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Analyzes the historical variation of secondary school tracking in formerly socialist Czechoslovakia, using multinomial logistic regression & focusing on the effects of family background on the odds of making the transition to vocational, technical, or academic secondary schools. I also test various hypotheses regarding trends in educational reproduction, socioeconomic inequality in access to secondary education, & the impact of political status of parents on access to secondary education. Educational expansion, unlike 'communist affirmative action,' dramatically reduced educational reproduction at the secondary level. Positive & negative discrimination on the basis of parental occupation, however, considerably diminished the advantage of higher status children in the transition to vocational & technical schools in the early 1950s & 1970s, but never affected access to academic secondary schools. The consequences of parental political status for their children's education display remarkable variation, which is unmistakably responsive to historical events. The multinomial transition model also reveals the cross-temporal dynamics of tracking in Czechoslovakia. The postwar expansion of the educational system brought about double benefits. While larger numbers of lower-class, rural, & female students enrolled in secondary schools, their higher enrollments were confined to vocational schools. Though a large number of higher status children were enrolled throughout the 1948-1989 period, their enrollments in vocational schools dropped as they began to fill positions in the growing technical & academic schools.

Article describes the books of two authors, who try to compare Russian and Iranian revolutions and political development generally. Whereas Ghoncheh Tazmini uses Hegelian structuralist approach, that sees these revolutions as an inevitable result of modernization from above, another Iranian political scientist Zhand Shakibi puts stress on the role of human actor – pre-revolutionary monarch and his (miss)management of the situation in explaining the origins of revolution. Shakibi applies the human agency perspective to the analysis of the character of pre-revolutionary monarch and his modus operandi. According to Shakibi the structural variables did not by themselves cause the revolution, they create only potential for revolution. The revolutions must be explained by describing complex interactions between structural variables and modus operandi of the monarchs.

This article traces the effect of socio-economic, cultural, and gender factors on the reproduction of educational inequalities in access to tertiary education in the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, and Sweden. Single- country analyses conducted to date on the Czech Republic have reached conflicting results both on the development of educational inequalities since the fall of socialism and on the weight of the factors behind those inequalities. Also, no international comparison has been conducted. Thus, the authors pursue two new directions of inquiry: 1) an international comparison, and 2) an update of the development of inequalities in all the mentioned countries since 2002. The authors used multi-dimensional statistical methods (logit models and a log-linear analysis) and the most recent available international data from the European Social Survey. The results revealed that out of all the countries studied it is in the Czech Republic that access to tertiary education is currently determined most by the cultural component of social background (the father's education). The country closest to the Czech Republic in this regard is Switzerland. The educational status of the family is also a crucial factor in educational reproduction in Sweden. Paradoxically, in the countries that historically and geographically are closest to the Czech Republic, namely, Poland and Germany, the crucial determinant in the transmission of educational status is the father's class.

Based on a systematic study of Polish sociological literature produced in the period stretching between the elevation of Wladyslaw Gomulka to the post of the Party's first secretary in October 1956 to the first free elections in Poland in June 1989, the author of this article offers an account of the main dilemmas & the varieties of pluralism in Polish sociology during the state socialist era. The author claims that, with the exception of the Stalinist period, Polish sociologists always occupied diverse positions on 'government' & 'society', but this diversity yielded to change in response to a particular time. Generally, in 1956-1989 Polish sociology was something unique in comparison with sociology in other so-called people's democracies, as it had a considerably high status in the country & in the world, including the West. The author argues that Polish sociology did not have to undergo a revolution in 1989 & make the move from Marxist to bourgeois sociology, as since 1956 (or even earlier, since 1945) it had been undergoing continuous change & constant reform (in theoretical domain & concerning its division into sub-disciplines) & maintained a consistent level of diversity in various respects.

