Suchergebnisse

The current article introduces the issue of race and racism in the United States of America with focus on two specific contemporary concepts that have a big attention and have formed the discussion in the last years. The first one is laissez-faire racism from Lawrence D. Bobo who stresses the reluctance of government and political parties to engage in racial questions. The second one is concept of white privilege of Peggy McIntosh who points at advantages and privileges of white race. Both concepts attempt to raise awareness about still present racial discrimination in the United States of America, although in the last years this topic has begun to be perceived as clichet and for some the problem is considered to be solved.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the Public Affairs Party, which entered the Czech House of Deputies after the 2010 parliamentary elections. The aim of the paper is to cover organizational matters and certain peculiarities of the party. As the most appropriate tool of analysis, the concept of a business firm party is used. The author shows how the political and economic interests of the party's most influential member, Vit Barta, overlapped significantly and that Barta could be depicted as a kind of "political entrepreneur" misusing political activity for his business purposes. The analysis of the functioning of the Public Affairs Party and especially the distribution of power inside the party shows, in comparison to classical examples of business firm parties, that Public Affairs embodies a new way of intersecting politics and business practices: the already existing party was taken over (in a hostile way, to use the language of business) by a business company. Adapted from the source document.

The paper tested contagion effects among free floating African currencies and Euro with a control variable like the Euro-pegged CFA Franc. Contagion should be based on deep trade, funding and political relationships which was valid for connections between African countries and such developed countries like the United States or the Eurozone. The theory suggests increased common movements under shock periods which were tested on a daily time series between 2000 and 2015, studying relationships under recession periods in the United States or the Eurozone or under days with extreme fluctuation. The results presented contagions only for the emerging South African currency while the others proved to be relatively independent.

This book brings a new perspective of the United States, which arose from the necessity to overcome both uncritically admiring as well as uncritically condemning approaches. This new approach is based on a deeper understanding of the inner diversity, contradictions and quarrels within American politics and society. This offers unexpected possibilities of transatlantic cooperation in new areas and enriches the public debate about the course of the Czech Republic. It is necessary to awaken from the American dream to be able to clearly see the United States as important inspiration, whether positive or negative. In addition, the book aims to point out possibilities offered by the renaissance of territorial studies as an approach to examining the world around us, which is able to combine historical, political, economic, social and cultural approaches when answering serious and complex questions. This knowledge in different territorial contexts can significantly help us in making our own choices, both those made on a daily basis as well as the important and critical ones

The publication is the result of a three-year observation of Czech companies' relation to quality, particularly their awareness of the fact that the quality of their products is a factor of competitiveness of the entire enterprise. The research was carried out using a questionnaire survey in companies in selected sectors. Based on the research of relevant specialized literature, research questions were formulated in the field of product quality, product quality monitoring and control, degree of customer satisfaction, and competitive advantages and disadvantages. Partial analyses were carried out from 2008 to 2010, and only those questions that remained completely unchanged in the individual reporting periods were subjected to mutual comparison. In addition to the survey, the financial indicators of the individual participating companies were analyzed in each year. This enabled the authors to monitor the situation of the company not only in the context of issues of quality, but also relate the results of this survey to their actual financial success. To split the businesses into two groups according to their financial performance five indicators selected on the basis of the research literature and experience with previous similar studies on a similar subject were used

This paper focuses on "The Philadelphia Negro": a community study that stands at the start of American social research. This somewhat forgotten empirical study from 1899 describes the historical conditions and the economic and social causes and circumstances behind the formation and existence of the "Seventh Ward", a slum neighbourhood in Philadelphia inhabited by African-Americans. The study used survey and other methods of observation and analysis of historical, economic and social data. The study was written by the erudite Harvard University graduate William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, an African-American, and an economist, historian and sociologist. Using primary and secondary literature and archive sources this paper shows that Du Bois was the author of the first empirical social research study in the United States. It looks at his life, his research, and his opinions on racial issues. He created a programme of research on the African-American population and from 1898 to 1910 he headed the first school of sociology on the American continent at the University of Atlanta. He published the results of scientific analyses of the lives of African-Americans in the south of the United States in sixteen volumes of the Atlanta University Studies. Racial prejudices among the American sociological elites prevented both Du Bois and his work from receiving the attention they rightly deserve.

