scholarly journals Years in Cultural Studies: 2013

Lateral ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Šima ◽  
Ondřej Daniel ◽  
Tomáš Kavka

n Eastern Europe, which is the focus of our study, different national scholarly traditions assigned their own place to the study of culture. Although the influence of the kulturologia (“culturology”) schools installed at Russian universities in the 1980s radiated out into Eastern European countries, local academic communities dictated the approach to the study of popular culture. While the Polish field of kulturoznawstwo was propelled by internal forces from the early 1970s onwards, in Czechoslovakia, kulturologie emerged as a new discipline around the fall of the Communist regime. Even so, it failed to take off and by 2012 had vanished completely from the Czech Republic. Central European countries were also affected by the German academic tradition of Kulturwissenschaften with its emphasis on philosophy and aesthetics. Our inquiry highlights the first international conference on cultural studies in the Czech Republic in 2013. It was during this event that a group of new postdocs from Charles University, including ourselves, raised the topic of changes in Eastern European popular culture due to the political transformation in 1989. This group had also arranged for Ann Gray, the final director of the UK Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) to give a keynote address at the conference, a gesture that clearly linked the CCCS with the group’s own Centre for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPK) established three years earlier. From the outset, CSPK’s organizers aimed to promote the Anglo-American tradition of cultural studies both in the academy and among the general public. At the same time, they sought to retain their independence from academic structures and funding systems that might restrict their political activism.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-71
Author(s):  
Nicole Horáková

The level of trust in politicians also in government institutions is taken as an indicator of the state of society in general. Various studies have shown that the population of the Central Eastern European countries, and especially the citizens of the Czech Republic, lack trust in state institutions and democratic structures. The trust of the Czech population in government institutions is, compared to other (Western) European countries, at a relatively low level. This article aims to discuss different factors that are currently influencing this lack of trust: the historical, cultural, and institutional. The empirical data for this article is based on the European Values Study and Czech surveys of public opinion concerning trust in government institutions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kinga Polanska ◽  
Malgorzata Znyk ◽  
Dorota Kaleta

Abstract Background Tobacco use among young people still remains a major public health problem. The aim of this study was to examine the association between a variety of factors and susceptibility to smoking initiation and experimentation among the youth from central and eastern European countries. Methods The data used in the current analysis, focusing on current non-smokers, is available from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, which was performed in five countries (the Czech Republic (2016), n = 3191; Slovakia (2016), n = 3178; Slovenia (2017), n = 2255; Romania (2017), n = 4681; Lithuania (2018), n = 2260). Results Among the never smokers, nearly a quarter of the students were susceptible to smoking in 4 of 5 countries (16% of those susceptible to smoking were identified in Romania). Moreover, 60% of the students in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia, and about 50% of the students in Lithuania and Romania were found to be vulnerable to smoking experimentation (an analysis among ever smokers). The multiple regression models provided results that are consistent among all the examined countries, with the following factors identified as significant correlates of smoking initiation and experimentation: being girls, having more money available for own expenses, experiencing exposure to passive smoking in public places, as well as indicating peer smoking. Moreover, adolescents who have declared lack of antismoking education and knowledge on harmful effects of passive smoking, those who saw people using tobacco on TV, in videos or in movies as well as advertising of tobacco products at point of sales were susceptible to smoking. Finally, the students who shared an opinion that smoking helped people feel more comfortable at celebrations, parties or in other social gatherings were at higher risk of smoking susceptibility. Conclusions A high proportion of the youth from central and eastern European countries is susceptible to smoking. Personal and social factors and those related to educational and policy issues were strongly and consistently correlated with smoking susceptibility. These factors should be considered when designing and implementing anti-smoking activities among young people.


Risks ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Victor Shevchuk ◽  
Roman Kopych

This study is aimed at estimation of the exchange rate volatility and its impact on the business cycle fluctuations in four central and eastern European countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania). Exchange rate volatility is estimated with the EGARCH(1,1) model. It is found that exchange rate volatility is affected by the components of the Index of Economic Freedom from the Heritage Foundation, besides inflation and crisis developments. The empirical results using GMM estimation technique and comprehensive robustness checks suggest that exchange rate volatility reduces the risk of recession in the Czech Republic while the opposite effect is found for Hungary and Romania, with a neutrality for Poland. These findings continue to hold after controlling for the fiscal and monetary policy indicators. There is evidence that the RER undervaluation prevents sliding into a recession on a credible basis in Poland only, with a neutral stance for other countries. Except in Romania, higher levels of economic freedom is associated with worsening of the cyclical position of output. Among other results, stabilization policies in the recession imply fiscal tightening for the Czech Republic and Romania, higher money supply for the Czech Republic and Poland, and lower central bank reference rate for Hungary.