Cover -- Obsah -- Úvod -- Kapitola první: Bezčasí -- Kapitola druhá: Pozdně socialistické variace -- Kapitola třetí: Zázračná vyprávění -- Kapitola čtvrtá: O pozdně socialistickém dělání věcí -- Kapitola pátá: Šedá zóna? -- Kapitola šestá: Pozdně socialistické paradoxy aneb Nohavicův Černý kufr -- Kapitola sedmá: O Šmoulech a Gargamelovi -- Místo závěru -- Přehled pramenů -- Bibliografie -- Shrnutí -- Summary -- Rejstřík.

This study deals with the issue of development relations between China and Africa in the context of the Beijing concensus. It attempts to provide an analysis of Chinese foreign policy since the beginning of the 90's. The text is divided into three basic parts. The first contains discussion on the theories of development, including the main features of the (post)Washington concensus based on liberalism, decentralization and privatization, followed by the Beijing concensus representing the counter-paradigm. The second focuses on the historical roots of bilateral relations since the beginning of the 20th century until the end of the Cold War. TAZARA, the Tanzania-Zambia railway built by China is chosen as the most representative example of Chinese foreign policy during the Cold War period. The last part deals with current relations influenced by Chinese oil diplomacy and the so-called one-China policy. Sudan and Angola are chosen as significant examples of African states in which China is involved. Adapted from the source document.

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 ...

The article analyses the evolution of the Slovak political party "Smer" (Direction) and its position in the party system of Slovak Republic. The article focuses on the shift of the party program from the "Centrist Populism" towards "Social Democracy." According to the first program documents the Party of "Smer" (Direction) was designed as pragmatic, non-ideological party. In the persistent conflict between authoritarianism vs. democracy "Smer" identified itself as the pro-democratic and pro-market force. Party policy before 2002 contained only few social democratic components; it was closer to the conservative or right-wing populist parties. After the parliamentary election 2002 and the failure of non-communist left "Smer" decided to become a member of the Socialist International (SI) and Party of European Socialists (PES). The process of the institutional approach to the international Social Democratic Party structures was accompanied by the substantial changes in the social and economic program of the party. The process was completed on the institutional level in May 2005, when Smer joined both SI and PES, and on the level of political program on the Party Congress in December 2005. In the process of so called "socialdemocratisation" of "Smer" the international factor played crucial role, especially the need to have an international partner in the European Parliament. "Smer" met the standards of the Social Democratic identity only in the social and economic affairs. The other five dimensions - environmental policy, participative democracy, cultural and human-rights dimension, supra-national dimension and the dimension of equality and freedom "Smer" met only partially or not at all, so these process remains unfinished. According to some political declarations "Smer" remains the populist party and the uncompromising critic of the right-wing government of Mikuláš Dzurinda, on the other side the official documents of the party anticipate only the moderate corrections of the economical and social reforms, ...

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.

This text inquires into the problem of cadenced step as the disciplinary technique of the body, according to theories of Marcel Mauss and Michel Foucault. Author explores historical core of military body techniques in social context, developed by Dutch army reformers Counts of Nassau during 1590s and refined by the Prussian military in 1740s. Author interprets cadenced step inside framework of shifting paradigm of power, as Foucault analyses the sequence of three stages of power emerging during european Early modernity.

The article offers a brief account of the history of Hungarian sociology during four decades of communist rule in Hungary. Beginning with the brief existence of the first department of sociology in Hungary (the 'Szalai Institute', 1946-1948) the author describes the field in the 1950s, when for political reasons sociology was marginalized to the point of extinction. The revival of sociology in Hungary during the 1960s is devoted considerable attention from an institutional, a personal & a doctrinal point of view. The author analyses the main branches of study in Hungarian sociology at the time, including critical sociology & the study of social stratification, which overcame the rigidity of official Marxist-Leninist doctrine. She characterizes the last two decades of state socialism in Hungary as a period when sociology both suffered from increased political repression (stronger in the early 1970s than later) & at the same time became more & more professional. She argues that a determining feature of the history of Hungarian sociology between 1948 & 1989 was its strong connection to politics. However, sociology & politics had a mutual influence on one another during this period, as sociology also had an impact on the way Communist Party officials approached the structure of Hungarian society. In the process, sociology evolved & was professionalized, enabling its existence as an autonomous discipline today.

