Záznam přidán/aktualizován: 29. března 2011 v 12.42 hod.
Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 3/2009
Obsah čísla
STATI
Michael L. Smith: The Inequality of Participation: Re-examining the Role of Social Stratification and Post-Communism on Political Participation in Europe [487]
Abstract: This article compares the determinants of political participation, from voting and signing petitions to boycotting, across 23 European countries, posing the question whether and to what degree social inequalities in political participation differ between post-communist and Western countries. The data for the analysis is from the second round of the ESS survey, conducted in 2004–2005. The analysis focuses on the role of education, occupation, and gender in shaping the chances of engaging in political action, while also controlling for a range of sociological, political, and demographic variables. Interaction effects between individual variables and a post-communist dummy variable are used to directly compare the statistical significance of the difference in coefficients between post-communist and Western countries. The article finds that the observed effects of the post-communist context are actually accounted for by the indirect effects of a number of individual-level variables. In particular, education, occupation, and gender have stronger effects in post-communist countries than Western countries on many forms of political participation; in other words, the post-communist countries exhibit somewhat larger inequalities in political participation than in the West.
Keywords: political participation, political behaviour, social inequality, social stratification, post-communism
Alena Křížková, Hana Maříková, Radka Dudová, Zdeněk Sloboda: The Conditions of Parenthood in Organisations: An International Comparison [519]
Abstract: The paper focuses on organisations and the conditions for working parents in terms of combining work and care and how those conditions are set up and negotiated in organisations. The research draws on three case studies comparing pairs of companies active in the Czech Republic and in one of the following countries – Germany, France, and Sweden – in the field of engineering. The goal is to explore in depth the conditions that Czech working parents are faced with and that derive from the organisational processes and means and dynamics of negotiating conditions for working parents, and to compare them with the conditions in other countries and identify the sources of variability of these conditions. Important differences between a company’s family-friendly practices in its home country and in its Czech branches are primarily determined by the differences in the way in which welfare regimes are set up in individual countries. In addition, the authors identify the following five main interlinked factors explaining the variability of family-friendly policies and practices in organisations: parental (maternity) ideologies, the organisational culture of non-discrimination and equal opportunities, the actors’ activity in work relations, the role of trade unions in negotiations, and the given organisation’s experience with employees-parents.
Keywords: organisations, family-friendly policies, work, gender
Jan Drahokoupil: Internationalisation of the State in the Czech Republic: Igniting the Competition for Foreign Investment in the Visegrád Four Region [549]
Abstract: This article focuses on a key episode in the Czech political-economic history of the 1990s, the abandonment of ‘Czech capitalism’, and the switch towards the competition state and an economic model based on foreign investment. The account of the U-turn in the policy approach to foreign investors identifies domestic actors that have had a crucial role in organising political support for the competition state. These actors, which the author calls the ‘comprador’ service sector, have an important role in mediating the structural power of transnational investors and translating it into other forms of power within the state. These actors also had a major role in shaping the U-turn in policy in the Czech Republic.
Keywords: economic policy, state, class, foreign direct investment, Czech Republic
Umut Korkut: Reversing the Wave: The Perverse Effects of Economic Liberalism on Human Rights [571]
Abstract: This article takes the conservative shift in Polish politics under PiS as an example and argues that the failure of the liberal economy could end up reversing the fast-forward wave in human rights. And because Poland is a relatively new member of the EU, the article also develops the argument that such a reversal in the new member countries could make the European Union’s (EU) acquis irrelevant for further democratisation. Therefore, the article first explains how the failure of the economic liberalism of the neo-liberal market economy paves the way for the success of conservative political parties. It then raises the question of why political liberalism, promoted by the EU’s human rights acquis, is also a target for the opponents of the market economy. The article concludes with a discussion of current Polish politics in the aftermath of the October 2007 elections.
Keywords: liberalism, Poland, PiS, EU, human rights
Lukáš Novotný: Right-wing Extremism and No-go-areas in Germany [591]
Abstract: Right-wing extremist groups in almost every Western European country became aware of the concept of no-go-areas over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, and some of them even applied this concept over a short period. This study looks at the manifestations of this concept in Germany, where politics and society are still confronted with the legacy of Nazism. The author sets out to examine whether no-go-areas actually exist in Germany, and if they do, to look at how life in them is organised, how they are accepted by majority society, and how these activities are supported (or initiated) by the NPD, a German right-wing extremist party. In the region of former East Germany in particular there has been an increase in support for neo-Nazism as an extreme reaction to the deteriorating economic and social situation. Studies have shown that in this region more and more citizens are sinking into the ‘modernisation trap’, and as a result right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism are gaining more and more ground. One way in which the extreme right-wing NPD and related or subordinate ‘friendly’ organisations want to ‘control the streets’, and thereby also the public, is through the establishment of ‘no-goareas’, which are areas dominated by neo-Nazis. The objective is to create a zone for neo-Nazi sympathisers, chase out foreigners and co-citizens who do not share extremist views, and work towards achieving the ultimate goal: destroying democracy and establishing the ‘Fourth Reich’.
Keywords: right-wing extremism, nationalism, racism, no-go-area, Germany
RECENZE
Iván Szelényi: János Kornai: From Socialism to Capitalism [611]
Kristin Nickel Makszin: Stephan Haggard – Robert Kaufman: Development, Democracy, and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe [615]
Achim Goerres: Asghar Zaidi: The Well-Being of Older People in Ageing Societies [619]
Timo Weishaupt: David Rueda: Social Democracy Inside Out. Partisanship and Labor Market Policy in Industrialized Democracies [622]
Hilke Brockmann: A.B. Atkinson: The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries [625]
Heiko Pleines: Scott Gehlbach: Representation through Taxation. Revenue, Politics and Development in Postcommunist States [627]
Umut Korkut: Agnes Batory: The Politics of EU Accession Ideology, Party Strategy and the European Question in Hungary [630]
Lisa Adkins: Elaine Weiner: Market Dreams: Gender, Class and Capitalism in the Czech Republic [633]
Andrew Roberts: Kevin Deegan-Krause: Elected Affinities: Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic [635]
Tim Elrick: Holger Kolb – Henrik Egbert (eds.): Migrants and Markets. Perspectives from Economics and the Other Social Sciences [637]