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Denmark is considered to be one of the most Euroskeptical member states of the European Union (e.g. it rejected the Treaty of the European Union in 1992 & refused to adopt the euro in 2000). This article analyzes the attitudes of relevant Danish political parties towards European integration. The author of this article utilizes Nicolo Conti's typology of political parties' attitudes towards the European Union based on their spatial position on the political spectrum. Conti supposes that the Euroskeptical attitude (the so-called hard Euroskepticism) is mostly represented by the right- & left-wing parties, while a pro-European attitude is typical of the center & governing political parties. First, the author of this article categorizes the relevant Danish political parties on the basis of Conti's typology. Second, the author compares their real attitudes to European integration to the assumed ones. 2 Tables, 1 Diagram, 36 References. Adapted from the source document.

The article aims to review the political developments in African states throughout their recent post-colonial past. Uprooting political violence & anchoring a stable structure based on a society-wide consensus being just two of the several prerequisites for solving so many other problems which trouble Africa today, this article aims to diagnose at least some root causes & consequences of the generally unsatisfactory political situation on the continent. Having identified a set of political instability symptoms (coups d'etat, civil wars, failed putches etc.) the author first ranks African states according to their political instability rate. On the basis of statistical correlation analysis, the author then investigates the relation between political instability in Africa & a number of quantifiable geographical, demographical, military & economic variables. The author has identified some dispositions increasing -- though with only small statistical significance -- the probability of instability in African states. In order of importance, these include: large territory, high illiteracy rate, low urbanization, high number of ethnic groups living within the territory, & large population. Also, there is a close link between political instability & governmental military spending. It probably has a negative impact on a number of key economic indicators, be it GDP growth, GDP per capita levels, domestic savings, or price level developments. In the final part of his article, the author makes a brief summary of political developments in African countries in the 21st century. Tables, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

In this contribution, we compare the correlation of supply & demand shocks for the countries of the euro zone & the acceding countries in Central Europe. Demand & supply shocks are recovered from estimated structural VAR models of output growth & inflation in individual countries. We find that Poland & Hungary face already a comparably high similarity with the countries of the current euro zone. However, the remaining countries show still significant differences in business cycles as compared to the euro zone. This is likely to indicate that the loss of monetary sovereignty may be costly. In turn, the integration is expected to align the business cycles of these countries in the medium run. We document a similar development for the countries of the European Union in the 1990s. 4 Figures, 22 References. Adapted from the source document.

The essay takes a look at twinning, a phenomenon left largely unexplored by European studies & international relations scholars. The author deals with twinning through the institutional prism, focusing on institutional change as a result of non-instrumental change of institutional actors' preferences. Twinning is a secondment of experts from EU member states administratives to the candidate countries. Its aim is to help the applicant countries with institution building for successful & effective implementation of the acquis communautaire. The author seeks to identify processes & mechanisms of institutional changes in the public administration of a given candidate country within the context of twinning projects, aiming to formulate framework conditions for unconditioned institutional change & test these hypotheses on the data collected during research. The essay focuses on institutional change caused by a change of administrative identity through deliberation (of alternatives), argumentative persuasion & social learning as alternatives to instrumental change mechanisms. References. Adapted from the source document.

The author, a Czech social anthropologist who returned home from exile in order to help in the introduction of his discipline, writes a field report in which he describes in relative detail the vicissitudes of Czech social anthropology during the last thirteen postcommunist years. Even though lecturing on social anthropology became common in Czech universities, the institutionalization of the discipline encounters stiff resistance from the conservative academic establishment. Social anthropology gets support in new provincial universities (Pardubice, Plzen) & only very reluctantly in Prague (Charles U). As a result, Czech protagonists of social anthropology are scattered throughout various institutions. Nevertheless, the author concludes, social anthropology has become known in the Czech Republic as a dynamic part of the social sciences. Grant agencies have given support to fieldwork projects on minorities, political culture, & identity problems during the transformation process. If the momentum gained during the recent years were to be sustained, social anthropology has a bright future on the Czech academic scene.