The aim of the article is to introduce contemporary Russian discussion on the USSR and Russia in broader political and publicist context. Both positive and negative interpretations of the Russian/Soviet history will be presented. The text does not pretend to provide exhaustive list of the particular "schools" and "movements" nor does it offer historical dynamics or institutional background of the discussion. The author rather intends to single out certain basic schemes and arguments that circulate in the discussions, place them in broader frames and anticipate their potential political consequences. Particularly, the text concentrates on various versions of the patriotic thinking that has been receiving broad popularity in today Russia. As the author is convinced, due familiarity with the contemporary Russian debate may help to better understand Russian internal as well as foreign policy nowadays: as it becomes clear, rise of patriotism in academia, society and politics are inseparable phenomena. Secondly, some of the arguments promoted by the contemporary Russian authors may enrich Western (non-Russian) sovietology and debate on socialist experiments as such. Last but not least, both content and form of the Russian academic discussion convincingly point at cultural conditionality of social and historical sciences. To some extent the discussion reminds perpetual Russian debate on national identity; cardinally new context in which it takes place however justifies attention paid to it.

Violent conflict is very old in human society. The development of military technology brought with itself the worst tragedies loss of human live and material devastation in the second half of 20th century in the Horn of Africa. This region is one of the centers of various political violent conflicts in the world, according to length of these violent conflicts, the number of death of people, mainly civilian, refugees and internal displaced persons (IDP). This study elucidates the root causes of long wars in the Horn of Africa focusing mainly on South Sudan and Somalia. It also illustrates how the Super Powers during the Cold War helped their client states to prolong the suffering of people in the region. When Socialist system disappeared from Eastern Europe, Mengistu Haile Mariam's and Siyad Barre's regime ignominiously collapsed. In Ethiopia Amhara power elite, who ruled the Empire state from 1889 to 1991 lost their state power and Tigrian guerrilla fighters captured it through the power of the gun, Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia, South Sudan is emerging from long heinous war to independence. The violent conflict in Somalia transformed after the old regime demise in 1991 and the new leaders unable to build new central government. Somalia is fragmented and became the good example of failed state in the theory of contemporary political sociology. The paper tries to explain these complex violent conflicts in this part of Africa.

The study of the Bulgarian system of political parties assumed a relatively important position in the context of research in the genesis of party and political arrangements in post-communist countries of Central, South-East and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. It can be said that, in spite of certain delay, Bulgarian multipartism became one of the privileged subjects of that research, similarly to post-communist pluralisms in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (and/or Czechoslovakia). The attention given to Bulgarian party system was not a mere coincidence. The fact is that apart from some endemic peculiarities, Bulgarian multipartism also showed – and still, to a large extent, shows - some distinct features of indisputable interest and importance for the construction of models of formation of pluralist party systems, features linked especially with the complex phenomenon of Bulgarian post-communist party and political (bi)polarisation and its medium and long term system forming consequences. This article is a contribution to the discussion about the remarkable aspects of Bulgarian post-communist multipartism. In this perspective, special attention will be paid to links between the Bulgarian model of major pole dualism (Union of Democratic Forces, SDS, and Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP), the format of its party system and the systemic effect of the "extended" ("protracted") initial social and political polarisation. In this context, also some partial issues related with the evolution of the potential and role of "third parties" in present-day Bulgarian context will be briefly addressed. ; The study of the Bulgarian system of political parties assumed a relatively important position in the context of research in the genesis of party and political arrangements in post-communist countries of Central, South-East and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. It can be said that, in spite of certain delay, Bulgarian multipartism became one of the privileged subjects of that research, similarly to post-communist pluralisms in ...