclave from social conditionality excluded entirely, can be treated independently on social context. Modern sacral buildings refer to trends of modern architecture frequently more, separateness of sacral area in smallest degree underlining, on symbolic pronunciation more putting.

The article deals with resonance, development, and changes in various forms of atheism in the works of Czech, especially Marxist, intellectuals in the second half of the 20th century. Attention is also paid to their influence on public opinion, especially in connection with a rise in negative attitude of a large part of the Czech public towards religion. The study is based primarily on historical and discursive analyses of the works of principal authors from the 1950s to 1989. Among the authors discussed are important figures such as Ivan Sviták, Milan Machovec, and Vítězslav Gardavský.

In the author's opinion we can agree that the theories of contractualism provide an excellent foundation for the legitimization of democracy. At the same time, he claims that democracy, and liberal democracy in particular, cannot be said to be the necessary outcome of social contract. Hobbes was the advocate of absolute monarchy, although his theory permiabsolute aristocracy as well as absolute democracy. Locke, a supporter of a limed monarchy, emphasized the principles of people's sovereignty. Rousseau, an apologist for thel will, tended to support such the solon that it is not the people's will but the wisest ones' whichrulthe sciety as long as they have the people's benefit in mind. Glorifying hisgeneral will, Roussau has become the founder of modern political totalitarianism. When discussing the relations between state and religion/church the above three classic speculators on the theory of social contract assumed the individual freedom of religious beliefs. Ultimately, it is the state though that regulates the external manifestations of faith, as it is the only political entity to arbitrate conflicts between individual interests, and express the pubgood, whatever that means.

The article examines the Polish regional differences after 1990. It shows the evolutionary process of creation and re-creation of a regional identity (from administrative regions to regions of identity). The author characterizes types of political representation in the Polish regions and wonders if the regions are independent entities of the EU policies. The author also asks about the relationships beetwen regions and the center from the perspective of construction of regional development strategies and about the advantages and disadvantages of concentration of capacity building in Warsaw. ; Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu "Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia". Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00.