Drawing upon earlier work by the author, the text seeks to help answering the question of the sources of fear regarding the future integration of Slovakia. By looking at the roots & substance of this fear, the author aims to evaluate whether it has become unsubstantiated since the 2002 general election. Even though Dzurinda's 1998 government has fallen short of the voters' expectations, this has never been true in the foreign & security policy where the government delivered on its promises. The first chapter aims to identify the key factors, having the greatest effect on the policy- & decision-making of Slovakia's political elite between 1998 & 2002. These factors have been crucial in extending the country's image as being the most problematic out of the Visegrad group. The second chapter deals with Slovakia's internal political watershed: the 1998 general election. The problems weakening & ultimately threatening the ruling coalition from within are analyzed as well. The third chapter discusses economic & social aspects of Slovakia's post-1998 domestic development. The rather unbalanced performance & the lack of achievements are examined as the causes of doubts about the translation of Slovakia's integration ambitions into practical outcomes. Finally, the last chapter describes the societal perceptions in Slovakia as reflected in public opinion polls prior to the 2002 general election, summing up the election results. In answer to the question posed at the beginning, the author closes his analysis claiming that the current level of preparations for Slovakia's integration into both the European & Trans-Atlantic structures guarantees that the country will successfully join both. Despite the lack of any bulletproof guarantee of the stability of the country's post-2002 political scene, & in spite of potential change of the government or early elections, Slovakia's full integration into the European & Euro-Atlantic institutional structures in mid-2004 cannot be prevented. Slovakia will join along with its Visegrad partners. References. Adapted from the source document.

The following comments compare the present orientations of Czech sociology with recent developments in European sociology. The analysis of sociology in Europe shows that the attention of European sociologists has shifted to social theory & social philosophy, sociology of culture, media, gender & feminism, political sociology, nationalism, ethnicity, & racism. Czech sociology, in the opinion of the author, still does not pay sufficient attention to such pressing issues of Czech society as national identity, nationalism, value transformations, the role of traditions, & European integration processes.

The article deals with the third resource of the EU budget, which is a certain percentage of VAT returned by Member States. It focuses on correlation between average propensity to consume & Member states' GNP per capita. It is a response to critical assessments of alleged regressiveness of the third resource resulting from presumed higher relative consumption in poor vis-a-vis rich countries. Correlation analysis confirms relatively high negative interdependency of both variables. However, the author does not recommend to link VAT payments to average propensity to consume. The results indicate that besides economic prosperity there are also other factors influencing the average propensity to consume. This is even clearer from the EU-13 model not comprising Greece & Luxembourg, which significantly codetermine the intensity of measured dependency. Comparison of average propensity to consume & GNPpc with the average figures for EU-I5 shows four Member States where the negative correlation does not hold. The author also estimates the position of individual Member States towards further existence of VAT as an EU budget resource, including its possible abolition. While proportional payments are among realistic possibilities, introduction of progressive elements into EU budget payments is considered politically unacceptable. Despite the discussed disadvantages, VAT is found as the most appropriate tax revenue for the common EU budget. Tables, Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

Max Weber, Clifford Geertz, & Rudolf Bultmann are often cited by anthropologists & sociologists who are trying to determine the essence of human sciences through a deep analysis of the subjective meanings that the actor sets to his/her behavior. This article provides an analysis of theoretical & epistemological conceptions of the three thinkers mentioned above, & the author concludes that each of them uses the construction of subjective justification in a different way. Weber distinguishes behavior itself from its meaning, which is constituted by a subjective reference to the values of the actor, & also of the recipient (or researcher). In Weber's point of view, someone else's meaning of behavior is eventually undeterminable, & the researcher can only come close to the subjective meaning through an ideal-typical construction, although Weber eventually does not refuse such ideal-typical constructions behind the cognitive possibilities of the actor. Geertz's attempt at an orientation of a description according to the actor primarily leads to the view of cultural & social facts from a bird's eye perspective, to a presumably deeper understanding than the actor is able to have. In this article the author argues that the differences between Weber's & Geertz's theoretical constructions originate in their contrasting conceptions of the nature of culture. Another such case is Bultmann, owing to the fact that he does not concentrate on the subjective meaning of action in a narrow sense, while he aims at, in his eyes, all human existential experience of reality.

Regardless of the role religion plays in the world today, ie despite the significant deprivatization of faith in the sociocultural space & in politics, contemporary Czech sociology of religion is in rather poor shape. The author presents a number of factors to explain this, including the legacy of the communist regime, & low levels of church attendance in the Czech Republic, the latter having been erroneously interpreted as non-religiosity. But the author focuses mainly one other reason: the discordant legacy of Czech pre-communist sociology of religion & the neighboring field of social studies. Two different traditions of the subject are identified - the 'profane' sociology of religion, founded by T. G. Masaryk, & Catholic religious sociology. Although the former legacy declared itself non-religious & even anti-clerical, in the case of many of its followers this claim was only partially true. In the 1930s & 1940s, when they (especially Prague's sociological school, which formed a certain opposition to Masaryk) turned more toward Durkheimian attitudes, they emphasized, for example, their own religious experience as a necessary tool for understanding piety. On the other hand, Catholic religious sociology was closely related to church activism, policy, & contemporary social work, ie, strictly conservative & anti-modern. Its way of understanding modern society was discounted by the former group of scholars, though to at least some degree, the two legacies shared similar methodological approaches. Both certainly seem outdated today, but their theoretical & methodological discussions & their findings remain of importance. Consequently, a re-thinking of these legacies & their theoretical backgrounds is still significant for the sociology of religion today.

