Published: 9. 5. 2006
New publications

SS 06:1 Zdeněk R. Nešpor – Jiří Večerník (eds.): Socio-economic Values, Policies, and Institutions in the Period of the Czech Republic’s Accession to the European Union
SS 06:2 Zdenka Vajdová, Daniel Čermák, Michal Illner: Autonomy and Cooperation: Effect of the Municipal System Established in 1990

SS 06:1 Zdeněk R. Nešpor – Jiří Večerník (eds.): Socio-economic Values, Policies, and Institutions in the Period of the Czech Republic’s Accession to the European Union

The volume presents a study of some of the central dimensions of the complex changes Czech society has experienced in connection with the transformation after 1989 and the country’s accession to the European Union. It expands on standard mainstream economic, sociological and political science approaches to also take into account the historical dimensions of these processes. The study is methodologically grounded in the tradition of economic sociology and the conceptualisation of economic culture; it also analyses the differences between objective social facts and their ideological, political and media representation and looks at transition policies and their social reception. Special attention is devoted to analyses of the labour market, social and family policy, the monetary system, education, health care, and the issue of contemporary international migration. Qualitative field research is used to compare the business values of domestic and foreign business people doing business in the Czech Republic and the economic culture of Czech public administration, while comparative analyses based on international quantitative surveys are used to examine work and family values and attitudes on contemporary religiosity/spirituality. A key question that the authors attempt to address is whether various types of (economic) cultures – (post)communist, Western or different Western types, or even that which preceded the rise of the socialist dictatorship – have clashed, changed, or fused in the processes of transformation and European integration. In other words, whether and how much the Czech Republic is already in Europe and/or how much it is still moving towards it.

SS 06:2 Zdenka Vajdová, Daniel Čermák, Michal Illner: Autonomy and Cooperation: Effect of the Municipal System Established in 1990

This study primarily examines two processes that public administration went through at the local level beginning in the early 1990s: a process whereby municipalities were broken up into autonomous units, and a process whereby these autonomous municipalities voluntarily came together to form cooperative groups or unions of municipalities. The description and research on the first of these two processes drew on data from a database of newly emerged municipalities, which was created for this purpose. The description and research of the second of the two processes is based on a survey that was conducted among representatives of the unions of municipalities and on several case studies of specific unions. The study also contains a discussion of the size of municipalities, the effectiveness of their administration, and local democracy, a review of inter-municipal cooperation in some European countries, and a look at the media image of cooperation between municipalities that emerged from content analyses of the magazines „Public Administration” and „Modern Municipality”. The study is part of the outcome of work on the project „Inter-Municipal Cooperation – An Element of Local Democracy and an Effective Tool of Autonomous Local Government”.

In Czech, with English abstract and summary.

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