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The article aims to introduce the phenomenon of public diplomacy, highlighting the key features of the concept. The author is looking into why public diplomacy is worth of the attention of academics, pointing out the reasons for considering public diplomacy a relevant & legitimate segment of foreign policy -- and not just a trendy phrase. The article presents a brief overview of the development of public diplomacy so far, identifying the main reasons for public diplomacy being an important item on today's foreign policy agenda. Seeking to clarify what public diplomacy is & what its implications are, the author highlights some core features of public diplomacy & their temporal & thematic change. The article also touches upon the relationship between public diplomacy & propaganda, branding, international cultural relations & traditional diplomacy. The author concludes with effective public diplomacy strategies & preconditions for its further development. Adapted from the source document.

This text inquires into the problem of cadenced step as the disciplinary technique of the body, according to theories of Marcel Mauss and Michel Foucault. Author explores historical core of military body techniques in social context, developed by Dutch army reformers Counts of Nassau during 1590s and refined by the Prussian military in 1740s. Author interprets cadenced step inside framework of shifting paradigm of power, as Foucault analyses the sequence of three stages of power emerging during european Early modernity.

The author presents a critical reply to Barsa's interpretation of his monograph (Jakoubek, M. Romove: konec/ne/jednoho mytu. Tractatus Culturo/mo/logicus, Socioklub, Praha 2004) & of two anthologies he has co-edited (Jakoubek, M. & Poduska, 0. [Eds], Romske osady v kulturologicke perspektive, Doplnek, Brno, 2003 & Jakoubek, M., Hirt, T. [Eds], Romove: kulturologicke etudy. Etnopolitika, pribuzenstvi a socialni organizace, Cenek, Plzen 2004). Taking the examples of his alleged orientalism & of his (also alleged) idea that Gypsies are carriers of the culture of poverty, the author illustrates that Barsa's interpretation is full of mistakes & inaccuracies. He also argues that the concept of culture used by Barsa is unacceptable in the social sciences & accuses his critic (together with the whole discourse of multiculturalism) of ethnocentrism. Regarding methodological issues, the author demonstrates that although Barsa claims to offer a better method of analysis, in actuality he fails to do so. References. Adapted from the source document.

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 paper deals with the phenomenon of globalization. The author finds globalization highly questionable concept because there is deep disunity about its definition among the authors. In the first part of the paper different concepts of globalization are summed up. According to authors view there are two main approaches towards globalization -- the first considers it as (more or less lasting) integration & the second as a completely new contemporary process. The author regards globalization as a long lasting integration. But he finds that the present integration has a few specifics that are analyzed in the following part of the paper. In the consequent subchapters the author deals with two more topics -- the pros & cons of globalization & the durability of the process. The main conclusion of the paper is that globalization is a process that has been allowed by the governments by withdrawing from certain areas & thus releasing creative forces in the world markets. The process can be again (anytime) interrupted by the governments but it would bring serious consequences for the functioning of the world economy. Adapted from the source document.

Based on a systematic study of Polish sociological literature produced in the period stretching between the elevation of Wladyslaw Gomulka to the post of the Party's first secretary in October 1956 to the first free elections in Poland in June 1989, the author of this article offers an account of the main dilemmas & the varieties of pluralism in Polish sociology during the state socialist era. The author claims that, with the exception of the Stalinist period, Polish sociologists always occupied diverse positions on 'government' & 'society', but this diversity yielded to change in response to a particular time. Generally, in 1956-1989 Polish sociology was something unique in comparison with sociology in other so-called people's democracies, as it had a considerably high status in the country & in the world, including the West. The author argues that Polish sociology did not have to undergo a revolution in 1989 & make the move from Marxist to bourgeois sociology, as since 1956 (or even earlier, since 1945) it had been undergoing continuous change & constant reform (in theoretical domain & concerning its division into sub-disciplines) & maintained a consistent level of diversity in various respects.

