Czech & Slovak Studies

""Historians have traditionally oppose the genre of self-testimonies to other administrative genres, including trials. In my paper, I suggest we analyze the depositions of witnesses as a self-testimony. In their trial testimonies, many Theresienstadt (Terezín) survivors spoke for the first time about their time in Theresienstadt and crimes committed here. Early Theresienstadt testimonies stem from three sources: published autobiographies, interviews of the ‘Documentation Action,’ and the witness testimonies of the people’s trials. While scholars have analyzed the first two genres, the trials and their role in establishment of the Czech master narrative of the Holocaust remain a lacuna, which is the more surprising given that majority of the witnesses who spoke at the trials never bore testimony in any other context, be it before or after.

The early postwar trials in Czechoslovakia and Austria were conducted under a special jurisdiction of “people’s courts," pursuing a removal of traces of the occupation and a return to “normality.” These proceedings, addressing both Nazi perpetrators and Czech “collaborators” are today largely forgotten, but at the time were a key event. Altogether, there were 32 legal proceedings of people’ courts related to Theresienstadt, 23 in Czechoslovakia and 9 in Austria, which I analyzed in their entirety.

People’s trials put witness depositions into the center of the evidence. In securing evidence in the Theresienstadt-related trials, the prosecution closely cooperated with the Federation of Jewish Communities, and their special department for prosecution of war criminals. The Justice Ministry also established a special State Commission for Prosecution of War Criminals, which also represented ČSR at Nuremberg. In a unique transnational moment on the eve of the Cold War, the Czechoslovak state attorneys and Jewish Community worked closely with the Austrian prosecution. This cooperation was remarkably un-bureacratic, inviting to reconsider the division between Eastern and Western Europe, as well as state and non-state actors."

"Článek poskytuje analýzu účasti českých vojáků v operacích OSN na udržení míru. Po stručném vysvětlení termínů a podoby praktické realizace operací OSN na udržení míru se autoři zabývají strategickými, právními a finančními aspekty působení českých jednotek v misích OSN. V úvahu se také bere výcvik a odborná příprava, po které následuje kritická analýza hmotných i nehmotných přínosů, které přináší účast českých vojáků české armádě a České republice. Část textu se věnuje přehledu klíčových slabých stránek a problémů souvisejících s účastí českých vojáků v zahraničních multilaterálních misích. Autory překvapilo zjištění, že doposud byl proveden pouze minimální systematický výzkum analyzující působení Armády ČR v operacích OSN na udržení míru. Článek je tedy považován také za výzvu k dalšímu výzkumu a analýze této významné problematiky.
The article offers an analysis of the participation of Czech soldiers in the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations. After a brief introduction concerning the terminology and practice of UN peacekeeping, the authors examine the strategic, legal and financial aspects of Czech army contributions to
UN peacekeeping missions. Training and preparation procedures are also reviewed, followed by a critical analysis of both the tangible and intangible benefits that the participation of Czech soldiers brings to the Czech army and the Czech Republic. One section of the article is devoted to a review of the key weaknesses and problems related to the participation of Czech soldiers in multilateral missions abroad. The authors were
surprised to find out that little systematic research has been hitherto conducted when it comes to the analysis of the Czech army contributions to UN peacekeeping operations. This article is therefore also intended as a call for further research and analysis of this important subject matter."

"Gender differentiated data indicates that there is a significant gap between
respondents pre and post migration. Variation in responses to a survey conducted among
Slovak migrants working in the Czech Republic demonstrates that a persistent wage gap
exists between genders. Individuals reflect on their decision to make a move utilizing nontraditional
explanations leading the researchers to define this flow as a mixed flow involving
lifestyle migration which has as secondary effect of improving the economic situation of
individuals perceive a lack of opportunity in source regions."

"Czech private security companies have thus far received
relatively little attention both internationally and, until recently, domestically. This article attempts to fill this gap by analysing the key characteristics of the market with more than 6,000 private security companies that together account for more employees than the Czech national police force. It first shows that the origins of the current Czech market for private force are intrinsically linked to the end of the Cold War and the corresponding collapse of the centrally planned, stateowned
economy in (then) communist Czechoslovakia. The remainder
of the article offers an analysis of current developments and their impact on the ongoing debates about the provision of security as a public good. In particular, they relate to the political debate surrounding the much delayed drafting of the law on the provision of private security services, which has become rather heated since 2010 due to the personal and alleged financial linkages between a major Czech private security company (ABL) and a new political party, Věci veřejné. This has raised serious concerns about the undue influence of private security companies in both the political process and the provision of security in the Czech Republic."

