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The objective of this article is to show how issues concerning women in science and the problem of gendered science, often treated separately, are interconnected. To examine how research on women in science and research on gender and science relate to each other, some feminist epistemological perspectives, mainly feminist contextual empiricism, are used in order to show how the feminist philosophical conceptual framework may be useful for understanding the problems currently faced by women in science. After reflecting and elaborating on the very thesis of gendered science, the author analyses in more detail the concept of epistemic communities and the concept of trust as an epistemic factor. Through these concepts the author argues that philosophical/epistemological considerations are fruitful for studying the experience of individual women in science. Both of these interrelated concepts are considered highly relevant in the search for an epistemological framework facilitating the thematic study of women in science on a theoretical level and research on the current situation of women in the academic world in Slovakia.

"The aim of this paper is to introduce one of the classical sociological research conducted by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz in the city of Decatur (Illinois) in the Midwest of United States in 1955. The subject of the research was nonformal everyday interpersonal influence in areas of marketing, fashion, public affairs and movie going and the object was the population of women older 16 years (n = 718). By means of indicators of life cycle, social status and gregariousness the research report describes the profiles of opinion leaders in given areas and provides an answer to question if the two step flow of communication hypotheses is applicable in mentioned spheres of social life." (author's abstract)

Religion in contemporary Europe has been forced out of politics but religious themes repeatedly return in European politics. The article deals with the question of how the Catholic faith, as a symbol of identification, and the political and social issues conditioned by Catholic faith influence current European policy. Sociological research has indicated a link between identification with the Church and social attitudes, and the influence of religious identification on the approach toward European integration. The key theme of the article is the analysis of religious topics at the political level and the consequences of the struggle of the cross, as well as the resulting influence on political or judicial power in European countries. Using specific examples, it is shown that some of the manifestations of the Catholic faith represent an identification symbol and that religious themes have remained strong. Adapted from the source document.

The aim of this article is to explore the various ways in which people represent social groups. The author shows that a prominent role in such processes is played by psychological essentialism. People represent some of their social identities as inherent qualities that are based on the sharing of a presumed 'essence': something unobservable, diffi cult to remove, irreversible, and causally responsible for overt behaviours. Empirical evidence suggests that no particular causal process of essence acquisition is constitutive for essentialism in folk models of society. Some authors believe that folk essentialism is necessarily connected with the presumed innateness of an essence (its biological transmission across generations). Innate potential and biological inheritance, however powerful they may be for the human cognitive mind in the domain of folk models for biology, are far from necessary in essentialist folksociological classifications. Essentialism in folk sociology is not defined by any particular causal process of essence acquisition. Even when it is possible to detect that a given group of people claim the innate essence of a particular folk sociology, it is always necessary to look for other features of essentialism (inherence, sharp boundaries, the immutability of identity, etc.). The article reviews some influential cognitive proposals concerning folk models of society (Astuti, Gil-White, Hirschfeld) and ethnicity, and provides arguments and empirical evidence collected in Western Ukraine in support of the claim that presumed innateness is not the constitutive part of folk models of society, let alone of psychological essentialism.

Numerous studies have confi rmed that caring for small children is still the domain of women in Slovakia. Maternity as such is considered the natural and expected role of women and is part of the construction of femininity in Slovak society. At the same time, it is expected and routine that Slovak women participate in the labour market, and the prevailing form of employment is full-time work. This complicates efforts to harmonise work with the need to care for a small child. It is not just the country's legislative and institutional framework that shape notions about caring for small children; they are also influenced by the views and attitudes of society towards this issue. The image of a good mother is constructed, and women then try to approximate it when performing their maternal role. The prevailing ideal is of a mother who devotes herself full-time to caring for a child for the first three years of the child's life. The author of this article focuses on the context surrounding the construction of the image of a good mother as one who cares for her child until the age of three, and examines how the image of the good mother is reflected in the opinions of women on returning to work and on work/life balance. The data in this analysis are drawn from public opinion polls about early childcare and the reality of caring for small children in Slovakia and from in-depth interviews with mothers of small children. The mothers are aware of the views of society, refl ect on them, and many try to fulfil them so that they are perceived as 'good' and not 'inadequate' mothers.

In the current issue of international relations we bring readers an interview with Professor Peter Drulak. It follows on interviews with important figures in the field of international relations, which we published in 2010 and 2011 Petr Drulak is a researcher at the Institute of International Relations (DPE), where from 2004-2013 he worked as a director. He teaches at the Department of International Relations at the Institute of Political Studies Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University. Monograph is the author of several textbooks including the first Czech Theories of International Relations (Drulak 2003) and political research methodology (Drulak 2008a). He published many scientific articles and chapters focusing on international relations theory, European integration and the Czech foreign policy. In his last book, Politics disinterest (Drulak 2012) is devoted crisis policy in the Czech Republic and the West. In 2000-2004 he was chief editor of International Relations, is currently a member of the editorial board. Adapted from the source document.