The author of this article focuses on the theoretical framework of the concept of care as a critical category of social inequality in order to outline possibilities for a redefi nition of the relationship between work and care. Gender inequalities as well as inequalities that are based on other social categories, such as class, ethnicity, nationality, geopolitical location, marital status, and so on are incorporated in the social organisation of care which retrospectively reinforces them. Feminist debate has thus far formulated demands for the recognition of caring persons mainly at the national level, but the author of the article, referring to Arlie Hochschild and Allison Weir, shows that the current challenges of global capitalism point to the need to articulate these demands in a transnational context and to embed care in the discourse of transnational justice. She critically addresses the challenges that efforts to attain recognition for caring persons by including care as a labour-market activity are confronted with owing to the current changes in the social organisation of care under global capitalism, which involves among others the employment of marginalised groups of women and women immigrants in the caring professions. Drawing on the work of Nancy Fraser, the author formulates two normative criteria for reconceptualising care as a social engagement without subjecting it to the logic of market valuation.

This article examines the issue of the genderedness of the philosophical canon. In the theoretical part of the article the author gives evidence of the constructed nature of the philosophical canon, which in the Euro-American space is clearly androcentric. She summarises criticism to date of the philosophical canon by feminist historians of philosophy and describes the results of their research, which is directed at several areas: uncovering forgotten women philosophers of the past; analysing philosophers' views on gender; identifying the genderedness of basic philosophical categories; criticising the dualism that characterises modern philosophical discourse; and finally, making various reinterpretations of the concepts of past philosophers. Each of these approaches has particular potential and limitations, which the author seeks to identify. In the second part of the article the author presents the results of her analysis of philosophy textbooks and books on the history of philosophy published in the Czech Republic after 1990. She conducted her analysis by comparing information on women philosophers contained in the texts of the selected books with the information available in other literature (mainly English). She also employed the typological method, and she identified five 'strategies' of marginalisation of women philosophers, whereby textbooks used at Czech universities contribute to maintaining the existing philosophical canon.

The article summarizes basic theoretical approaches to the study of democracy & intelligence oversight. The author aims to provide a complex view on the topic of regulating intelligence institutions in a democracy. First, it is necessary to explain some basic questions like why we need extra measures to monitor intelligence agencies. Then we must separately identify two different areas of control: management & oversight. The author examines the oversight & management functions of particular institutional levels of control: internal, governmental, legislative, judicial, extra & societal level. Also considered are the special capabilities of regulatory bodies stemming from their different positions in the state institutional system. The text concludes with a catalog of intelligence failures & abuses, linking them with suitable monitoring bodies to prevent such occurrences. Adapted from the source document.

UN peacekeeping operations are viewed as a relevant instrument of conflict resolution in the post-Cold War era. A significant part of them operates in Africa, the place with the largest "demand" for conflict resolution. Why are some operations successful, while others not? What are the determinants of their success? The author focuses on six determinants relevant for the outcome of peacekeeping operations: support of the UN Security Council, a clear & feasible mandate, equipment & size of the operation, duration of the operation, will of the belligerents to end the conflict peacefully & support of an African regional organization. Based on case studies representing ten UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, the author evaluates the determinants of success & thus shows the difficult striving of UN peacekeeping for success. Adapted from the source document.

The article provides an overview of the main theoretical approaches to research on educational choices and anticipated labour-market opportunities from a gender perspective. It then presents the results of three quantitative analyses of secondary data. The objective is to help facilitate a complex understanding of the mechanisms of the reproduction of gendered social
structures. The genderedness of the social institutions in the education system and the labour market in relation to the socialising trends in the family is described in three parts: 1) gender segregation in employment in the context of segregation in education – the author shows that the horizontal dimension of these social institutions plays a more signifi cant role than the vertical dimension; 2) the factors that condition girls' and boys' educational aspirations and choice of schools – the author demonstrates how secondary school choices are gendered (though the analysis did not reveal the differences between the factors that infl uence girls' and boys' aspirations); 3) the factors that condition parents' educational and class aspirations for their sons and daughters – the author uncovers several aspects of the socialising effect of the reproduction of the two traditional career trajectories based on gender. In conclusion, the article answers the question of how structurally gendered expectations cohere with individual career trajectories, and based on the three analyses formulates questions for further research and offers a revised theoretical conceptualisation of gender as an analytical category.