Suchergebnisse

The paper focuses on the Latin American perspective on modernity, especially on the Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano's notion of coloniality. Coloniality is explained as a theoret- ical framework for critical reflection of modernity with an emphasis on the forms of knowledge (episteme) and on non-Western, more specifically Latin American historical experiences and perspectives. The aim is to introduce some Latin American efforts to critically understand coloniality as the other face of modernity and to develop a distinctive critique of capitalism, globalisation and Eurocentrism in their historical dynamics, In the first part, the paper briefly introduces Latin America as a geocultural place and a object of social research in a historical perspective. Special attention is paid to the question of racial classification and authenticity. In the second part, the paper focuses on the notion of coloniality as it was conceptualised by A. Quijano and by other Latin American authors. In the third and fourth parts, the paper deals with the problem of coloniality in wider epistemic contexts of modern social sciences and in relation to the notion of alterity and to the question of decolonisation of social scientific thinking. The final discussion addresses some of inspirational and problematic points of this conception such as problems of decolonisation, intellectual dependency and critique, and the problem of conceptualisation of differences in scientific discourses.

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 article deals with the former US President Bush's plan for the so-called third pillar of the American missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic in the context of American-Iranian and American-Russian relations. We assess the explanatory power of different but interconnected (neo)realist conceptualizations of security dilemma and deterrence. Specifically, the study evaluates the relative importance of classical security dilemma versus imperialist security dilemma and the explanatory power of three different modalities of deterrence. The paper further shows how Iran and Russia balanced the United States. We also argue that the American missile defense system was not primarily motivated by defensive realist worries about security, but rather by an offensive realist struggle for power and gains at the expense of others. Adapted from the source document.

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 aim of this study is to analyze the current use of public diplomacy in foreign relations. It attempts to show how necessary public diplomacy strategy is for the formation of diplomatic relations. The first part of the study focuses on the analysis of changes in political communication in international relations. Presented are factors such as the transnationalisation or medialisation of foreign policy and the role of soft power in international relations. Then it presents a three dimensional model of public diplomacy that takes into account short-term and long-term goals. The main part of the text presents a change in the operation of today's foreign policy actors. This mainly concerns classical diplomacy, which has transformed its role, primarily by heavily engaging professional public affairs agencies and non-state actors in foreign policy. The article also cites examples from Europe and the United States of America of successful and unsuccessful strategies of public diplomacy. Adapted from the source document.

The United States have been an important actor in the debate on the nature of the European integration process since the beginning of the process. Washington's policy, however, has always seemed equivocal: on one hand it actively supported and encouraged the process, but on the other hand it tried to contain some specific European ambitions and steer the process in a desirable direction. The objective of this article is to offer a possible explanation of the long-term US policy towards the European integration process. In the first part, it presents the theoretical concept of the US "regional hegemony strategy" and identifies four goals of the grand strategy within the limits of the concept. In the second part, it tests the validity of the concept on six historical case studies by confronting the intentions of the US policy in each case with the four identified strategic goals. The analysis shows that even though the focus of the American policy towards the European integration changes according to different historical context, the American policy follows the general tenets of the regional hegemony strategy. Adapted from the source document.

The article proceeds from the concept of the actorness of the EU, especially from its attractivity dimension, and also from comparisons of the EU and the Latin-American integration blocs on both the political and the academic level. It examines whether the Latin American media consider the EU as a model for Latin American integration. On the basis of an analysis of various articles published in two newspapers, the Argentinean La Nacion and the Colombian El Tiempo, two basic issues were examined: 1) whether these daily newspapers perceive the EU as a source of inspiration for their own countries' integration, and 2) whether and how the discourse differs in the two countries and whether it is possible to deduce general conclusions from the similarities and/or differences in the discourses. In conclusion, we deduce that some inspiration by the EU in the media perspective exists but that it is only limited to a few concrete areas. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay on books by (1) Daniel H. Deudney, Bounding Power: Republican Security theory from the Polis to the Global Village, 1st edition (Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2006); & (2) Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, 1st edition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).

The level of political participation of American citizens is commonly considered to be high. However, voter turnout is in fact relatively low, even in highly attractive presidential elections. The article focuses on this phenomenon and the particular factors that, according to the literature, affect turnout negatively. The first part describes various methods being used to measure voter turnout in the USA. The difference can even be several percentage points, depending on the method of calculation. With regard to these distinctions, American data cannot be directly compared with voter turnout statistics in European countries that use a different methodology. The main part of the article analyses several factors that are generally considered to influence voter turnout in the USA negatively, and counts their real impact. One important factor is that voter registration methods can lower the turnout by up to 11 per cent. Also significant is the lowering of the voting-age limit in 1971. Neither gradual changes in population age structure nor enactment of election-day holidays have proven to negatively influence turnout. The principal findings reveal a permanent increase of inhabitants without voting rights (esp. non-citizens). These persons are included in voting-age population figures, and due to inexact methodology, cause a merely statistical decrease at the level of at least 3 per cent of voter turnout. Adapted from the source document.

The paper searches for the essentials of the American neoconservative movement. The article focuses on the beginnings of the first generation, the "godfathers" of the movement, and especially the personality and life of Irving Kristol. First the article analyses the pre-neoconservative situation in United States. The roots of the movement are found in the liberal environment and its break-up in the reality of the turbulent Sixties. The development of the neoconservative movement through various concepts of domestic and foreign policy is described in the context of conservative-liberal struggle in the USA, while the position of neoconservatives is compared to these orientations. The long evolution of opinions and orientations of Irving Kristol is interpreted as a typical feature of the whole movement, and his life serves as the guide for the concept of the paper. The article presents the main eight fundamentals of the neoconservative movement formulated by Irving Kristol, and the study is concluded with a short section focused on the foreign policy opinions of the movement during the Reagan administration. Adapted from the source document.