Anglie e Bílá Hora: the Bohemian war and British policy
In: Práce z vědeckých ústav°u 57
In: Práce z vědeckých ústav°u 57
World Affairs Online
In: Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, Band 45, Heft 2, S. 458-462
In: Historická sociologie / Historical Sociology, Heft 1, S. 25-46
"In recent years, sociology in Britain -and in national contexts influenced by British sociology- has been diagnosed by various parties as suffering from a wide range of ailments. These forms of selfcriticism become ever more acute in terms of their potential effects as huge transformations in university funding regimes are brought to bear on the social sciences. But none of these critiques engages satisfactorily with what is a much more foundational and serious set of problems, namely the very nature of sociology itself as a historically-situated form of knowledge production. Sociology claims to know the world around it, but in Britain today much sociology seriously fails in this regard, because it operates with radically curtailed understandings of the long-term historical forces which made the social conditions it purports to analyse. A sophisticated understanding of the contemporary world is made possible only by an equally sophisticated understanding of very long-term historical processes, precisely the sort of vision that mainstream British sociology has lacked for at least the last two decades. This paper identifies the reasons for the development of this situation and the consequences it has for the nature of sociology's knowledge production, for its self-understanding, for its claims to comprehend the contemporary world, and for its apparent social "usefulness". A markedly more selfaware and historically-sensitive sociology is proposed as the answer to the pressing question of what aspects of sociology should be defended in the turbulent context of British higher education today." (author's abstract)
In: Politologický časopis, Band 12, Heft 4, S. 416-429
ISSN: 1211-3247
The text deals with question of European state formation in research of contemporary British sociologist Perry Anderson . Its first intention focus on how modern European medieval and absolutistic states emerged. The article consists from four main parts: (1) Introduction to theory of state-formation. (2) Analysis of structural and analytical connections between state and society in author´s treatise. (3) Third main part deals with analysis of course of European state-building. On this problem we apply specific analytical model, which distinguish causes, components, progression, and impacts on state formation processes. In this case, author analyzes mechanisms of state building in feudal period 9–15th century and period of absolutistic states (16--19th century). (4) Last part is focuses on conclusion of our findings, especially on drawings specific conceptual model of this process. ; The text deals with question of European state formation in research of contemporary British sociologist Perry Anderson . Its first intention focus on how modern European medieval and absolutistic states emerged. The article consists from four main parts: (1) Introduction to theory of state-formation. (2) Analysis of structural and analytical connections between state and society in author´s treatise. (3) Third main part deals with analysis of course of European state-building. On this problem we apply specific analytical model, which distinguish causes, components, progression, and impacts on state formation processes. In this case, author analyzes mechanisms of state building in feudal period 9–15th century and period of absolutistic states (16--19th century). (4) Last part is focuses on conclusion of our findings, especially on drawings specific conceptual model of this process.
BASE
In: Historická sociologie / Historical Sociology, Heft 1, S. 75-94
"This study deals with historic cultural contacts between Europeans and the Benin Empire, one of the most significant native African cultural centres between the 15th and the 17th century. The study focuses particularly on the development of the Benin Empire on the background of acculturation and diffusion of European cultural elements and complexes. The study describes the first contacts between Europeans and the Benin Empire and the subsequent business activities, including slave trade. Special attention is paid to European colonial expansion that culminated in the 1897 British invasion which led to the conquest of the Benin City. The aim of the study is to draw attention to the role of the exogenous cultural change and acculturation processes, which caused the fall of once a socially, economically, politically and culturally stable African empire." (author's abstract)
This paper deals with the issue of building Wales as a unique region in the context of the European Union and its resources. The author focuses on the period after 1999, i.e. the time when devolution took place and when official Welsh representatives emerged via the National Assembly for Wales (NAW). Since then, Wales has entered into cooperation with the EU, in order to gain access to resources provided by the Union. The cooperation is however of a specific kind, since officially, Welsh representatives have to communicate with the EU through the political representation of Great Britain. Nevertheless, by acting informally, Welsh representatives manage to avoid the British government in relevant contexts and communicate with the EU directly. In this way, they are able to exploit the formal and informal rules for their advantage (i.e. for building Wales as a unique region). The main purpose of this text is to show that the case of Wales can be replicated by any region that has official political representation, even if it has only weak representative institutions and has to deal with limitations posed by the existence of a central government.
BASE
ParlaMint is a multilingual set of comparable corpora containing parliamentary debates mostly starting in 2015 and extending to mid-2020, with each corpus being about 20 million words in size. The sessions in the corpora are marked as belonging to the COVID-19 period (after October 2019), or being "reference" (before that date). The corpora have extensive metadata, including aspects of the parliament; the speakers (name, gender, MP status, party affiliation, party coalition/opposition); are structured into time-stamped terms, sessions and meetings; with speeches being marked by the speaker and their role (e.g. chair, regular speaker). The speeches also contain marked-up transcriber comments, such as gaps in the transcription, interruptions, applause, etc. Note that some corpora have further information, e.g. the year of birth of the speakers, links to their Wikipedia articles, their membership in various committees, etc. The corpora are encoded according to the Parla-CLARIN TEI recommendation (https://clarin-eric.github.io/parla-clarin/), but have been validated against the compatible, but much stricter ParlaMint schemas. This entry contains the ParlaMint TEI-encoded corpora with the derived plain text version of the corpus along with TSV metadata on the speeches. Also included is the 2.0 release of the data and scripts available at the GitHub repository of the ParlaMint project. Note that there also exists the linguistically marked-up version of the corpus, which is available at http://hdl.handle.net/11356/1405.
