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The article aims to analyze representational practices which relied upon a series of relations that helped to legitimate U.S. foreign policy towards revolutionary Cuba in the years 1959-1960. Thinking of the U.S.-Cuban relations in terms of representational practices, the study deals with the representations of Cuba and explores how they were connected with certain strategies of political legitimization in the U.S. discourse. This attitude highlights an aspect of power as a producer of meanings, subject identities, their relationships and a range of imaginable conduct. For that matter, the analysis endorses the representational practices used to depict "the other" as a basis for conceptualization of the strategies. Adapted from the source document.

Aus tschechischer Sicht

The level of political participation of American citizens is commonly considered to be high. However, voter turnout is in fact relatively low, even in highly attractive presidential elections. The article focuses on this phenomenon and the particular factors that, according to the literature, affect turnout negatively. The first part describes various methods being used to measure voter turnout in the USA. The difference can even be several percentage points, depending on the method of calculation. With regard to these distinctions, American data cannot be directly compared with voter turnout statistics in European countries that use a different methodology. The main part of the article analyses several factors that are generally considered to influence voter turnout in the USA negatively, and counts their real impact. One important factor is that voter registration methods can lower the turnout by up to 11 per cent. Also significant is the lowering of the voting-age limit in 1971. Neither gradual changes in population age structure nor enactment of election-day holidays have proven to negatively influence turnout. The principal findings reveal a permanent increase of inhabitants without voting rights (esp. non-citizens). These persons are included in voting-age population figures, and due to inexact methodology, cause a merely statistical decrease at the level of at least 3 per cent of voter turnout. Adapted from the source document.

The article presents a study of religious effects on the environmental opinion among individuals in Sweden & the U.S. in 2000. It is a most different system design, since the comparison is between a highly secular (Sweden) & a highly religious population (the U.S.). The study uses data representing the adult population in Sweden & the U.S. In Sweden, religious people tend to be more positive than secular people to policies of environment protection. In the U.S., Republicans who belong to Evangelical Churches & people with a literal understanding of the Bible tend to be rather negative to suggestions on environmental care, while others who claim to be "born again" are rather positive towards suggestions on environmental caring procedures. Adapted from the source document.