Suchergebnisse

Survey-based measures of subjective well-being are more and more often analyzed cross-culturally. However, international comparison of these measures requires measurement invariance. Therefore, the major goal of this study was to investigate the cross-country comparability of the five-item subjective well-being scales used in the International Social Survey Programme (2011, 2017). This study applied both the traditional exact and the more recent Bayesian approximate approach to assess whether the subjective well-being scales were measurement invariant. The Bayesian approach detected several non‑invariant items that were problematic for cross-national comparison and could be dropped from the scales. Consequently, measurement invariance was established in all countries for the reduced scales, allowing researchers to meaningfully compare their latent mean scores and the relationships with other theoretical constructs of interest. Thus, the study highlighted the advantages of using multiple indicators and the necessity of measurement invariance testing in subjective well-being research.

In this short paper there will be introduced the stream of economic theory labeled as the New Economic Geography (NEG) & derived the core-periphery model, a flagship of the NEG. It is a model of two regions with imperfect competition & increasing returns to scale, where some properties of the model contrast certain features of basic neoclassic models of regional economics & international trade. The role of monopolistic competition & increasing returns to scale opens the possibility of highly nonlinear effects of production location with respect to barriers of trade. I analyze main mechanisms of the model & discuss the relevance of the NEG for economic policy in the context of European economic integration. Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

The publication analyses and discusses legal and financial tools, including international strategies and policies, relevant to the protection of landscape character with a focus on agricultural impact in the Czech Republic. The first section summarises the available Czech literature on the subject and includes an analysis of the changes in scale of Czech farms after 1989. The second section summarises relevant financial instruments and their influence on landscape character. In the third section, a more detailed analysis of selected tools is attempted, including several case studies describing their use and impacts in practice. Section four summarises relevant international agreements, strategies, policies, and national and regional government programmes, and discusses their influence on landscape character in the Czech Republic. In the fifth section, policy changes on a national, international, and regional level favourable to landscape character are suggested. The summary in section six offers some general comments, including a plea for more effective control mechanisms and for more complex policies and strategies integrating small-scale rural renewable energy production with water and landscape character conservation and sustainable agricultural production based on local economic and biological loops

The article discusses the outcomes of elections to the European Parliament in Austria in June 2004. Attitudes of relevant Austrian parties towards the European integration project are briefly discussed and placed on the theoretical scale that ranges from "Hard Euroscepticism" and "Identity Europeanism". The presented outcomes of the elections are put into the general context of the Austrian party system and voters' preferences since the middle 1980s. Special attention is given to the phenomenon of Hans-Peter Martin's populist list that won almost 14 % of the vote. Also, relatively low voter turnout is discussed. The Austrian example is very suitable for theorizing European elections as elections of less voters´ attention that is conceptualized at the end of the article.

Despite the massive scale of voucher privatization, there still remain a substantial number of companies in which the state is involved. Residual state property is quantified from the point of ownership & ownership rights that enable control over the assets of privatized companies. By the beginning of 1999, the state was able to control 76% of assets of the companies in the portfolio of the National Property Fund. This means that the state controls quite a significant part of the Czech economy & interferes with the concept of property rights. The results thus question the achievement of voucher privatization. There exists a clear consensus that further privatization of residual state property is both necessary & inevitable for further economic growth. 3 Tables, 5 Charts, 7 References. Adapted from the source document.

Příspěvek je věnován zjišťování vlivu determinantů z oblasti sociodemografických proměnných na kognitivní a afektivní aspekt environmentální gramotnosti žáků druhého stupně Základní školy Žatec, nám. 28. října 1019, okres Louny. Výzkumný vzorek byl tvořen 87 respondenty z 6. až 9. ročníků. Studie předkládá výsledky týkající se vlivu pohlaví, bydliště, věku respondentů a realizovaných volnočasových aktivit na naměřené hodnoty environmentálních vědomostí a proenvironmentálních postojů, k jejichž zjišťování byl využit výzkumný nástroj složený z testu MSELS a dvoudimenzionální škály 2-MEV. Vztah mezi vědomostmi a postoji byl identifikován jako nepříliš těsný na rozdíl od středně silné pozitivní korelace mezi oběma faktory škály 2-MEV. V případě pohlaví a velikosti bydliště nebyl prokázán signifikantní vliv těchto proměnných ani u jednoho ze zkoumaných aspektů. Totožné závěry byly potvrzeny u věku respondentů a volnočasových aktivit ve vztahu k vědomostem, ovšem u postojů byl zaznamenán významný vliv obou determinantů. Nejpříznivěji se z volnočasových aktivit projevily aktivity zaměřené na pobyt v přírodě a sport. ; The contribution is devoted to investigating the impact of sociodemographic variables of the area on the cognitive and affective aspect of environmental literacy among 12-15 years old students in Žatec, Square 28 October 1019, district of Louny. The author tested two research instruments: MSELS and two-dimensional scales of 2-MEV on the research sample consisting from 87 respondents from 6 to 9th grades of these school. The study presents the results regarding the influence of gender, domicile, age of the respondents and their leisure time activities on the measured figures of environmental knowledge and proenvironmental attitudes. The relation between the knowledge and the attitudes was identified not too tight in contrast to medium-strong positive correlation between the two factors of 2- MEV scales. In the case of sex and place of residence (village/city) no significant effect was proved, either in one of the aspects. The identical conclusions were confirmed concerning the age of respondents, and leisure time activities in relation to their knowledge. However, talking about attitudes there was a significant effect of both determinants. Leisure time outdoor and sports activities in the nature manifested the most positive influence on the affective component. Even if these results are not representative, the new research questions for wider survey are offered in the conclusions.