This study offers an analysis of the role of private security companies (PSCs) in the Czech Republic that builds on the model of global security assemblages developed by Abrahamsen and Williams. It applies this model to the Czech experience with the privatization of security since the end of the cold war by utilizing available data, complemented with information derived from structured interviews with the owners of PSCs operating in the Czech Republic. It suggests that the Czech market with commercial security services exhibits several specific characteristics, including the relatively high total number of registered PSCs (7000+) and their professional associations (16), the size of the gray and black markets involving PSC services (30 to 40 percent of the entire market), and the phenomenon of so-called “reverse revolving doors,“ whereby former owners or top managers of PSCs directly, or through family members, enter into, or establish their own, political party. Overall, however, this study confirms the key conclusions from previous applications of the model regarding the partial disassembly of the Czech state’s security functions and the corresponding re-articulation of relations among public and private actors in the provision of security.

"Tato studie analyzuje limity i další možné oblasti privatizace bezpečnosti v České republice (ČR) v souvislosti se stále rostoucím počtem zde působících soukromých bezpečnostních služeb (SBS). S odkazem na nejnovější zahraniční studie privatizace bezpečnosti a na základě rozhovorů s majiteli a/nebo manažery v ČR působících SBS tato studie ukazuje, že proces privatizace bezpečnosti se neodehrává mimo struktury českého státu, neboť samotná (ne)činnost jeho složek v oblasti zajišťování bezpečnosti je spolu s pochopitelnou snahou SBS o maximalizaci svého zisku skrze nabídku nových, či rozšíření nabídky stávajících služeb, jedním z jeho klíčových determinantů. Nastíněním možných oblastí pokračování i mezních limitů procesu privatizace bezpečnosti v ČR má proto tato studie ambici být podkladem nejen pro akademickou, ale i politickou diskuzi o způsobech zajišťování bezpečnosti občanů ČR v dohledné budoucnosti.
This study analyzes the limits and further areas of possible privatization of security in the Czech Republic in the context of a growing number of private security companies (PSCs). With reference to the recent foreign studies of security privatization and interviews conducted with the owners and/or managers of PSCs operating in the Czech Republic, this study shows that the process of security privatization is not taking place somewhere outside the structures of the Czech state because the very (in)activity of its components in providing security, along with the understandable efforts of PSCs to maximize their profits by offering new services, or extending the range of the existing ones, represents one of its key determinants. By outlining possible further areas as well as limits of security privatization in the Czech Republic, this study has the ambition to be the basis for not only an academic, but also a political debate about the ways of ensuring the safety of the citizens of the Czech Republic in the foreseeable future."

"S odkazem na relevantní poznatky ze zahraniční literatury jsou v tomto textu představeny způsoby, kterými působení soukromých bezpečnostních služeb v České republice může ovlivnit samotné vnímání bezpečnosti coby veřejného statku zajišťovaného státem všem občanům.
Building on the findings from foreign analysis of security privatization, this text illustrates the possible ways by which the practices of private security companies in the Czech Republic affect the perception of security as public good available to all citizens."

In this article, we will argue that students played an important role at several crucial junctures of modern Czech history, which secured them a central position after 1989 in the new democratic model of higher education governance. However, over the last two decades students have largely lost this position owing to several factors: the growing indifference among the expanding student population, the ascendancy of academics’ power and the proliferation of managerial approaches to higher education governance. We thus conclude that the golden age of Czech academic democracy with a strong student presence is over and that student roles will have to be redefined within the framework of academic oligarchy and/or managerialism.

Energy security, nowadays one of the main energy issues at the EU level, is especially puzzling for small member states. These lack resources and political influence of their bigger counterparts and thus have to develop strategies for dealing with different challenges in the area. This paper identifies three energy security challenges of the Slovak Republic. The first is external dependency challenge since Slovakia imports almost all energy sources from abroad and relationships with its main suppliers are not always equal. The second challenge concerns the capacity of the EU to find common ground in energy security issues and ability of Slovakia as a small member state to exercise pressure over other members in order to push through its preferences in this area. The last challenge deals with the ability of the Slovak government to successfully negotiate on a daily basis with the main energy companies operating on its territory in order to foster energy security. The contribution argues that since Slovakia is having hard time dealing with these challenges it tries to "upload" energy security to the EU level so the Community would deal with these questions. The paper uses data from semi-structured interviews conducted in 2012 with officials at ministries responsible for energy issues as well as energy experts.

This article examines determinants of persistent regional political cleavages in post-Communist Ukraine. The question is how significant the role of culture is compared to ethnic, economic, and religious factors in the regional divisions. This study employs correlation, factor, and regression analyses of regional support for the Communist/pro-Russian parties and presidential candidates and pro-nationalist/pro-independence parties and candidates in all national elections held from 1991 to 2006, the vote for the preservation of the Soviet Union in the March 1991 referendum, and the vote for the independence of Ukraine in the December 1991 referendum. This study shows that the pattern of these regional differences remained relatively stable from 1991 to 2006. Historical experience has a major effect on regional electoral behavior in post-Communist Ukraine. The legacy of Austro-Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, and Czechoslovak rule is positively associated with the pro-nationalist and pro-independence vote; the same historical legacy has a negative effect on support for pro-Communist and pro-Russian parties and presidential candidates and on the vote for the preservation of the Soviet Union.