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Paper deals with the European Monetary Union from perspective of Post Keynesian school of economic thought. It discusses separately arguments often proposed by mainstream economists. After the brief introduction, which highlights main differences between mainstream & Post Keynesian economic theory, work deals in sequence with trade argument often found in discussion about monetary unification, monetary issues mainly with the role of European Central Bank & lastly, work appraises European Monetary Union from international monetary arrangement perspective proposed by Post Keynesian economists. Based on this evaluation, work concludes stating that Post Keynesian economists are more likely not to be overenthusiastic with European monetary unification. References. Adapted from the source document.

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.

The article focuses on the role of informality in the life of post-communist societies in Central Europe. Its goal is to question the current negative connotation of informal networks in the context of post-communist society. For this purpose it analyses the criteria used in the relevant literature to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' informal networks. Two main factors (the situational factor and the factor of relationship quality) are analysed from the perspective of their impact on the orientation of informal networks and their ability to predict which networks will have a positive or a negative influence on societal development. The author argues that neither of these two factors alone can fully explain the positive or negative orientation of a particular informal network in a given society. Instead he proposes a solution that combines several dimensions of both factors. In conclusion he identifies five types of informal networks in post-communist society: predatory, redistributory, helping, operating, and participative networks.

The article deals with the concept of the advantage of "backwardness" and its use in comparative research on European parties and party systems. Politics in the "post-Rokkanian" world, characterized by de-aligning patterns of interest representation and intermediation, raises new questions and challenges in the field of research on political parties, pressure groups, and social movements. The text poses questions that should be asked in regard to this "post-Rokkanian" transformation of political processes connected to the opening of new research perspectives on multilevel party competition in European countries. The article elaborates the concept of the advantage of backwardness at three main levels: the organizational patterns of internal life within political parties, party systems, and interest intermediation systems generally. The article also tries to put the whole concept of the advantage of backwardness into the proper geopolitical and historical area in the framework of European countries. Adapted from the source document.

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.

This article discusses the growing role of China in UN peacekeeping operations since 1989. First, the reasons for the non-engagement of China after its admission to the UN and its Security Council in 1971 are described to stress the difference of the Chinese behavior after the end of the Cold War. Second, the increasing Chinese activity in UN peacekeeping is shown by describing China's gradually changing behavior in three areas: voting in the Security Council, personnel contributions to peacekeeping operations and financial contributions to the UN peacekeeping budget. In the end, the article suggests that China's growing role in UN PKO could be understood as an important part of China's peaceful rise policy. Adapted from the source document.

The September 11th, terrorist attacks on the United States totally overshadowed the significant legislative changes in the field of the US sanctions policy, which went into effect in the years 2000 and 2001. Albeit these changes as such may appear insufficient at first sight, the decade of sanctions policy reform debates and disputes which preceded these changes justifies the conclusion that they are the best result possible, and far more important than any unsystematic shifts in the regime of imposing economic sanctions for foreign policy purposes made back in the 1990s. The need to reform the US sanctions policy was caused by afundamental change of the international environment brought about by the end of the Cold War. Unlike in the bipolar world, wherein universal sanctions measures were fully sufficient, it was necessary after the end of the Cold War to react to numerous and varied threats to US foreign policy interests. This was done by laws "tailored" for the sanctioned country. The attempt to reform US sanctions policy in the 1990s revealed infull the rivalry between the legislative and executive powers, both of which wanted to preserve the decisive influence upon administrating sanctions and making decisions about them. It was undoubtedly the legislative power the Congress -- which emerged strengthened from the decade of rivalry. The last major factor reemerging in the sanctions policy reform debate and disputes was the issue of extraterritorial effects of some us laws. The extraterritoriality of us legislation caused a backlash in the world, which the US administration could not simply ignore. Yet the United States will probably not give up this powerful tool for forced multilateralization of its unilateral sanctions since this tool enables the US to avoid protracted and uncertain promotion of its interests in the form of multilateral sanctions negotiated by traditional diplomatic means. Adapted from the source document.

This study offers an analysis of the role of private security companies (PSCs) in the Czech Republic that builds on the model of global security assemblages developed by Abrahamsen and Williams. It applies this model to the Czech experience with the privatization of security since the end of the cold war by utilizing available data, complemented with information derived from structured interviews with the owners of PSCs operating in the Czech Republic. It suggests that the Czech market with commercial security services exhibits several specific characteristics, including the relatively high total number of registered PSCs (7000+) and their professional associations (16), the size of the gray and black markets involving PSC services (30 to 40 percent of the entire market), and the phenomenon of so-called "reverse revolving doors," whereby former owners or top managers of PSCs directly, or through family members, enter into, or establish their own, political party. Overall, however, this study confirms the key conclusions from previous applications of the model regarding the partial disassembly of the Czech state's security functions and the corresponding re-articulation of relations among public and private actors in the provision of security. Adapted from the source document.