Polish Women in the Mid-1990s: Christian Democrats in a Country without a Christian Democratic Party

This article discusses Polish attitudes toward gender in the early- to mid-1990s. It shows that during this period, Poles on the average had 'Christian democratic values,' although there were no Christian democratic parties in parliament during this period. The majority of Poles supported some type of 'social market economy,' while maintaining traditional views toward gender roles & moral issues. Polish women on the average, though, were clearly more in favor of gender equality than their male counterparts. Age & years of education were also important factors in determining attitudes toward gender roles, while the Church was not as influential as expected. Further, the gender gap was largest among those with a middle level education & smallest among those with a low level of education

The 'Velvet Revolution' and the Limits of Rational Choice Models

Examines the limitations of two rational choice models in explaining the Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia, based in part on 1992/93 interviews with former student leaders & civic forum activists. Two important conclusions are reached: (1) In nonviolent revolutions such as that in Czechoslovakia, the main collective action problem for political entrepreneurs is communication, rather than collective incentives. (2) Rationalist models need to take into account the time factor, because the utility of participating in a revolution can vary over time

Some thoughts about the interplay between welfare attitudes and populism

This article argues for setting a research agenda to investigate more concretely the interplay between welfare attitudes and support for populist parties.This article argues for setting a research agenda to investigate more concretely the interplay between welfare attitudes and support for populist parties

Sweden's foreign policy toward Nazi Germany during World War II

Thesis (B.A.) in Liberal Arts and Sciences--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1984.Bibliography: leaves 84-87.Microfiche of typescript. [Urbana, Ill.] : Photographic Services, University of Illinois, U of I Library, [1987]. 2 microfiches (92 frames) negative ; 11 x 15 cm

Support for market economy principles in European post-communist countries during 1999-2008

Since the fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, neoliberal discourse has dominated among the political elite in the post-communist countries, paving the way for unprecedented mass privatisation, economic deregulation, and other market reforms. In this paper, we study the development of public support for market economy principles in post-communist countries compared to other European countries during the 1999-2008 period, which is the period that directly followed the initial stage of market transformation. We use data from the European Value Survey covering 22 European countries for the years 1999/2000 and 2008/2009. In addition to analysing the trends, we apply multilevel regression models to study the determinants and levels of support for the market economy in post-communist and other European countries. We find that, when controlling for individual and country-level variables, a significant increase in support for market economy principles has taken place in the post-communist cluster, which is not the case in the other countries. There is some inconsistency in support for the individual principles of market economics: support exists in post-communist countries for the notion that the state should be responsible for the social and economic well-being of its inhabitants and for state regulation of the economy, while support is high for some market economy principles, such as free competition and private ownership. In other words, support for some kind of social market seems to dominate the views of those living in post-communist countries, in which the state should combine a market economy with relatively generous social policies

Social Policy in the Face of a Global Pandemic : Policy Responses to the Covid-19 Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe

This article documents and compares the social policies that the governments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) implemented to combat the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. Our findings show that governments in all four countries reacted to the COVID-19 crisis by providing extensive protection for jobs and enterprises. Differences arise when it comes to solidaristic policy responses to care for the most vulnerable population, in which CEE countries show great variation. We find that social policy responses to the first wave of COVID-19 have largely depended on precious social policy trajectories as well as the political situation of the country during the pandemic

Více neznamená vždy lépe. Odpověď na článek “Kým a kde se produkuje česká politická věda”

Uvítali jsme článek “Kým a kde se produkuje česká politická věda. Personálně-institucionální analýza publikací v českých recenzovaných politologických časopisech” v Středoevropských politických studiích (číslo 2-3, ročník XI, jaro-léto 2009), protože otevírá debatu o české politologii. Ve své odpovědi Holzerovi a kol. zaprvé diskutujeme roli domácích odborných časopisů a argumentujeme, proč množství článků v nich publikovaných nemůže být použito pro měření kvality této disciplíny. Zadruhé představujeme výsledky vlastního miniprůzkumu, v němž sledujeme příspěvky v mezinárodních časopisech, abychom ukázali, že výsledek průzkumu s těmito parametry je velmi odlišný od průzkumu Holzera a kol. Zatřetí diskutujeme, jaké otázky by mohly být zodpovězeny za pomoci institucionální analýzy, kterou Holzer a kol. slibují, ale ve skutečnosti neprovádějí, a proč by opravdová institucionální analýza v české politické vědě mohla pomoci identifikovat problémy tohoto oboru

Satisfaction with democracy and perceived performance of the welfare state in Europe

This paper tests several hypotheses to explain the link between satisfaction with democracy and welfare state performance. In conducting multilevel analysis we use data on the contextual and institutional conditions including the welfare state regimes as well as data from European Social Survey 2012 special module on democracy. Our results show that a discrepancy between the desired policy goal and perceived policy outcome of the welfare state (policy deficit) influences the perceptions of citizens of how democracy works. In particular, social policies aimed at reducing poverty correlates positively with one’s satisfaction with democracy

The effect of radical right fringe parties on main parties in Central and Eastern Europe : Empirical evidence from manifesto data

Do radical right fringe parties affect main parties in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)? Using data from the Manifesto Project, we analyze the relationship between radical right fringe parties’ and main parties’ policy programs regarding sociocultural issues in six post-communist countries of CEE. Even though radical right fringe parties have participated in government in several of these countries, and in Hungary a fringe party has become the country’s second largest party, our analysis shows that the sociocultural issues in radical right fringe party manifestos do not systematically relate to the changes in main party manifestos regarding those issues. Even if some of the main parties in our study might often agree with the radical right fringe parties, our analysis shows that the latter do not directly influence the policy priorities of the main parties