Suchergebnisse

The aim of this study is to analyze the current use of public diplomacy in foreign relations. It attempts to show how necessary public diplomacy strategy is for the formation of diplomatic relations. The first part of the study focuses on the analysis of changes in political communication in international relations. Presented are factors such as the transnationalisation or medialisation of foreign policy and the role of soft power in international relations. Then it presents a three dimensional model of public diplomacy that takes into account short-term and long-term goals. The main part of the text presents a change in the operation of today's foreign policy actors. This mainly concerns classical diplomacy, which has transformed its role, primarily by heavily engaging professional public affairs agencies and non-state actors in foreign policy. The article also cites examples from Europe and the United States of America of successful and unsuccessful strategies of public diplomacy. Adapted from the source document.

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 Czech Republic is often said to be one of the most secular countries in Europe, or even in the world. For this, in accord with the secularization thesis, the modernization is often mentioned, where it was supposed that it automatically leads to the decline of religion in society. In my paper, I recapitulate the basic points of the secularization thesis and dissect its criticism which seems to be aimed at the idea, that secularization represents just an unintended effect of modernization. Based on this criticism, I deduce resources for analysis of the religious situation in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, I prove that Czech society is not so much atheist, but more dechristianized, and I focus on reasons of this dechristianization in political, social and class conflicts, which had, according to my opinion, a great impact on Czech church's religionism. In this paper, I address the conflicts between socialist movement and the Catholic Church, which as a result had a substantial effect on the dechristianization of the czech working class.

The study focuses on spatial analysis of the general election results in Lower Silesia, Lodz and Lesser Poland voivodeships in a period between 2001 and 2015. Primary subjects of the analysis are political parties Law and Justice, Civic Platform, Polish People´s Party and Democratic Left Alliance, but particularly works also with the results of another parties (Self-Defence, League of Polish families, Modern). Standard electoral geography methodological methods, such as cartographic display of election results, correlation analysis and concentration of the election results measurement have been used on the local level and along with Polish and Czech literature review are included in the study. Main goal of the study was to find out if there are structural differences in terms of electoral support for the parties on both regional and voivodeship level. The analysis proved deeper context of the election results in the eastern regions along with a changing spatial structure of the Law and Justice support in the first decade of the 21st century and related deepening differences between voter bases of the Law and Justice and the Civic Platform- strongest parties in Poland. Findings of the analysis might be useful for upcoming research of the analysis of the electoral support in terms of regional differences.

The goal of the study is to research the coalition strategies of the Slovak political parties in the municipal elections. Two basic research questions are raised: 1. When do parties let themselves be part of a coalition, and when do they take part in the elections on their own?; and 2. What is the underlying logic of coalition formation?. On the basis of these questions we propose several hypotheses which are tested by use of statistical methods. In the cases of HZDS, KDH and ANO, the study argues that there are significant connections between the national and municipal levels, which are expressed in two dimensions: a.) conflicts on the national level expressed in terms of the coalition – opposition divide are carried down to the municipal level and become an important factor in coalition formation; b.) specific organizational patterns are crucial for the parties' behaviour on the municipal level. These patterns, meanwhile, depend on processes that occur on the central level.

The following text is based on the outcomes of a long-term field research carried out in eastern Slovakia, and it focuses on the character and specifics of religiosity of the Romany settlements inhabitants. One of the characteristic features of this religiosity is the fact that its core is still based on magical practices while Christianity only covers it on the surface. We will attempt to document this feature by examining a particular example of a chosen institution, this institution being the ritual procedure of the oath at the cross. Even though this practice is commonly known and frequently mentioned in literature, we are of the opinion that most references have so far been of the character of a mere record without an attempt to comprehend its inner nature. Thus, our objective is to explore the intrinsic logic of this institution, which may moreover be helpful in terms of illuminating the whole of the religious system of the Romany settlements inhabitants because in many aspects it may be treated as a model example of a magical procedure concealed under the garb of Christianity. Consequently, this concrete consideration may be generally valid on the structural level.