The author treats the topic of AIDS as a focal point for artistic politics in the United States and, eventually, in a larger international context as well. He considers a range of representations of AIDS in contemporary art since the 1980s & considers how AIDS became a pivotal point around which thinking about artists' activism & art as social intervention turned. He discusses AIDS as a paradigmatic case for a new global, biopolitical, & mediatized cultural phenomenon that bore with it a new ensemble of political, moral, & economic effects, in turn profoundly affecting conceptions of aesthetics & activist art. In the latter part of the essay, he develops a typology of strategies utilized by artists in addressing the problem of AIDS: 1) transcoding strategies; 2) media critiques and/or critiques of culture industry representations of AIDS; 3) alternative publicity; 4) AIDS exemplars; & 5) strategies of mourning & memoralization. Adapted from the source document.

The paper analyzes the far right People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) in 2006, 2010 and 2012 Slovak parliamentary elections. The main questions that the paper seeks to answer are 1) whether and how has the party changed its main themes during the periods before elections, 2) what the party's position toward the Roma minority has been, and 3) how the thematic adaptation has affected electoral results of the party. The paper analyzes the changing position of the party toward the Roma minority in the context of three electoral periods and it links the party's electoral results with the occurrence of so-called Roma settlements in the areas, where the party gained a significant share of the vote. We found that during the 2006 elections the party mostly emphasized the need for the renaissance of the (Slovak) nation and the reflection of its roots and national historical figures. In both the 2010 and 2012 elections the party for the most part sharply criticized the Roma minority and the mainstream political parties. We argue that this change was reflected in the party's electoral gain. Since 2010 the party has changed its focus to an active campaign against Roma and electoral results of the party have improved. In 2006 LSNS gained the most votes in areas where the local appeal of its leaders emphasizing the nationalistic themes was the largest and in both 2010 and 2012 the party gained the most votes in regions with the highest occurrence of Roma settlements. We also identified all four features that according to Mudde (2000) characterize far right parties in the electoral themes emphasized by LSNS. Adapted from the source document.

The Chechnya conflict itself broke out yet during the existence of the USSR - in September 1991. On 11 October 1992. Dudayev announced the state of emergency as a reaction to the mobilization of Russian military forces at the borders with Chechnya. The Russian troops left their positions at the Chechen borders only on 18 November 1992. ... In one year after the outbreak of the war, Moscow's policy on Chechnya (1995) returned to the beginning the necessity. to solve the Chechen prob1em by "Chechen hands" and not by military force. It became the central topic of the election campaign before the elections to the State Duma which took place on 17 December 1995. ... From a short-term point of view, it would be possible to speak about the consequences on the presidential elections in 1996, from a broader point of view it is about the permanent presence of official violence in the Soviet-Russian history of the 20th century which forms the basis of a specific "Russian way". This factor has always influenced the contents, the orientation and the result of all processes (economic, social, spiritual, ethical etc.) that is confirmed by the political events in Russia not only in 1995 but mainly from 1985 up to today. (SOI : MO: S. 79f.)

The text analyses the conditions for the use of the roll-call votes (RCV) in the European Parliament in the context of the democratic accountability to the voters. The research is focused on examining the rules of procedure of this institution from its beginning to the present. The goal of the text is to analyse the formal setting of the rules of RCV. The procedures concerning RCV have been completely in the hands of deputies. The historical analysis therefore endeavours to reveal whether the deputies decided to act in a way that would grant the greatest possible level of transparency and thus control to their voters, or whether the step taken in 2009 is only a historical exception. In the conclusion, the authors come to the result that the MEPs did not strengthen the relations between the voters and the MEPs significantly, although in 2009 and 2014, certain changes were made in this respect. Adapted from the source document.

The aim of this paper is to examine the consequences of a failure to make a preliminary reference from the point of view of consumer organizations striving for the protection of collective consumer rights. Also, this paper argues against a strict application of the principle of procedural autonomy of Member States, as it makes the enforcement of consumer rights practically impossible, in particular with respect to Directive 2009/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests (the Injunctions Directive). The author discusses both judicial and extrajudicial remedies that are available in case of a failure to make a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union. She believes that procedural rules and the specific conditions for obtaining damages based on the Francovich judgment are not sufficiently harmonized throughout the European Union. Adapted from the source document.