Suchergebnisse

Importance of risk & uncertainty in present period of dynamic changes grows. The article deals with risk & uncertainty in strategic decision making. First the concepts of risk & uncertainty & possibilities of their measurement are discussed. Further shortcomings of strategic decision making from the point of view risk integration are described. The emphasis is on discussion of decision making methods under risk & uncertainty (including decision tables, scenarios, Monte Carlo simulation, real options, decision trees, multicriteria utility function under risk, theory of games & methods of portfolio development) as supporting tools for strategic decision making. In the last part of the article some recommendations for integration of risk & uncertainty in strategic decision making based on scenario approach are suggested. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

This article aims at problems of legitimacy, sovereignty & decision-making process in the context of European integration. Several concepts of legitimacy & sovereignty are introduced & subsequently analyzed in the context of latest development of the European Union. Adapted from the source document.

Yet our understanding of power remains elusive. The Council of the European Union is a body where the main actors, Member States, exercise power in order to influence the decision-making & its outcome. Their basic aim is to defend the national interests. The primary objective of this article is to offer an overview of the Member States' sources of power in the Council, based on a review of the latest literature. We present both structural & procedural sources of power. Then we explain that the exercise of power depends also on concrete sectors & cases in which the actors negotiate. Our text confirms that the results of various research endeavors have often been contradictory & that continuing research is needed in order to deepen the knowledge of Council decision-making. Power as a concept has been at the center of attention of social sciences for a long time. 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.

The paper analyzes the influence of neoconservative concepts of the 1990's on the foreign policy strategy of the George W. Bush administration after 9/11. The text begins with a short presentation of the neoconservative movement, particularly its second generation. The paper then compares neoconservative concepts from the 1990's with principal documents of the Bush administration & shows their influence. The next part of the text presents the factors able to explain this influence. These factors are the specific long-term evolution of central institutions in the USA, the special decision-making process of the administration, the managerial style of president Bush & also the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 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.

Violent conflict is very old in human society. The development of military technology brought with itself the worst tragedies loss of human live and material devastation in the second half of 20th century in the Horn of Africa. This region is one of the centers of various political violent conflicts in the world, according to length of these violent conflicts, the number of death of people, mainly civilian, refugees and internal displaced persons (IDP). This study elucidates the root causes of long wars in the Horn of Africa focusing mainly on South Sudan and Somalia. It also illustrates how the Super Powers during the Cold War helped their client states to prolong the suffering of people in the region. When Socialist system disappeared from Eastern Europe, Mengistu Haile Mariam's and Siyad Barre's regime ignominiously collapsed. In Ethiopia Amhara power elite, who ruled the Empire state from 1889 to 1991 lost their state power and Tigrian guerrilla fighters captured it through the power of the gun, Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia, South Sudan is emerging from long heinous war to independence. The violent conflict in Somalia transformed after the old regime demise in 1991 and the new leaders unable to build new central government. Somalia is fragmented and became the good example of failed state in the theory of contemporary political sociology. The paper tries to explain these complex violent conflicts in this part of Africa.

The article focuses on the differences in political participation among post-communist countries. First, it explores the variation in the level of political participation among post-communist states. Second, it deals with the differences in the determinants that account for political participation in individual countries. The second objective is met by introducing a three-dimensional explanatory model of political participation: individual resources, motivations, and social networks. In an empirical analysis political participation in nine post-communist countries is examined using data from the International Social Survey Programme 2004. Results show that the countries under study vary in the level of political participation both at the aggregate and individual levels. The most active citizens are in the former East Germany and Slovakia. Polish and Hungarian citizens participate in politics the least. Further, two modes of political participation – protest activity and contacting – are identified and used as dependent variables in further analysis. In the second part of the article, the explanatory model is tested against data from individual countries. The analysis shows that there is a difference in the factors that account for political participation in various post-communist countries. Generally, the three-level model of political participation works best in Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany. It explains very little variation in Russia and Poland.