international institute for political studies

Director: Assoc. Prof. Petr Fiala, Ph.D.

In 2001, the International Institute for Political Studies continued to develop its traditional conference and publishing activities serving to enhance the quality of research, and to improve cooperation in political science and in other social sciences in the Czech Republic. In 2001, the Institute was able to carry out most of these activities thanks to financial sponsorship of its main foreign partners, i.e. the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (Germany) and the Het Parool Foundation (Netherlands).

In March, the IIPS organized a course for public administration employees on the Integration of the Czech Republic in the European Union, intended to give them better understanding of political developments in the European Union, its structure and agenda. In addition, participants learned about the basic principles of the European Union regional policies, or, rather, the specific problems of the utilization of resources from the European Union Structural Funds. Lecturers were specialists from the Czech Republic and abroad: Petr Fiala, Markéta Pitrová, Miroslav Mareš and Adam Rakovský (all from Masaryk University), Michal Tomášek (FoL UK, Komerční banka), Luděk Zahradíček (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CR) and Gotthard Sonntag (Germany).

At the end of April, the Institute organized a two-day international colloquium on Area-Social Studies – Philology: On the Path to European Integration", which was a sequel to the seminar Theory of Area Studies in European Contexts held in May 2000. The participants including Jiří Gazda (FoA MU), Reinhard Ibler (Philitts-Universität, Marburg, Germany), Ivo Pospíšil (FoA MU) and Mária Kusá (FoA UK, Bratislava), discussed the possibilities for creating a new discipline in area studies in view of issues of combining methodological approach of philology, linguistics and the social sciences.

At the beginning of June, the seminar The European Union's Approach to the Middle Eastern Conflict was held. The lecturer Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich (Germany) focused on current issues in the Arab-Israeli negotiations, and possible means and methods for the European Union to get involved in the dialogue. A special attention was given to current and potential forms of mediation in the conflict by the EU or its member countries.

On 24 and 25 October, the IIPS organized an international conference on Liberal-conservative and Christian Political Parties in Europe with the participation of political scientists, sociologists, lawyers and politicians from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Germany. The conference was a follow-up to the Christian and Conservative Political Parties held in November 1996. The participants discussed the problems of identity of ideas, programme orientation and the position of the conservative, liberal and Christian democracy parties in the systems of European parties. The conference met in three sections. The first section discussed problems of political identity of those parties not only on the level of individual national party systems, but also on the level of the European people's party. The second section focused on comparing the position of those parties in selected countries of the EU and in Central and South East Europe. The third section was devoted to issues relating to conservative, liberal and Christian democracy parties in the Czech political system.

In November, the Institute took advantage of the visit of Leszek Zasztowta (University of Warsaw), an expert on modern history of Central and Eastern Europe, and organized a seminar on Mutual Relations between Russia and Europe and Current Russian Foreign and Security Policies towards the European Union.

In addition to these events, the IIPS organized a number of smaller seminars and colloquia.

 

Publishing activities

In 2001, the Institute continued to publish the periodicals Political Journal and Politics in the Czech Republic. One printed and four on-line issues of the political science journal Central European Political Studies were also published.

In the Proceedings edition, the following materials were published: Michal Kubát (ed.): Enlargement of the European Union to the East, and Břetislav Dančák and Vojtěch Šimíček (eds.): Ten Years of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms in the Legislative Systems of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Studies series published the Maxmilián Strmiska: Challenges of Consolidation and the Post-Communist Party Systems; Petr Fiala – Markéta Pitrová (eds): Expansion of the EC/EU; Petr Suchý (ed.): Foreign Policy of the USA in the 1990s; Petr Fiala – Miroslav Mareš (eds): European Political Parties; Miroslav Novák: What Democracy for New Democracies?; Pavel Pšeja (ed.): Foreign Policy of the Czech Republic towards the Countries of the Near East, the Transcaucasian and Central Asia.

The above shows that activities of the International Institute for Political Studies in 2001 continued its programme of political science research and education in the Czech Republic. It also strived to enhance cooperation in the field of the political science as well as other social sciences not only in the Czech Republic, but also in the Central European academic community and the broad sections of interested public.