The article deals with the factors that affect the tax morale of the population of the Visegrad Four countries, i.e. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The evaluation of the answers of the respondents of the European Values Study to the question of whether they justify tax evasion serves as an indicator of tax morale. The authors work on the one hand with the frequency of answers expressing a complete rejection of fraud and on the other hand with average answers on a scale from 1 to 10. Respondents from Slovakia were found to be justifying tax fraud the most, and Polish and Hungarian residents agreed with tax evasion the least. Furthermore, the dependence of tax morale on gender, religion and satisfaction with the political system was analysed. Using contingency tables, it was found that all the monitored factors have a statistically significant effect on the tendency of people to justify tax evasion. The only exceptions were the factor of religion in the Czech Republic and the influence of satisfaction with the political system in Poland, where the relationship with tax morale was not confirmed.

Environmental change (including climate change) affects natural and socio-economic systems as well as migration patterns. Migration is a part of the cultural habits of various societies and serves as a survival or personal development strategy. If we focus on the relationship between migration and climate change (in terms of changes of temperatures, changes of precipitation patterns, extreme weather events occurrence, etc.), migration could be perceived as a short-term coping strategy or a long-term adaptation strategy. The main aim of the paper is to deal with the relationship between climate change and the migration strategies of various peoples who immigrate as a reaction to changes in their living conditions. Two case studies from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrate two different approaches of local communities to tackling the impacts of climate change. The empirical qualitative field research showed that the communities from South Asia perceived climate change as one of the significant factors encouraging migration, while in Sub-Saharan Africa migration on such a substantial scale in relation to climate change did not take place. Adapted from the source document.

The article deals with the 1938 treatise History of the All- Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), abbreviated AUCP(b) - an official treatise from the Stalin era of the USSR which was published on a mass scale. The author puts his reflections in two contexts: 1. the internal Marxist dispute over "orthodoxy", which Stalin resolved by publishing (and co-authoring) this "canonical book", and 2. the myth-forming context, which shows how totalitarian regimes present themselves with their "canonical books". He considers publications preceding the analyzed book, which after Lenin's death included texts by Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin and Leon Trotsky. Then he considers the actual book, focusing in more detail on the absence of two topics and concepts - the state and culture. He pays particular attention to the chapter on dialectic and historical materialism written by Stalin, which completes the simplistic interpretations in the so-called Stalinist Marxism. Like L. Kolakowski, he concludes that the entire Stalinist concept is naturalistic (meaning the naive naturalism of the late 19th century: Marxism guarantees a "scientific world view") and naively nomothetic (all fundamental claims have the form of unquestionable laws).

This article presents a detailed analysis of the Civic Forum as the most important vehicle of changes in the first stage of the development of the Czech party system. It aims at two interrelated goals: first, to describe & adequately elaborate processes within the Civic Forum, which should serve to explain internal divisions in this movement & the emergence of various streams within the Civic Forum as their immediate consequence. Second, it intends to outline ideological positions within the Civic Forum, thus identifying a logic of the future developments in the Czech party system & distribution of its subjects on the left-right scale. Moreover, the article traces back through the history of the Civic Forum influences of ideas of the non-political politics & their permanent clashes with attempts to establish Civic Forum as a hierarchical political party. The article concludes that the Civic Forum significantly contributed both to the establishment of the Czech party system just in the shape it acquired within its further development, & to the emergence of the major Czech parties of the right. 36 References. Adapted from the source document.