Suchergebnisse

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 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.

The process of European integration should be seen as the harmony of economic unification which is determined by a dynamic development with closed forms of intensive and deepening co-operation. Both processes, i.e. integration and co-operation, have been compared in the second part of the paper. The existence of a legal regime of its own is an important aspect of the economic integration. Therefore the necessity of national legal systems harmonisation, whose aim is to achieve the same legal regime for the common economic area, seems to be an inevitable process. As one from the driving forces of this process has become the need for balancing economic and social dimensions, the present-day EU policy responds to demanding challenges and it pays respect to the dignity of human being, while setting of the fundamental standard of social dimension is supposed in national legal order of the EU member states. The social policy of the EU has been therefore paid a close attention by the author. However the most challenging and prestigious act of the European integration has become the formation of a common European financial area, which is perceived in not only a European, but also in a world-wide context as well. It seems to be a process that is supposed to influence the development of international financial relations. This process bear certain level of risks, but it is really a unique opportunity for the creation of a single financial area for Europeans. (SOI : MO: S. 306)

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.