After the First World War an anti-alcohol movement requiring the prohibition intensified both in Europe and the USA and it also resonated strongly in the Czechoslovakia. The main representative of this movement was the Czechoslovak Teetotal Union. It struggled for eradication of alcoholism as a serious social and health problem. The activities of the movement were in conflict with the interests of groups of alcoholic drinks producers and distributors, which represented a strong lobby connected to political circles, especially the most powerful political party, the Agrarian Party. Financially strong alcohol lobby with one exception (Holitscher Act of 1922 restricting access to alcohol for the youth) quite successfully neutralized the attempts of the anti-alcohol movement to gain a bigger state support in the fight against alcoholism. Only after the methyl-alcohol scandal in 1935 the government did establish a permanent advisory board for the fight against alcoholism in the Ministry of Public Health and Physical Education. It elaborated a many recommendations (such as blood tests for drivers after car accidents), which, however, were not implemented until the end of the First Republic. An important benefit of the Czechoslovak Teetotal Union was the founding of alcohol treatment counselling.

The first part of the text describes the development of contacts between various pacifist and green initiatives in Western Europe on one side, and part of Czech dissent on the other. It explains the factors that led -- despite early euphoria and the affinity of some West-European and Czech ecological politicians -- to the gradual cooling of relations between European and Czech Greens. The next part is dedicated to the role of some West-European Greens in the "dark-green" revolution in the Czech Green Party from 200203, their eventual disappointment, as well as the influence of intra-party conflict in the Czech Green Party concerning the structure of the European Greens. The subsequent section is a description and explanation of the direct interference by some European green politicians in conflict within the Czech Green Party, involving Milan Horacek, Petr Uhl and Ivan Dejmal on one side and Jakub Patocka and Jan Beranek on the other. The text also deals with the activities of Milan Horacek -- the first Czech deputy from the (German) Greens, as well as relations between the youth sections of the European and Czech Greens. The article concludes with a prediction of future relations between Bursik's Czech Green Party and Patocka's Czech Green Party on one side, and European Greens on the other. Adapted from the source document.

The article describes the role of the Chicago School of Sociology in the development of empirical social research. It traces the increase in the significance of the education of doctoral students on American universities at the turn of the 20th century, and the role of philanthropic foundations. It focuses on the contribution of prominent individuals: W. R. Harper, rector and founder of the University of Chicago, obtained top figures and founded journals in some major fields. A. W. Small was the first chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, founded the American Journal of Sociology and wrote the first two textbooks of sociology. W. I. Thomas was responsible for the famous study Polish Peasant in Europe and America and for the theoretical foundations passed on to his successors. In 1916 R. E. Park published a project in which Chicago became a social laboratory and he inspired and was an advisor for numerous doctoral projects that later were published as sociological monographs. The methodologist E. W. Burgess organized empirical research for the school of doctoral studies that emerged in Chicago and successfully worked there for twenty years. It is beyond the scope of one article to discuss also the monographs by doctoral students at the University of Chicago. Paper examines in detail only the monograph by Park, Burgess and McKenzie titled The City.

The study deals with pilgrimages to Esquipulas, Guatemala, and patterns of miracle in terms of their perception by the pilgrims reaching this prominent religious hub of Central America. Two key pilgrimage discourses are distinguished: traditional Maya pilgrimage, based on regular, calendar customs, and conventional Catholic pilgrimage, founded on occasional journeys to fulfil a vow. The Western understanding of miracle as a transgression of "natural laws" or "common course of nature" is relativized and contested arguing that the ethnographic evidence of Esquipulas shows not only different, but also opposite conceptions. Then, the study presents a spectrum of miracle ideas drawing from the Maya as well as European - the case of Lourdes is exemplary here - traditions in terms of the degree of their uncommonness. It is concluded that anthropology has to comprehend miracles as marvels in its cultural context; nevertheless, there is a widespread idea among many cultures that miracle is something wonderful, related to the awareness of non-obviousness of certain things and phenomena. Miracles find its content and meaning within particular cosmology, but, anchored in the psychological characteristics of the astonishment and the difference between usual and unusual or ordinary and extraordinary, they refer to features of human mind in a more general way.

The paper herein presents a summary of research targeting the attitudes of mayors of Czech municipalities towards the financing of municipalities and the submitted legislative determination of taxes. Data reflect expert interviews with a representative sample of nine municipalities in Central Bohemian region. The research was originally incorporated into the doctoral thesis by Ilona Kruntoradova accomplished at the Institute of Political Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague; it is contextualized in the paper with political debates about the new rules concerning the funding of municipalities. Such rules create divisions among the municipalities as well as the parties within the Necas coalition government. The main research findings underline the prevailing lack of funds facilitating the development of small municipalities, mediation of the interests of municipalities through personal contacts rather than special interest associations, and deeper divisions between small municipalities and large cities. The research herein should primarily serve as a pre-research for larger inquiries involving a broader sample of municipalities throughout the Czech Republic. Adapted from the source document.

