The article on the Romani migration from Slovakia to the territory of the Czech Republic is based on the field research realized by the organization „Člověk v tísni" (People in Need) in
the year 2003. Analysis of this probe has shown that the non-asylum Romani migration was in the year 2003 much stronger than the migration of asylum seekers; that in the case of non-asylum migration this was in the first place an innovation migration, while in the case of
asylum seekers it was a so called survival migration. The non-asylum migration was usually a chain migration either of individuals or families and utilises family relations in the country of
origin as well as in the country of final destination. The information is being handed on not only through families, but also in settlements; some of them even specialize in some kind of
migration. The migration of Romani between the Czech Republic and Slovakia is bid-irectional, but more Romani migrate into the Czech Republic then to Slovakia, due to better economic situation there. Romani migration is a dynamic phenomenon and because of its character, based on close family relations of Romani residents on Czech and Slovak territory, it will for sure continue in future.
The article describes attitudes towards death and funeral rites in contemporary Czech society. It begins by revealing the attitudes to death held by the majority of the Czech population - non-believers. The customary secular funeral ceremony, held in a crematorium, is not entirely well suited to meeting the needs of the bereaved, and this is borne out by the fact that about one-third of all cremations are held without a funeral ceremony. The author argues that the current situation is not solely the result of the economic situation of individuals but also stems from the deeply rooted attitudes and values and the approach to religion of the Czech population. The second part of the article is devoted to the attitudes towards death and the funeral rite preferences of believers, based on a survey conducted with members of three religious groups: Roman Catholics, Protestants (Church of the Czech Brethren), and Jehovah's Witnesses. Finally, the author compares the attitudes of the secular majority and believers, and also outlines the connections between conditions today and under the former communist regime regarding the general approach to death and funeral rites.
The Czech Republic is comprised of different regions at the sub-national level. These are the historical lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and (part of) Silesia, small ethnographic regions, and administrative units. Their objective hierarchy derives from their former historical role, from their administrative function today, and their regional importance. In this article the authors attempt to describe the subjective hierarchy of these regions in the minds of their inhabitants, drawing on a survey of 1203 respondents from throughout the Czech Republic conducted in 2003 by the Centre for Public Opinion Research. The historical lands of Bohemia and Moravia are two regions whose existence Czechs recognise without question, while Silesia is in a weaker position and garners only two-thirds of the level of recognition accorded the other two historical lands. The cultural or ethnographic regions and the administrative units are on an approximately equal level, which is distinctively lower than that of the three Czech historical lands. More of these small regions are located in Moravia than in Bohemia or Silesia. The best known Czech regions are: Wallachia, Moravian Slovakia, Hana (all of which are in Moravia) and the Region of Khods (Bohemia). The best known region that is neither ethnographical nor one of the administrative units is the former industrial region of Ostrava.
The purpose of the study is to explore the relationship between forms of labour market marginalisation, understood here in terms of labour market status and job quality on the one hand, and income disadvantage, material deprivation and social exclusion on the other hand. Public policies that aim to improve labour market position and the income level of people disadvantaged in the labour market are also assessed. The authors draw on data from a survey on social exclusion in the Czech Republic focusing on people who were welfare benefits recipients in 2004 or considered their situation to be comparable to that of welfare recipients. The authors show that labour market marginalisation is transparent not only during unemployment spells (often repeated and longterm) but also in the case of temporary, low paid and poor quality jobs. The income levels of people employed in the lowest segment of the labour market and of the unemployed are similar, while the deprivation of the unemployed is greater with regard to the possibilities open to them to influence the life course and opportunities of them and especially their families. The authors point out the under-use of welfare benefits and identify measures that could improve the standard of living and human capital of people who are disadvantaged. While some disadvantaged people continue to be active in the labour market and perceive work incentives, the authors also identify the poverty traps that emerge for the fraction of them who become discouraged and welfare-dependent.
Since 1989, Prague has become a major destination for gay tourists and for sex tourists of all orientations from Western countries. To date, relatively little attention from policy or social theory perspectives has focused on males involved in sex work in Czech Republic. Based on the author's fieldwork in the gay community in Prague during 1999-2002 with follow-up visits in 2004-2006, this article looks at the experiences of young men (especially gay-identified men) involved in homosexual sex work in Prague, describes their relationship to the mainstream gay scenes in Prague in several phases since the mid-1990s, and discusses problems they face. Findings include the following: 1) Transactional sex exists on a continuum - ranging from one-time explicit exchanges of sex for money, through flirting for drinks, to longer-term relationships strongly motivated by financial considerations. 2) The latter types provide both a potential point of entry to sex work and a point of contact or plausible deniability on the gay mainstream. 3) Young men involved in various forms of sex work provide one of the major encounter points between Western tourists and native Czechs and Slovaks; this has been aggressively marketed in Western Europe and North America since the mid-1990s by por-nographers, both Czech and foreign. 4) Male sex work does not generally provide a long-term career in Czech Republic; many former sex workers appear to end up in jobs such as bartending or as tour guides, where they can use their language skills and customer service experience.
