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In connection to the process of the public administration reforms which take place in most of the European countries and also in connection to the "European administrative space", the issues of studying and mutually comparing administrative systems of various European countries, especially EU member countries, become more and more topical. They focus not only on purposeful and effective mutual use of experience in administrative systems improvements, but also on improving orientation in the already mentioned "European administrative space". There is nodue attention devoted so far to the systematic study of administrative systems of (other) European countries. Most of the publications which focus on this issue (mostly study books, study materials, or occassional articles) describe it only on a "descriptive" (mostly simplified) level. The cause of this lies in (apart from time and financial demands) significant complexity of the given issue, in terminological complications and in difficulties of getting adequate (essentially necessary) factography and in practically non-existing adequate methodology. Legal comparative jurisprudence and comparative studies of political systems might inspire onewhen developing the methodology. Even under the current situation, it would be efficient to pay more attention to the comparative studies of the structure of administrative systems, or to some selected areas of the public administration, for example to personnel systems in the public administration, financing public administration or administration of the public property. A thorough "stock -taking" of all the materials which have ever been published about this matter (even in different contexts) in our country orabroad might serve as a basis of these fragmented studies.

The article is an advancement of a preceding text which analyzed particular substantive theories of military coup in mainstream Anglo-Saxon political science literature. It provides a synthesis analysis of the previously analyzed literature specialized in military coup research, and because each substantive theory provides explanations of the occurrence of military coups through different independent variables, these factors are categorized for research purposes. Working with the definition of a military coup, the article's goal is to set ten separate theories together into a formal concept of the military coup and express it by means of a synthesized causal model. This model contains individual premises of existing research and constitutes a conceptual framework for the formulation of "the hammer and anvil theory" of military coup. The "hammer" signifies the capacity and commitment of the army to effect a change of government by the use of force or under the threat of it. The "anvil" represents factors which delegitimize a government and de facto hamper its ability to escape the "hammer" blow. ; The article is an advancement of a preceding text which analyzed particular substantive theories of military coup in mainstream Anglo-Saxon political science literature. It provides a synthesis analysis of the previously analyzed literature specialized in military coup research, and because each substantive theory provides explanations of the occurrence of military coups through different independent variables, these factors are categorized for research purposes. Working with the definition of a military coup, the article's goal is to set ten separate theories together into a formal concept of the military coup and express it by means of a synthesized causal model. This model contains individual premises of existing research and constitutes a conceptual framework for the formulation of "the hammer and anvil theory" of military coup. The "hammer" signifies the capacity and commitment of the army to effect a change of ...

This article, published in connection with the recent death of Otis Dudley Duncan (16 November 2004), sets out to provide a critical summary of the development - from its beginnings in the 1960s up to its final revision & modification in 1983 - of the socio-psychological model of the status attainment process. The article not only looks at the classic model of the social stratification process of Blau & Duncan, but also examines the influence of one of the founders of the socio-psychological branch of the study of social stratification, W. H. Sewell. Special attention is devoted to the development of the so-called Wisconsin model, primarily the work of William H. Sewell & his student, Robert M. Hauser, who, while as a student of Duncan also, considerably contributed to the use of structural modelling in sociology. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the main critical reactions to the socio-psychological model emphasising the 'allocational' paradigm of interpretation of the reproduction of social inequalities. The article should primarily help students of sociology gain an orientation in the massive amount of often poorly accessible literature on one of the most cited of sociology's 'products'.

"This article deals with the relationship between public opinion and rumour from ancient times, through the Middle Ages and right up to today. It will examine the terms which were used and which often depended not just on a particular author but usually an entire social class. The most often used terms to describe opinion, fama and existimatio, occurred in the speeches of politicians which were presented as the valuable opinions of the elite whereas the concepts opinio, rumor or sermo were considered as low value and unreliable opinions of plebeians to whom the ruling classes attributed the spreading and creation of rumours. The concept of fama, more often fama publica, indicated in the Middle Ages a local network of knowledge, a mechanism for the collective evaluation of an individual. In this sense it played an important role in the courts of law. The issue of rumours is common to all subsequent historical periods because public opinion usually both generated, and was supported, by rumour. The article also puts forward a hypothesis why the all-powerful fama dissapeared from the courtrooms, why it lost its significance and became purely a rumour." (author's abstract)

The study evaluates the potential impact of alternative models of university entrance exams – a model based on field-specific knowledge and a model relying on general aptitude tests – in the context of the Czech education system since 1998, a system that can be described as highly stratified and suffering from a notable excess of demand for higher education over supply. Using the dataset Sonda Maturant 1998, the authors show that entrance exams based on general aptitude tests may outperform the field-specific knowledge model in terms of providing access to talented students from a lower socioeconomic background. The simulations show that under the general aptitude regime the relative chances of an applicant with a university-educated father are only one-quarter higher than the relative chances of a student with a less educated father, compared to more than a one-third difference in the case of the regime emphasising field-specific knowledge. For mother's education, the respective odds ratios differ by the even larger margin of 28 percentage points.