First, the author examines European & world lessons for the study of Czech transformation. Then, he describes legacies of the (mostly communist) past & the risks of transformation: atomization, demoralization, & materialization. The main topic is the failure of the social sciences, which isolated themselves instead of engaging in the reform process, verbally governed by mainstream neoclassical economics. In particular, sociology failed to show the moral dimension & embeddedness of economic processes in the social structure. Most tasks have thus remained for the future, which will stream transformation research towards (1) multidisciplinarity & complexity, (2) the replacement of unidimensional & static conceptual apparatus with a multidimensional & dynamic one, & (3) the understanding of endogeneity of social research & the explicit acknowledgment of its policy dimension.

This paper discusses the critiques forming the debate on the future of the two major global financial institutions -- the IMF & the WB. The author does not claim what the IMF & the WB really are, but reviews how they are seen by their critics. The article describes & summarizes the multifaceted critical discussion & proposes an elementary scheme formed by four basic positions. These are based on two variables: (1) moderation or radicalism of the critiques; (2) their affiliation with the right or the left side of the political spectrum. As a result, four basic critical positions emerge: right reformers, right radicals, left reformers, & left radicals. This paper characterizes each of them by overviewing the opinions of two representative participants of the discussion. 1 Diagram, 125 References. Adapted from the source document.

The paper consists of four parts each of them devoted to a practical aspect of inflation targeting as conducted by the Czech National Bank. The first part outlines the reasons that led to the adoption of this monetary regime & summarises other advantages for effective & transparent decision-making. The second part addresses the issue of missing inflation targets. It is argued that simple confrontation of targets with actual behaviour of inflation may give a distorted view about the actual performance of monetary policy. The third part discusses a subtle methodological controversy about the difference between so-called escape clauses on the one hand & net inflation on the other. In the last section the author presents his critical view about the role of unconditional forecast in its capacity to indicate future interest rate decisions & to provide a realistic description of transmission mechanism in a small open economy. 5 Figures, 26 References. Adapted from the source document.

The aim of the article is to provide readers with general information on nanotechnology & possibilities of its use, as well as to refer to some of its relevant security risks. The author currently mentions claims of some scientists & NGOs warning against possible misuse of nanotechnology due to the insufficient control over the research & the application. So far, less anticipated consequences of nanotechnology, converging with genetics, robotics, informatics & cognitive science, on all branches of the economy & social & other relations require that sufficient information should be given not only to the Czech experts but to general society as well. The real threat of the misuse of nanotechnology towards the research, development & the production of the new types of chemical, biological & nuclear weapons & other security risks increase that need. In spite of the long-term knowledge of nanotechnology, the possibilities of its use in a revolutionary way increased from 80th of the last century. It was due to the new types of microscopes enabling for the first time precise manipulation of the nanoscale particles. Results of nanoscale exploration are more & more visible eg., in various consumer products & according to the views of some scientific circles we could witness dramatic transformation of the economy in the near future. The article points out the rapid increase of spending on basic nanoscience research, growing number of governmental, private & multinational corporations & various national nanoinitiatives dealing with this kind of research & development, accepted mainly in the high-industrialized countries. In the article there are mentioned some reservations & concerns of the prominent American scientists & NGOs in association with the important goal of the nanotechnology research focused on the process of self-reproduction, self-repair & self-assembly. Various arms control & disarmament experts pay attention to the connections of the nanotechnological research with the possibility of production of the new types of nuclear weapons of the 4th generation. In conclusion the author expresses his view on the usefulness to create efficient system of the governmental & public control of this sphere of the scientific research & the need to devote sufficient attention by the appropriate officials & experts to the security aspects of nanotechnology. Adapted from the source document.

The widest framework available for the treatment of language problems is offered by sociolinguistics. The author of the article begins by introducing sociolinguistics, & claims that one of its four basic thematic clusters, which he calls 'Sociolinguistics IV,' is fully devoted to language problems. Mainstream Sociolinguistics, a US-based social network that has made a fundamental contribution to sociolinguistics since the 1960s, developed a version of 'Sociolinguistics IV' that is known as Language Planning. It is in confrontation with Language Planning that the theory of Language Management grew in the 1980s & 1990s. This paper briefly discusses the contribution & problems characteristic of Language Planning & outlines the main features of the Language Management theory. Among these, special attention is paid to the process of language management, which develops out of deviations from norms, whereby some of the deviations are noted, some of the noted deviations are evaluated, & certain adjustment plans are considered & implemented. Finally, the paper suggests that the Language Management theory could perhaps make a valid contribution to other social science disciplines, such as sociology or political science.