Suchergebnisse

This article deals with the theory and practice of Slovak referendum. Special aim is concentrated on referendum in 1997 (held on NATO accession and on the direct election of the president of the Slovak Republic). Generally speaking referendums brought with a lot of problems. Their outcome was polarization of society and political elite. All Slovak referendums were unsuccessful (with the exception of last referendum – euro referendum in 2003). Concerning the consolidation of Slovak democracy referendums had a negative impact. ; This article deals with the theory and practice of Slovak referendum. Special aim is concentrated on referendum in 1997 (held on NATO accession and on the direct election of the president of the Slovak Republic). Generally speaking referendums brought with a lot of problems. Their outcome was polarization of society and political elite. All Slovak referendums were unsuccessful (with the exception of last referendum – euro referendum in 2003). Concerning the consolidation of Slovak democracy referendums had a negative impact.

The present article comments on the contemporary development of the Austrian party stage, deals with the governmental crisis of the Schüssels cabinet and the situation before the early elections to the National Council in November 2002. Analyzing the basic programme outputs and potential coalition strategies of the relevant Austrian parties, it considers all the possible configurations after the elections. The article also briefly analyses the consequences of various alternatives of post-electoral coalition for alteration of the Austrian party system that undergoes the long-term process of transformation. ; The present article comments on the contemporary development of the Austrian party stage, deals with the governmental crisis of the Schüssels cabinet and the situation before the early elections to the National Council in November 2002. Analyzing the basic programme outputs and potential coalition strategies of the relevant Austrian parties, it considers all the possible configurations after the elections. The article also briefly analyses the consequences of various alternatives of post-electoral coalition for alteration of the Austrian party system that undergoes the long-term process of transformation.

Socialism was born out of the belief in the bright future of mankind. Thus, the utopian vision of classless society occupied the minds of the early communist avant-garde. Yet, such hopes did not survive the initial revolutionary enthusiasm. As the social organization of the 'real socialism' turned out to be a rigid bureaucratic system, the visions of the 'bright future' were replaced by the 'picture of the golden age', namely the image of the revolution itself. Accordingly, rituals commemorating the 'founding fathers of socialism' substituted the ritualized commitments to building the 'ideal society of equals'. The ideological content of socialism vanished. Past memories occupied the present. With the breakdown of communism the present could for a moment release itself from the iron grip of the past. The "envelope of the unhistorical" seemed to be open for the deeds of new reformers. Yet, the present could not escape too far. It was almost immediately caught again either by the past or by the future. In the first case, post-communist nationalisms (Brubaker 1996) monopolized the political field; in the second case, the "scientists of the not yet" (Stark and Bruszt 1998: 1-11) disseminated their neoliberal visions of free-market economy. As a result, the present was defined either in terms of national myths going far back to history or by visions to be realized by imitation of the Western model of capitalism. The focus of this paper is the different paths taken by different countries in the region after the collapse of socialism. The paper distinguishes between the 'nationalizing alternative' as one basic direction, and the 'catching up option' as another one. The paper further argues that this dichotomy itself forms around two clusters of several potential stances which could have been taken in the process of transformations. The goal of the paper is to propose a general framework, with the help of which the interactions 'behind' the political decisions taken by political elites in the post-socialist countries ...

In this article its author wanted to treat the history and presence of the system constitutional institutions competent for the area of conception, execution and control of security and defence policy of the Czech Republic and also addresses in short the function and content of the main security documents of the country. The author tried to sketch the institutional and documentary framework of the Czech security policy and to explain roles, relations and obligations of the highest-level constitutional bodies in the process of creation and carrying out of this policy (especially positions of the President, the Parliament, the Government and its so called power ministries and other important institutions). This text does not take a lot all this theme in detail, but it is more aimed at basic information and its target is to expound these problems to those interested, especially to foreign students. ; In this article its author wanted to treat the history and presence of the system constitutional institutions competent for the area of conception, execution and control of security and defence policy of the Czech Republic and also addresses in short the function and content of the main security documents of the country. The author tried to sketch the institutional and documentary framework of the Czech security policy and to explain roles, relations and obligations of the highest-level constitutional bodies in the process of creation and carrying out of this policy (especially positions of the President, the Parliament, the Government and its so called power ministries and other important institutions). This text does not take a lot all this theme in detail, but it is more aimed at basic information and its target is to expound these problems to those interested, especially to foreign students.

Since the beginning of the second Chechen war, Russia has experienced several shifts in domestic policy. From the very start of his presidency, Vladimir Putin pursued a policy of consolidating power while facing both the external and internal enemy represented by Chechen rebels. As a side effect, this has brought about an outburst of xenophobia and racism that has turned against all Caucasians. The antiterrorist campaign has had broad consequences, even outside the security field. The campaign, which was based on economic arguments, began with attacks on the media tycoons Vladimir Gusinskii and Boris Beresovskii, and was later widened to other selected oligarchs. Another set of changes brought about reforms to almost every aspect of state organization, including everything from the parliamentary electoral system to the local representative elections. Although it had been planned for a long time, the core of the reforms was enacted after the tragedy in Beslan in September 2004.

