University of Hradec Králové Journals
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Bach, Daniel C. 2016. Regionalism in Africa – Genealogies, Institutions and Trans-state Networks. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 197 pages
Get PDFLze rozřešit spor mezi realismem a konstruktivismem?
Get PDFText se formou polemiky zabývá otázkou, zda je možné rozřešit filozofický spor mezi realismem a konstruktivismem. Oproti mínění Jaroslava Peregrina hájí autor tezi, že tento spor rozřešit lze, a to ve prospěch realismu. Argumenty pro realismus jsou výrazně přesvědčivější, zatímco konstruktivistické argumenty nejsou ničím podložené a zároveň vedou k absurdním důsledkům. The text adresses, in a polemical fashion, the question whether the philosophical dispute between realism and constructivism can be resolved. Against the opinion of Jaroslav Peregrin, the author defends the thesis that this dispute can be resolved, in favor of realism. The arguments for realism are much more convincing, while constructivist arguments are baseless and at the same time lead to absurd consequences.
Bischoff, Paul-Henri, Aning, Kwesi and Acharya, Amitav (eds.). 2016. Africa in Global International Relations: Emerging Approaches to Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 180 pages.
Get PDFDealing with the Violent Past: Transitional Justice and Political Culture in Liberia and the Czech Republic in a Comparative Perspective
Get PDFThe Liberian civil war left the country destroyed and its population traumatised by violence and atrocities on an unprecedented scale. There were efforts supported by the international community to deal with the past through the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2005, and indirectly through the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Both initiatives brought rather ambiguous results. The Czechoslovak communist regime’s record of violence and repressions, starting with the “show trials” of the 1950s, was followed by the persecution of dissidents and other groups. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, national reconciliation, rather than radical decommunisation was at the order of the day. Soon, the focus of activities moved from criminal investigations to a historical reconstruction of the regime’s past. Although different at first sight, both cases have a number of features worth comparing. The present article analyses similarities and differences in the strategies of dealing with the violent past and their results. Secondly, it focuses on the implications of the latter for the political culture in both countries. It argues that the failure to address the legacy of past injustices has serious consequences for the legitimacy of the state, the rule of law, and the nature of democracy in both countries
Shared Divergence: Comparing Post-Socialist Peripheries and Predicaments
Get PDFBased on preliminary research, mainly interviews with social scientists, and theoretical propositions I explore the politics of knowledge in peripheral post-socialist states. The states considered here are Albania, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tanzania. Out of the four a focus is set on Tanzania in order to better argue for and show the global nature of some of the shared predicaments of post-socialist states in general and of the post-socialist peripheries of the former second world, the so-called “post-peripheries,” in particular. The overarching argument is that certain post-socialist predicaments have incapacitated an effective politics of knowledge across post-peripheral states and led to a decrease of substantive rationality. The argument is constructed not to hold categorically but rather to outline an ideal-type description of one perspective with which to better understand similarities of post-socialist states within the divergence of the former socialist world as a whole
Dmitri M. Bondarenko. 2016. Ottenki chernogo. Kuľturno-antropologicheskie aspekty vzaimovospriyatia i vzaimootnosheniy afrikano-amerikantsev i migrantovi iz stran subskharskoy Afriki v SSHA [The Shades of Black: Cultural-anthropological Aspects of Mutual
Get PDF“The Ancestors Are Beating Us”: Men, Migration and Spirit Possession in South Africa
Get PDFAlthough studies of migration have grown exponentially in recent years, their focus has for the most part been on individuals and groups moving from (rural) peripheries to (urban) centres, akin to the prophesies of mainstream modernist theory. In South Africa, formidable scholarship has tackled the challenges and opportunities, which urban milieus have provided for rural migrants. Much less attention has been paid to urban-rural movements and the transformations of identities, relations and powers, which these have engendered. This paper considers the dynamics of ancestral spirit possession in the case of TshiVenda-speaking migrant men and argues that urban-rural migration has constituted a significant, although highly contested and multi-faceted process in contemporary South African society. In particular, it aims to show that movements mediated by the notions and practices of spirit possession invoke experiences of place and gender, which problematise both local and analytical conceptions of “city” and “country,” “centre” and “periphery,” “manhood” and “womanhood.
Centralised Revenue Redistribution as a Potential Cause of Internal Conflict in Kenya
Get PDFThis article argues that when a large part of a population has either limited or no access to social and economic resources as a result of government policy in redistributing revenue towards the capital, such concentrated redistribution at the centralised level may become a key factor in sparking internal conflicts among the population living outside the capital. A state that does not share the national wealth and resource revenues equitably among its citizens therefore provides a platform to those who want to challenge the legitimacy of the state to engage in violence. Thus, the centralisation of revenue redistribution by a state may be seen as a potential factor that may lead to internal conflict especially in circumstances where high levels of poverty and unemployment in the country are widespread. Although such internal conflict may not necessarily be violent, centralised revenue redistribution may cause an uprising among the population and lead to a substantial change in the form of government, moving it from a centralised to a decentralised form of government in order to appease the population and for the state to retain its legitimacy. Such was the case in Kenya