BASE
ParlaMint 2.1 is a multilingual set of 17 comparable corpora containing parliamentary debates mostly starting in 2015 and extending to mid-2020, with each corpus being about 20 million words in size. The sessions in the corpora are marked as belonging to the COVID-19 period (after November 1st 2019), or being "reference" (before that date). The corpora have extensive metadata, including aspects of the parliament; the speakers (name, gender, MP status, party affiliation, party coalition/opposition); are structured into time-stamped terms, sessions and meetings; with speeches being marked by the speaker and their role (e.g. chair, regular speaker). The speeches also contain marked-up transcriber comments, such as gaps in the transcription, interruptions, applause, etc. Note that some corpora have further information, e.g. the year of birth of the speakers, links to their Wikipedia articles, their membership in various committees, etc. The corpora are encoded according to the Parla-CLARIN TEI recommendation (https://clarin-eric.github.io/parla-clarin/), but have been validated against the compatible, but much stricter ParlaMint schemas. This entry contains the ParlaMint TEI-encoded corpora with the derived plain text version of the corpus along with TSV metadata on the speeches. Also included is the 2.0 release of the data and scripts available at the GitHub repository of the ParlaMint project. Note that there also exists the linguistically marked-up version of the corpus, which is available at http://hdl.handle.net/11356/1431.
BASE
In: Mezinárodní vztahy: Czech journal of international relations, Band 48, Heft 1, S. 5-26
ISSN: 0543-7989, 0323-1844
Due to the different and mutually incompatible interpretations of Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, there is still an ongoing dispute between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain on the question of the sovereignty of Gibraltar. In the United Kingdom's view, which is largely shared by legal scholars, Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht grants full and entire sovereignty over Gibraltar to the UK. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Spain argues that Article X yielded to the crown of Great Britain only the property of Gibraltar's castle, town and port. Sovereignty over Gibraltar, however, continued to be retained by the Spanish state. In spite of their disagreement, both states started negotiating a form of condominium at the beginning of the 21st century. In the end, they failed to achieve this goal, which seems to be incompatible with the UN General Assembly resolutions on the decolonization of Gibraltar. The people of Gibraltar, who are the third actor in the Spanish-British dispute, claim their own sovereignty and their right to self-determination. However, according to the UN General Assembly, the decolonization of Gibraltar requires as a precondition that the Kingdom of Spain and the UK solve their dispute on the question of sovereignty. Otherwise the decolonization of Gibraltar cannot occur. Both the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain are European Union members but their inter-state dispute under international law cannot be solved within the EU context. Thus, three hundred years after the signature of the Treaty of Utrecht, the future of Gibraltar remains completely unclear. Adapted from the source document.
In: Mezinárodní vztahy: Czech journal of international relations, Band 38, Heft 3, S. 64-84
ISSN: 0543-7989, 0323-1844
The main purpose of this article is to show by selected case studies to what extent the euro has already managed to establish itself as one of the key international currencies from the point of view of various aspects, to what extent it fulfills the functions of an important international currency, and what are the prospects of the euro's position in the future. Various signals indicate that the euro already fulfills some conditions which would allow it to become a serious competitor to the dollar in a relatively short period of time. The article is also taking notice of some obstacles and drawbacks that the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has to and will have to deal with.First of all, the author deals with the question of whether the eurozone is an optimum currency area. This is one of the principal theoretical problems which has been accompanying the EMU since the very beginning. Then he shifts his attention to the question, concerning what role does the euro play in the world economy at present from the point of view of the share of the eurozone on the world GDP, trade, officialforeign exchange reserves, selected indicators offinancial markets etc. Then he deals with the role of the euro in the world monetary system -- one of the main subsystems of the world economy. Here is presented a survey of countries which have accepted the euro as its single or main currency, and also countries whose currencies are narrowly linked to the euro by means of various exchange rate mechanisms. The next part of the article outlines the potential of the euro in its "conquest" offurther regions of the world. Both those where the euro is becoming or will become the number one currency (e.g. in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe) in a foreseeable future, and those where it will compete with the American dollar (e.g. in Latin America, in the Middle East etc.). In the final part, the author attemptes (use the same tense) to point out some problems which can influence what?missing subject, if and to what extent the euro really will become a strong and stable currency. At the moment, it is not yet possible to answer concisely and clearly the question of whether the euro will become an equivalent competitor to the American dollar. It is important whether the EMU will or will not break up in the course of the coming years or decades. So far, there have not appeared any signals of this kind. It will be substantial how the member countries of the eurozone will be able to handle the first serious crisis, e.g. analogical to that of 1992-1993. At that time, the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) was abandonned temporarily by the 1talian lira and permanently by the British pound. This crisis of the European monetary system has shown the difficulty or even incapacity to set such a monetary policy which would be simultaneously advantageous for all member countries of a certain monetary system. The question is whetlLer it is possible considering there are usually big differences in economical standing between individual countries. A similar or even a more serious crisis could emerge in a longer time horizon. The EMU thus stays a long term project and a long distance run. It is, however, possible to assume that within the next ten years, it could become totally clear whether the EMU project is a great success or a great error. Adapted from the source document.