This study is an attempt to deliver a comprehensive (geo)political analysis of the evolution of transit routes to supply Caspian oil and natural gas reserves to world markets using the territory of the South Caucasus. In the initial part of the study, a series of transit options prevailing in the two decades up to 2005 is scrutinized; in 2005, the highly debated Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline was eventually built marking the shift in interest from oil transit to natural gas transit. Emphasizing the peculiarities of geopolitical competition for the strategically important area of the post-Soviet South Caucasus that has been continuing between Russia, the United States, and to a certain extent also Iran and Turkey, the article seeks to explore the close interconnection of politics and economics, and on some key occasions also the prevalence of the former over the latter, reaching in this regard beyond Caspian projects.

The article analyses how the standpoints of political parties on energy related issues are formed. The effect of the process of forming these standpoints on energy policy in general in the Czech Republic, the divergence among ideologies (coming out not only from the election programs), and other factors, as well as the parties' ideological continuity in time are particularly emphasized. The analysis comes to the conclusion that energy related issues are important for each political party but not crucial. In addition, it is concluded that parties are internally consistent, their standpoints are based on ideology, and they are all rather constructive in policy formulation. An interesting conclusion is also the fact that energy policy in the Czech Republic is generally highly personalized, thus strongly influenced by particular individuals.

The energy security and status of the Caspian Sea is one of the key elements in the whole energy policies of the Caspian states. The different positions of the boarder states on the Caspian Sea undermine the "mega energy projects" from this area towards European markets. There are five Caspian states, and each of them has its own view of how to divide the sea into national sectors, which makes difficult the realization of energy projects, and slows down the development of the region. While researching the status of Caspian Sea we realized the true clash of geopolitical interests of the powers (either superpowers or regional powers) behind the "Caspian game". The main goal of the study is to present the key elements of national interests of the Caspian states in order to understand their influence on European energy policies.

Příspěvek se zabývá problematikou vývoje finančního systému zemí Evropské unie (EU) se zvláštním zaměřením na řešení stávající krize. V první řadě posuzuje smysluplnost a dosavadní postup v naplňování projektu "Eurozóny", včetně procesu postupného zavádění jednotné evropské měny. V souvislosti s tím je provedena analýza dosavadního vývoje v Evropské unii se zvláštním zaměřením na specifikaci soudobých ekonomických problémů, jež se v současnosti řeší prosazováním tzv. "záchranných" opatření. Jelikož se jedná o nestandardní politická rozhodnutí s mimořádně významnými ekonomickými a společenskými dopady, je jejich obsah analyzován v systémových souvislostech, s cílem zhodnotit jejich přínosnost, resp. rizikovost nejen s ohledem na budoucí hospodářský vývoj Evropské unie, ale též z hlediska prospěšnosti s ohledem na evropské obyvatelstvo a lidskou společnost. ; This paper deals with the development of the financial system in the European Union (EU), with a special focus on solving the current crisis. First, assess the current and meaningful progress in the implementation of the "Eurozone", including the process of the gradual introduction of the single European currency. In this context, an analysis of current developments in the European Union with a special focus on the specification of contemporary economic problems that are currently being addressed by promoting the so-called. "Emergency" measures. Since it is an unusual political decisions extremely important economic and social impacts, the content is analyzed in system contexts, to assess their usefulness, respectively. risk not only with respect to future economic development of the European Union, but also in terms of usefulness with regard to the European population and human society.

The paper deals with the possibility of application of post-material – material cleavage at the local and regional level. Although the concept was originally designed for central level of political system decades ago, it is still relevant for different reasons. Through analysis of current state of research in respective field and existing papers on cleavages at the subnational level, the paper seeks for conditions under which concept of cleavages may be transferred at the subnational levels of governance. The concept of multilevel governance is then used to define specific features of different levels and to prove to possibility of such transfer. The results show the concept may be adapted at local and regional level, however it´s crucial to adjust the selected definition of cleavage, especially in terms of institutional manifestation.

