Suchergebnisse

The publication analyses and discusses legal and financial tools, including international strategies and policies, relevant to the protection of landscape character with a focus on agricultural impact in the Czech Republic. The first section summarises the available Czech literature on the subject and includes an analysis of the changes in scale of Czech farms after 1989. The second section summarises relevant financial instruments and their influence on landscape character. In the third section, a more detailed analysis of selected tools is attempted, including several case studies describing their use and impacts in practice. Section four summarises relevant international agreements, strategies, policies, and national and regional government programmes, and discusses their influence on landscape character in the Czech Republic. In the fifth section, policy changes on a national, international, and regional level favourable to landscape character are suggested. The summary in section six offers some general comments, including a plea for more effective control mechanisms and for more complex policies and strategies integrating small-scale rural renewable energy production with water and landscape character conservation and sustainable agricultural production based on local economic and biological loops

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.

The article draws on the concept of 'replacement migration', widely presented by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in 2000 and 2001, which elaborated a concept and conducted a comprehensive analysis of international migration as a solution to the problem of population declines and demographic ageing. This concept was applied as an example to selected countries in the world, the European region, and the European Union as a whole. It involves calculating the number of foreign migrants necessary to completely offset future changes in the size or age structure of the given country's population as a result of the predicted demographic trends. The following article describes the formulation of this concept and looks at its application on a general methodological level and in the specifi c case of the Czech Republic. A detailed description is given not just of the model used but also of its internal and external assumptions. The constructed model is then applied towards determining the, necessary number of 'replacement migrants' in order to prevent a signifi cant change in the Czech Republic in: 1) the total size of the population, 2) the average age of the population, 3) the percentage of people of working age, and 4) the ratio of people of post-productive to productive age. With the aid of the results the authors clearly demonstrate that while international migrants could effectively help maintain the current size of the population, they would not be able to prevent the continued ageing of the population or even have a decisive impact on the course of this process. With these fi ndings the authors hope to contribute to the debate on the topic of the ageing population in the Czech Republic, and they call strongly for more intensive and especially more effective preparations for this real and unavoidable era in the development of Czech society.

Current demographic trends are calling forth the need to redefine the meaning of old age and its place in society. The concept of active ageing can be seen as a reaction to these efforts to reconceptualise life in old age. This article first briefly describes the context that gave rise to the term 'active ageing' and how this concept is framed as 'ageing well' in national and international documents and in the discourse of gerontology. Based on ethnographic studies of two centres offering leisure activities for seniors (mainly using participant observation and in-depth and informal interviews with clients and employees), the article shows 1) how the idea of active ageing and generally of being active as an desirable or undesirable lifestyle in old age is constructed in the framework of the centre's general operations, and 2) how the clients themselves relate to this idea. The objective of the article is to reveal the significance of active ageing in the formation of a normative image of 'ageing well', which on the one hand helps seniors break away from stereotypical notions of ageing, but on the other hand generates new inequalities based on the ability or willingness to 'age actively'.

The article focuses on the differences in political participation among post-communist countries. First, it explores the variation in the level of political participation among post-communist states. Second, it deals with the differences in the determinants that account for political participation in individual countries. The second objective is met by introducing a three-dimensional explanatory model of political participation: individual resources, motivations, and social networks. In an empirical analysis political participation in nine post-communist countries is examined using data from the International Social Survey Programme 2004. Results show that the countries under study vary in the level of political participation both at the aggregate and individual levels. The most active citizens are in the former East Germany and Slovakia. Polish and Hungarian citizens participate in politics the least. Further, two modes of political participation – protest activity and contacting – are identified and used as dependent variables in further analysis. In the second part of the article, the explanatory model is tested against data from individual countries. The analysis shows that there is a difference in the factors that account for political participation in various post-communist countries. Generally, the three-level model of political participation works best in Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany. It explains very little variation in Russia and Poland.

Research made by the Public opinion research center team as a mothly part of "Our Society 2010" 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 "Our Society 2009" 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 "Our Society 2009" 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 "Our Society 2009" 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 "Our Society 2009" project researching views and opinions of Czech citizens. Data collection was done by the Public opinion research center interviewers network.