2007 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srdjan Redzepagic ◽  
Matthieu Llorca

This paper aims at assessing the fiscal sustainability and its political determinants in seven Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC), namely Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. First, using the recent sustainability approach of Bohn (1998) based on fiscal reaction function, econometric findings using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) reveal a positive response of the primary surplus to changes in debt in several countries. In other words, fiscal policy is sustainable in Baltic countries, Slovenia and Slovakia, but not in Poland and in the Czech Republic. Second, by introducing political dummy variables, we test the electoral budget cycle and the partisan cycle theories. We find the presence of electoral and partisan cycle in Poland but not in the rest of our countries.


Author(s):  
Jan Martin ◽  
Visnja Gasljevic ◽  
Tomáš Šálek ◽  
Attila Horvath ◽  
Charles Borg ◽  
...  

AbstractThis study investigated approaches to continuing professional development (CPD) for specialists in laboratory medicine within four European countries: Croatia, the Czech Republic, Malta and the UK.The research questions focussed on ascertaining if continued registration/licence was linked to CPD and if so, were there requirements for certain amounts and types of CPD and for CPD activities to meet specified accreditation criteria. The Professional Associations Research Network (PARN) model of CPD measurement was applied to each country’s registration/licencing body’s CPD requirements.Our results indicate a spectrum of approaches to CPD within participating countries.It will be necessary for European employers to be familiar with these differences and to take them into account for this increasingly mobile European workforce.


Author(s):  
Dana Lauerova ◽  
John Sharples

The paper presents results of a sub-task of the STYLE project currently running within the 7th Framework EU programme by way of an overview of deterministic engineering assessment methods (EAM) used for evaluation of flawed nuclear plant components, as used in various European countries (Germany, France, UK, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Spain, Finland and Sweden). Within STYLE, several mock-up experiments are being performed on specimens containing structural features. Structural features being considered include (1) dissimilar metal welds, (2) repair welds, and (3) austenitic cladding on a ferritic pipe. The overview thus focuses on the evaluation of flaws contained within each of these three types of features. Information on the procedures and codes applied in the various countries are given: KTA standard, ASME Code in Germany; ZG Appendix of RCC-M, A16 Appendix of RCC-MRx, and App. 5.4–5.6 of RSE-M in France; R6 in the UK; BS7910, R6 in the Netherlands; VERLIFE, ASME Code in the Czech Republic; ASME Code in Spain; SSM Handbook, ASME Code in Finland; and SSM Handbook, ASME Code, ProSACC in Sweden. An overview and brief description of the different methods is included in the paper, highlighting the commonalities and differences among the various approaches.


Author(s):  
Petr Rozmahel

The adoption of Euro in Slovakia since January 2009 and current world economic crises revived a debate on timing of the Euro adoption in the Czech Republic and other Central and Eastern European countries. The purpose of the article is to contribute to a discussion on the process of joining the Eurozone by the Czech Republic and other candidate countries. The paper provides an analysis of few business cycle similarity and convergence measures using different indicators and detrending techniques. Measures of business cycles similarity are ordinarily used to evaluate preparedness of candidate countries to join the Eurozone. The results indicate continuing convergence of the business cycles similarity between the candidate and Eurozone member countries. The paper also sheds some light on possible influence of selected detrending techniques upon the resultant correlations. It gives a recommendation to interpret the results of business cycles correlation measuring in the close context with used methodology. A short note on a regional approach to analyse the GDP cycles is also included in a text.


2002 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
F. Festoc-Louis

In 1998, the European Union (EU) entered into negotiations with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia concerning the enlargement of the Union. At the end of 1999, the European Commission decided that six other countries could join the negotiations in 2000 (Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Malta and Romania), and it was suggested that a decision concerning the date of membership would be taken in 2002 for these applicants fulfilling all the criteria. Many questions still remain on both sides, in particular regarding institutional reform of the EU (Festoc, 1998), and the ability of the Central and Eastern European countries to adopt the “acquis”. In this article, we shall evaluate the ways in which the Central European countries (Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — the CECs) have already integrated to the Western European economy, using trade data over the last ten years. First, we show that since the beginning of the transition, a feature of the foreign trade of the CECs has been a strong reorientation from East to West, in particular to Germany, together with a rapid growth in trade between the EU and the CECs. Second, we describe the trade structure, focussed on foreign direct investment as a mean of developing new exports. The third and fourth sections study the development of the specialisations of the CECs and the nature of trade between the CECs and the EU respectively.


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