The article examines the positions of the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak social democratic political parties on the introduction of the permanent European Stability Mechanism as a means of addressing the economic and debt crisis in the EU. Using the categories of frames used by political parties in relation to the EU (utilitarian and cultural) introduced by Helbling et al., the political parties' representatives' speeches and written statements are analyzed. The analysis showed that all three of the parties use similar arguments and they tend to frame their opinions in both utilitarian and cultural terms with the category of "political efficiency" being the most frequent. While the most extensive debate about the issue was in Slovakia as the only Eurozone member of all three given countries, the Hungarian MSzP was able to conceive the topic in a broader context. The similarity of the positions of all three examined parties may indicate an ability of national political parties to constitute one of the key pillars in developing a supranational political system in the EU. ; The article examines the positions of the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak social democratic political parties on the introduction of the permanent European Stability Mechanism as a means of addressing the economic and debt crisis in the EU. Using the categories of frames used by political parties in relation to the EU (utilitarian and cultural) introduced by Helbling et al., the political parties' representatives' speeches and written statements are analyzed. The analysis showed that all three of the parties use similar arguments and they tend to frame their opinions in both utilitarian and cultural terms with the category of "political efficiency" being the most frequent. While the most extensive debate about the issue was in Slovakia as the only Eurozone member of all three given countries, the Hungarian MSzP was able to conceive the topic in a broader context. The similarity of the positions of all three examined parties may indicate an ability of ...

Energy security is one of the most topical and important issues, both at the EU and member states level. This is a fact, not only in the context of climate change policy and common energy market design, but also in the light of the dynamics of EU external energy relations, with the latter recently gaining in importance. The Czech discourse on energy security is no exception and mirrors the development in the EU-wide debate. This claim is based not only on the analysis of events and the subsequent debate on energy security in the Czech Republic regarding the period from 2006 to 2010 (e.g. the natural gas crisis, Presidency of the Council of the EU, the question of energy import dependence), i.e. the period between the last two parliamentary elections with minor overlaps, but also on the three applied criteria of national interest – relevance, consensus, and external acceptability. The discourse on external energy relations of the Czech Republic is relevant, shows signs of consensus, and, from an EU perspective, could be considered as acceptable. Therefore, the external energy relations meet the criteria of the Czech national interest.

The legitimacy of political regimes does not lie only in the manner in which these regimes use their power. A key role is played by the way these regimes are perceived by their populations. Following this insight, the paper defends and elaborates one necessary condition of legitimacy of every political regime: the justification of power provided by the regime must "make sense"to the citizens. This "making sense"can be best understood as a correspondence between the proposed justification of political authority and the citizens' understanding of themselves. In other words, a political regime "makes sense"to its population only if it resonates with their conception of themselves and their role in the society. The paper then analyses the possible correspondence between the Rawlsian conception of liberal self-understanding, where citizens view themselves as "self-authenticating sources of valid moral claims", and the legitimacy of contemporary democratic societies. This perspective reveals the sources of deep egalitarian assumptions behind the legitimation frameworks of contemporary societies, as well as the necessary limitations of power of contemporary states. The correspondence between our self-understanding and the legitimacy of the present-day states also reveals the fundamental importance of the human rights framework in current political life.

The role of unilateral and collective sanctions in international has been increasing after\nthe ending of the "Cold War".New regimes of "smart" and "targeted" economic, financial and personal\nsanctions have been developed. Quite a new phenomenon is the impact of sanctions on non-State\nactors. The term "sanctions" is traditionally employed to indicate measures taken by the SC Art. 41 and\n42 of the UN Charter."Sanctions" according to prevailing views differ from the notion "countermeasures"\nas stipulated by the ILC Draft Articles on Responsibility of States.Regional organizations may\ntake sanctions against their own members, if their statute presumes it. Against third states they may\nimpose sanctions legally with authorization of the UNSC. It is controversial whether third states may\nresort to sanctions in case of a violation of obligations erga omnes, if this violation is not of serious\ngravity. The legal content of sanctions stricto sensu remains still to be seriously analyzed, especially\nwith regard to "countermeasures" and the practice of states.

The paper aims to explain the development of the perception of national identity of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), the strongest German political party in the past few decades. The paper focuses on election manifestos for the 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2005, and 2009 elections. For this purpose, each manifesto is examined according to up to five analytical categories – such as values, nation, Europe, threats, and society. These categories explore the party's perception in a wider context instead of focusing only on direct references to national identity. The analysed period was divided into three phases with an emphasis on the internal crisis between the years 1998 and 2002. The crisis influenced policy priorities; therefore the perceptions of elements belonging to national identity were changed in order i) to gain victory in the general elections in 2002 and 2005, and ii) to reflect properly the state of German society. Therefore, significant policy shifts were made. These policy changes show how the party successfully integrated societal demands and preferences over the past decade. Thank to this, the CDU incorporated both conservative and liberal elements. This is evident in the case of incorporating liberal elements such as homosexual partnerships while, at the same time, actively stressing the importance of defending national interests. ; The paper aims to explain the development of the perception of national identity of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), the strongest German political party in the past few decades. The paper focuses on election manifestos for the 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2005, and 2009 elections. For this purpose, each manifesto is examined according to up to five analytical categories – such as values, nation, Europe, threats, and society. These categories explore the party's perception in a wider context instead of focusing only on direct references to national identity. The analysed period was divided into three phases with an emphasis on the internal crisis between the years 1998 ...