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.

This article focuses on a comparative analysis of the organization of contemporary Czech parliamentary parties. It emphasizes the structural and functional differences between the new parties—ANO (meaning "yes" in Czech) and Dawn of Direct Democracy—and older parties. The theoretical section presents the basic organizational types – in particular, the concept of the business-firm party. The following organizational aspects of parties are then compared: membership, form of funding, the role played by ground organizations, the position and composition of top party bodies, the role played by the party leader, and media resources. This analysis reveals that ANO and Dawn have a more exclusive membership than older parties and have centralized more power into the hands of the party leader, who is supported both by formal statutes and by informal structures. In the case of ANO, the central leadership dominates over lower-level ground organizations; Dawn forgoes them altogether. Its missing institutional base accelerated Dawn's implosion in 2015. ANO is characterised by a high degree of professionalism and control over key media, both of which were missing in the case of Dawn. ; This article focuses on a comparative analysis of the organization of contemporary Czech parliamentary parties. It emphasizes the structural and functional differences between the new parties—ANO (meaning "yes" in Czech) and Dawn of Direct Democracy—and older parties. The theoretical section presents the basic organizational types – in particular, the concept of the business-firm party. The following organizational aspects of parties are then compared: membership, form of funding, the role played by ground organizations, the position and composition of top party bodies, the role played by the party leader, and media resources. This analysis reveals that ANO and Dawn have a more exclusive membership than older parties and have centralized more power into the hands of the party leader, who is supported both by formal statutes and by informal ...

Does higher turnout support left-wing parties, as many previous studies assume? And does communist legacy somehow project on the mentioned relationship? The theoretical discussion is still relatively unclear. This study proposes three different explanatory mechanisms of examining aggregate-level relationship between turnout and electoral support for political parties in the post-communist milieu. The mainstream hypothesis, based on the assumptions of a successful re-stratification of the society and the relevance of class voting, states that higher turnout benefits the left. The second option is derived from the Michigan model of party identification. In this case, political parties with less loyal electorate should profit from higher rates of electoral participation. However, this article makes a case for a third possible explanation, which turns the conventional hypothesis upside down and can be termed simply as "mobilization against the left". The idea is that the more people come to the polls, the stronger the post-communist right wing parties will be. Moreover, I include in my analysis only two electoral districts (regions) that can be said to be the farthest away from each other in their socioeconomic and political characteristics. Such an approach makes it possible to answer the question whether the expected effect is uniform or unequal across electoral districts in one country. Based on the analysis of election results in 1444 constituencies of two electoral districts in the Central Bohemian and Moravian-Silesian regions in the 2010 Parliamentary elections, I conclude that the proposed approach to the issue of party support and voter turnout has strong empirical support. ; Does higher turnout support left-wing parties, as many previous studies assume? And does communist legacy somehow project on the mentioned relationship? The theoretical discussion is still relatively unclear. This study proposes three different explanatory mechanisms of examining aggregate-level relationship between turnout and ...

This article concerns the position of Magyar minority political parties in the Slovak party system. An analysis of the Magyar minority position in the Slovak society in terms of Slovak-Magyar relations development is included. The Magyars are the largest ethnic minority in several Central European countries. Almost 2.5 million Magyars live in the countries adjacent to Hungary. Their highest population share, at nearly 10 %, is in Slovakia. Unlike in adjacent countries, the Magyar minority in Slovakia has far more options for political self-fulfilment. Thanks to the Magyar share in the Slovak population, the Magyar parties regularly take one-tenth of the seats in the Slovak parliament. To characterize the role of the Magyar parties in the current Slovak party system, it is necessary to understand their behaviour in interwar Czechoslovakia. The Hungarian party sub-system is fundamentally influenced by election legislation. This forces minority parties to cooperate in coalition and integrate. Coalition or even consolidation of like-oriented minority and majority parties is out of the question in Slovakia. An electoral coalition between the Slovak and Magyar parties took place just once, in 1990. Since 1998, all relevant Magyar political parties have been integrated into the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK). The electoral gains of the party have been increasing to date. Owing to its firm electoral base, the party has profited, one of the few to do so, from decreasing participation in elections. Although three former parties representing three different political streams have been integrated into the SMK, it has always acted as a single unit. The party has a solid position in the Slovak party system and it seems apparent that it will remain the sole political representative of Slovak Magyars in the future.