The study analyzes the formal powers of current European monarchs, and examines their actual use. We investigate the royal prerogatives of monarchs from ten European nations: Belgium, Denmark, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The text deals with four powers - legislative initiative, royal assent/veto, selection/appointment of the prime minister and dissolution of parliament. The constitutional power is described first; its real use in the period of 1990-2012 is then examined. At the end, a comparison of every single prerogative is carried out, conclusions about the actual position of monarchs in current European political systems are drawn, and a tentative answer to questions concerning the future of kings, princes, and grand dukes serving as heads of state in European countries is suggested. Adapted from the source document.

This study is an attempt to deliver a comprehensive (geo)political analysis of the evolution of transit routes to supply Caspian oil and natural gas reserves to world markets using the territory of the South Caucasus. In the initial part of the study, a series of transit options prevailing in the two decades up to 2005 is scrutinized; in 2005, the highly debated Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline was eventually built marking the shift in interest from oil transit to natural gas transit. Emphasizing the peculiarities of geopolitical competition for the strategically important area of the post-Soviet South Caucasus that has been continuing between Russia, the United States, and to a certain extent also Iran and Turkey, the article seeks to explore the close interconnection of politics and economics, and on some key occasions also the prevalence of the former over the latter, reaching in this regard beyond Caspian projects.

Research on political speeches is often done in countries with strong presidential powers, typically in the USA. However, political speeches by presidents are also a critical method of influencing public opinion in the Czech Republic. Therefore this article is focused on the analysis of speeches of the former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. Our research is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Klaus' speeches (thematic units are used as the unit of analysis) found on his website (www.klaus.cz) in the period from 1995 to the end of his presidency, March 2013 (N = 470). We aim to identify the changing structure of political issues in Klaus' speeches and changes in Klaus' position on those issues, and to uncover any characteristic features of his speeches (the use of personal pronouns, the role of the speaker, the tone of the speech, etc.). Adapted from the source document.

The article investigates the practice of female marriages in 19th century Great Britain and United States and argues that female marriages provided model for more progressive forms of the legal marriage between men and women. Unlike homosexuality in the 20th century, the same-sex relationships between women in the 19th century often enjoyed social recognition and some women in female marriages occupied prominent social positions. Because they were considered to rest on contract, female marriages served as inspiration for the contractual view of marriage advocated by many supporters of the Victorian marriage reform. The contribution of women in female couples to the success of the marriage reform was further underlined by their belonging to influential social networks. The author also argues that while the structuralist anthropology of mid-20th century, represented through the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, had limited understanding of homosexuality as a socially legitimate phenomenon, the Victorian anthropology of the second half of the 19th century was relatively more open regarding the same-sex relationships. It is contended that authors as diverse as Henry Maine, Johann Bachofen, or Frederick Engels provided impulses in their work both for a positive evaluation of the same-sex relationships and for a more egalitarian understanding of marriage.

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.

Příspěvek přednesený profesorem Hubou, současným předsedou výboru pre pôdohospodárstvo a životné prostredie Národní rady SR, na česko-slovenské Konferenci o udržitelném rozvoji a ústupu v Olomouci (8.11. 2012) hodnotí vývoj v oblasti životního prostředí z perspektivy uplynulých 25 let (od r. 1987, kdy vznikla Zpráva komise OSN pro životní prostředí a rozvoj s názvem Naše společná budoucnost, tzv. Zpráva Brundtlandové), či dokonce 40 let (v r. 1972 se konala Stockholmská konference o životním prostředí člověka). Rekapituluje jeho nejdůležitější milníky, kterých byl autor aktivním účastníkem, a to na úrovni globální, evropské, a v rámci Slovenska – v období jeho významných celospolečenských proměn. Kam tento vývoj směřuje – to je řečnická otázka, jejíž odpověď stále méně ovlivňují ti, kterým na budoucnosti opravdu záleží.(Z príspevku na česko-slovenskej konferencii o udržateľnom rozvoji a ústupe v Olomouci, 8.11. 2012) ; This paper, presented by Professor Huba, the current Chairman of the Committee for Agriculture and the Environment of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, at the Czecho-Slovak Conference on Sustainable Development and Retreat in Olomouc (8 Nov 2012), evaluates the development in the environmental sphere from the perspective of the past 25 years (since 1987, when the report Our Common Future from the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Report, was published), or even 40 years (Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment was held in 1972). It recapitulates its major milestones, in which the author was actively involved at the global, European and Slovak levels at the time of a major society-wide transformation in Slovakia. Where this development leads is a rhetorical question the answer to which is less and less influenced by those to whom future really matters.