The article deals with the 1938 treatise History of the All- Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), abbreviated AUCP(b) - an official treatise from the Stalin era of the USSR which was published on a mass scale. The author puts his reflections in two contexts: 1. the internal Marxist dispute over "orthodoxy", which Stalin resolved by publishing (and co-authoring) this "canonical book", and 2. the myth-forming context, which shows how totalitarian regimes present themselves with their "canonical books". He considers publications preceding the analyzed book, which after Lenin's death included texts by Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin and Leon Trotsky. Then he considers the actual book, focusing in more detail on the absence of two topics and concepts - the state and culture. He pays particular attention to the chapter on dialectic and historical materialism written by Stalin, which completes the simplistic interpretations in the so-called Stalinist Marxism. Like L. Kolakowski, he concludes that the entire Stalinist concept is naturalistic (meaning the naive naturalism of the late 19th century: Marxism guarantees a "scientific world view") and naively nomothetic (all fundamental claims have the form of unquestionable laws).

Since the 1960s, voting behaviour in advanced democratic states has undergone substantial changes. From this period, the transformation of social structures, increased education, and the expansion of new technologies in the field of mass media, among other things, are evident. The transformation factors that affect the voter and his choice are sooner or later reflected in new theoretical concepts describing electoral behaviour, whether it was the theory of party identification, voter choice based on issues or rational choice. So far, however, none of the theories have adequately reflected the effect of consumer-style thinking on electoral behaviour. A new trend in political marketing – political branding – aims to correct precisely this deficiency. Due to the fact that the relevant research in the field of political branding and its impact on the voting behaviour of individuals is still in its infancy, we are faced with a lack of robust theoretical foundations. The text thus aims to clarify this situation by gathering and analysing existing branding concepts, pointing to their strengths and weaknesses. Also, it contributes to the theoretical discussion by linking research on political branding to existing theories of voting behaviour, asking whether the related branding concepts are able to explain the voting behaviour of voters as well as whether they are open to further amendments and modifications. ; Since the 1960s, voting behaviour in advanced democratic states has undergone substantial changes. From this period, the transformation of social structures, increased education, and the expansion of new technologies in the field of mass media, among other things, are evident. The transformation factors that affect the voter and his choice are sooner or later reflected in new theoretical concepts describing electoral behaviour, whether it was the theory of party identification, voter choice based on issues or rational choice. So far, however, none of the theories have adequately reflected the effect of ...

The paper explains the theory of bureaucracy developed by William A. Niskanen. While sociologist Max Weber's analysis treats bureaucrats as "eunuchs" or automatic machines responsible for public well-being, Niskanen tries to apply standard neoclassical economic models to explain the behavior of bureaucracy as a whole. With this background, he concludes that the bureaucracy will concentrate on bargaining processes with the sponsor & not on improving the quality of its services to the public. This is a simple explanation of why the bureaucratic organization provides systematically worse products & services to its customers than does the standard private firm operating on the market. 19 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article is focused on the composition & development of the so-called Scandinavian approach to economic policy. The first part describes its three main posts, this is labor market, public sector, & social equality. Two main streams of Swedish labor-market policy are centralized wage bargaining managed by the Rehn-Meidner model under the motto "equal wage for equal work," which was transformed into "equal wage" & the so-called active labor-market policy. The second part deals with macroeconomic policy & progressive market regulation & competition obstacles, & the third part introduces the Swedish tax system with its highly progressive tax rates & its 1985 & 1991 tax reform. 2 Tables, 9 Graphs, 27 References. Adapted from the source document.

Starting from endogenous growth models we test the impacts of both taxes (distortionary and non-distortionary) and expenditures (taking into account economic and functional classification of general government expenditure) using the government constraint. We do not neglect the implicit financing assumptions built into the specification of regression utilising both control and fiscal variables. Static and dynamic panel analysis (fixed effects model) of the 25 EU countries covers the period 1995-2008 for the majority of observations. Forward looking moving averages of the growth rate of GDP (2-5 years) are the dependent variable. We find that productive government expenditure supports growth, whilst non-productive expenditure, especially social protection (COFOG) or social payments (Amoco) does not. Distortionary and indirect taxes reduce economic growth. Adapted from the source document.

Research made by the Public opinion research center team as a mothly part of "Our Society 2006" project researching views and opinions of Czech citizens. Data collection was done by the Public opinion research center interviewers network.

Research made by the Public opinion research center team as a mothly part of the "Our Society 2012" project researching the views and opinions of Czech citizens. Data collection was done by the Public opinion research center interviewers network.

The article aims to introduce the model of public diplomacy in the conception of small states, highlighting the key features which fulfill the idea of public diplomacy promoted by these small states. The article looks into how these characteristics are reflected in public diplomacy strategies. The author examines which concrete components of these strategies have direct connection to the public diplomacy model of small states, how strongly these differences are evident in plans for strategies & how deeply these differences can influence the final form of the strategies. In its last part the article also touches on the practice of public diplomacy in the Czech Republic through discussions of key documents, tools used in public diplomacy & the development of institutions. The author tries to reach a conclusion as to whether & how deeply the contemporary practice in the Czech Republic corresponds to the public diplomacy model of small states. Adapted from the source document.