In late 2005 Czech authorities first began to discover substantial amounts of municipal waste illegally transported from Germany to the Czech Republic. The dumping of more than 30 000 tonnes of German waste in 'black dumps' throughout the Bohemian countryside raised social, economic, and political questions about how to mitigate the negative human health and environmental impacts and prevent dumping in the future. In addition to prompting practical policy questions, the situation challenges sociologists to theorise the causes, effects, and possible responses to the problem. This article draws on the environmental sociological Treadmill of Production (ToP) theory to examine the role of the state in managing the crisis. The author presents the history of the Bohemian illegal waste problem and then describes and analyses relevant waste management policies in the Czech Republic, Germany, and the European Union in the light of the ToP theory, which hypothesises that environmental degradation is caused primarily by institutional political-economic forces, and that the protection of environmental quality can be achieved only through structural reform. The dilemma of illegal waste shipment highlights the difficult role of the government, which must balance its responsibilities to protect environmental quality and human health and promote commerce and economic growth in an international context. Data from interviews and documentary analysis are used to describe the case study and test the ToP theory. The author concludes that while the ToP theory is useful for analysing the illegal waste issue by highlighting the structural character of the problem, some refinement of the theory may be necessary to better understand this case study.
The article presents an analysis of the performance of regional governments - the institutions representing the self-governing regions in the Czech Republic. The authors try to answer the question of whether regional governments function similarly or whether they vary in terms of performance, and if they do vary, how structured and how large are these differences. After a review of the position occupied by the regions in the Czech public administration system, and after assessing the ways in which regional government performance can be understood and measured and the accessibility of necessary data, indicators are proposed and used to create an aggregate index of regional government performance. An analysis based on these indicators shows that there are considerable differences between regional governments in terms of the structure and the level of their performance. Based on the performance index it was possible to distinguish regions with above-average, average, and below-average regional government performance. The territorial distribution of these groups and some other factors confirm the validity of these measurements.
Previous research indicates that Czechs harbor considerable doubt about the honesty of their political and economic system. One response to this perceived dishonesty has been disengagement, to the extent possible, from their work and public life. Disengagement was, both before and after 1989, the potent weapon used by Czechs in their workplaces to covertly make their wishes known on the factory floor. This behavior has proven problematic for the managers of the „new" private enterprises in the country. The tension between management and workers has resulted in the creation of complex interactions which can begin to be understood through an analysis of transactions in social capital. To accomplish this, this paper will examine two relatively successful companies in the Southern Moravian city of Brno during the period preceding E.U. accession. Through field notes, interview and survey data gathered during more than a year of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper will accomplish three objectives. It will analyze the interplay in those companies of discourses of honesty with the twin goals of managerial legitimacy and worker engagement. It will document the process of negotiation which has resulted in the development of a new moral economy on the workfloor and the growth of powerful worker networks within the enterprise. Finally, it will present a theoretical framework to capture the process of social capital creation and expenditure which is the product of these processes.
The Czech spiritual market is today as developed as that of western European countries. De-traditionalised and individualised holistic milieu has created a demand for spiritual literature and magazines as well as other marketable goods (“magic” stones, amulets, horoscopes, natural drugs etc.). This paper attempts to analyse the character and sources of contemporary best selling spiritual literature and its readership in the Czech Republic. It also provides a case study of a Prague spiritual bookshop and its comparison with five other Czech spiritual outlets (including an Internet outlet). The results clearly show that marketing spirituality has become a mainstream phenomenon with regard to all gender, age and class categories, although there was found to be an over presence of older middle-aged women among the buyers. There is emphasized “churchless” and “nonreligious” character of the buyers and the best selling books, that include predominantly those referring to “modem” and “esoteric” western or “ethnic” spiritualities. The supply side comprises both special and general publishers, the former having been more successful in specialised bookshops and spirituál outlets and the latter in addressing the wider population (including via the Internet).
The article aims to identify the development phases in the process of the regional differentiation in the Czech Republic after 1989, and examines whether this differentiation trend is currently changing. The assumption the article's hypothesis is based on is that during recent development the basic 'parameters' of the principal features of the country's regional structure have been stabilized amidst the conditions of parliamentary democracy and a market economy. Unlike the first phases of socio-economic transition, when differentiating trends prevailed, a certain degree of stabilisation can now be assumed, alongside the emergence of new trends. The development of regional differences was analysed using indicators of GDP, the unemployment rate, entrepreneurial activity, and tax revenue from self-employed physical persons. The findings show that over the course of the 1990s regional differences intensified at both the mezo-regional (regional) level and the micro-regional level. It was also confirmed that at the turn of the millennium the phase of divergent regional development ended, and since that time regional differences have hovered around the same level.