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The aim of this paper is to introduce basic developmental consequences, changes, trends and the current situation in amenities through retail and commercial services in the rural areas of the Czech Republic. The example illustrated herein is the South Moravian Region. Methodically, the text is built on previous survey (2002), and on our own survey conducted in municipalities up to 3,000 inhabitants of the South Moravian Region in 2018 (n = 355). There are semi-structured interviews (n = 18) that link back to these surveys. The data obtained was processed by the methods of statistical and graphical analysis, comparison, interpretation and synthesis. The paper concludes that since 2002, commercial amenities have experienced remarkably negative development. The smaller municipalities in the periphery have encountered the greatest decline, but stagnation is also seen in the suburban areas of Brno. From among types of commercial amenities, the ones most weakened were specialized shops, which could no longer compete with large retail chains. Almost a fourth of municipalities support commercial trade and services, mainly through subsidies or lowered rent. The regions also provide subsidies. Even simplifying red tape or providing tax relief on the part of the public sector would support civic amenities. Another key may be retaining young and educated people in municipalities where they will live and work. Contributing to this could be not only developing infrastructure in municipalities, but also for example the next wave of digitalization and introduction of stable, high-speed Internet service in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The currently prevailing approach to nature conservation aims to balance environmental protection with human well-being and economic welfare of local communities in protected areas and surrounding regions. However, maintaining environmental objectives while meeting the demand of local inhabitants for socio- economic development has proven difficult. In the Czech Republic, this holds especially for Šumava National Park (NP), which has been facing a continuous dissention in terms of the extent to which the local conservation regime influences economic welfare and socio-economic sustainability of the area. The first aim of this study was to review socio-economic research in Šumava NP since its establishment and identify its potential gaps. Second, we aimed to present a pilot summary of available socio-economic data for this study area, namely population trends, unemployment rate and municipal budget revenues, and to compare their levels with other protected areas in the Czech Republic, as well as non-protected areas and the national average. To achieve this, we conducted a systematic literature review and utilized publicly available statistical datasets and databases to derive socio-economic data between 1991 and 2011. The results showed that Šumava NP has undergone a moderate decrease in population in the study period, while the unemployment rate and budget revenues performed the same or better than in other protected and non-protected areas in the Czech Republic. The evidence presented in this paper is in line with previous studies suggesting that there is a gap between the socio-economic reality of the communities in Šumava NP and the prevailing way the quality of life is perceived by local inhabitants and presented in the media. The paper concludes that further systematic socio-economic research is urgently needed to support sustainable nature conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the current state of provision for homeless people in Prague. Design/methodology/approach – This is primarily a narrative account, though supported by and referenced with contemporary Czech social policy scholarship. It first traces the roots of the current situation through the history of the Czech legal framework for citizenship; the effects of communist-era ideology, when homelessness was simply hidden; and the post-communist (new-era) economic and political climate. The range of existing services is then described and analysed with respect to the difficulties in the demands posed for people in this situation. Findings – The paper outlines the current approach with outreach (“terrain”), engagement (“threshold”) and “accommodation” (support and rehab) services; and the challenges in transition from one to the next. Many systemic barriers remain for the re-integration of homeless people, stemming from attitudes within the community and amongst professionals, as much as a sheer lack of resources, or the psychological and emotional difficulties of the homeless themselves. Originality/value – There are few papers published internationally on homelessness in the new EU states. The similarity in the structure of services to what are sometimes called “staircase models” may therefore be instructive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent can a country’s effectiveness in reducing child poverty be attributed to the size of family cash transfers (that is, both benefits and tax advantages) or to their design? In this paper, we disentangle the importance of each of these two factors, focusing on the family support system in Lithuania and comparing it with four other new member states. Both single parent and large families are increasingly susceptible to poverty in Lithuania. This contrasts with other former communist countries, namely Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, which protect these family types much better. This paper examines whether their family transfer systems would achieve similar results in Lithuania. We employ the EUROMOD microsimulation tax-benefit model to swap family policies across countries and test whether size or design has greater effects on child poverty reduction in Lithuania. Hungarian, Slovenian and Czech policies would considerably improve the poverty situation among large families. Single parent families would only gain if Lithuanian spending on family transfers increased radically. Estonian policies would lead to mixed results: small gains for large families and losses for single parent families. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we analyse the shift of family related policies (benefits, daycare services and labour market policies) from the state-socialist model toward re-familisation in the Czech Republic after 1989. We demonstrate that the policies negatively influence the possibilities for parents - and especially mothers - to balance work and family life. We concentrate on the question of why the government implemented such policies, despite their negative consequences. Our analysis indicates that the communist ideological legacy (disadvantageous conditions for ideology of feminism, poor experiences with the quality of daycare) and the communist economic legacy (pressures on the public budget) have played a major role in shaping post-communist family policies. Our analysis also indicates that this legacy may be beginning to break down as the policies of re-familisation are coming into conflict with the needs and aspirations of the population and policy makers become more and more forced to confront the fertility problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the focus on emotions has been associated with the rise of psychosocial welfare and has promised a gateway to accommodate individually diversified needs of citizens in policies, the article shows that the role of emotions needs to be better understood. Highlighting emotions can serve both to empower and to patronize those who experience them. Referring to emotions can thus strengthen hierarchies and downplay individual requests to initiate a change. The analysis of professional discourses on birth care in Czechia shows the value of contextualising emotions. While midwifery discourses apply the emotional context of birth to support women in their specific birth choices, medical discourses use the emotional context to patronize them and to limit their requirements. As a result, policy demands are seen as illegitimate when coming from midwives, who want to see women's choices more respected in care. We analyse this dynamic through intimacy. As a conceptual framework used in sociology of care, 'intimacy' ties individual emotional experiences to collective discourses on care, the body and related feelings. Viewing professional discourses on birth care through intimacy reveals the role of emotions in the collective recognition of the personal struggle for the right to give birth in conditions that respect bodily and emotional integrity, which informs how we think of the role of emotions in policies in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on economic and social progress of Czech Republic. Analysts have been considering the welfare state crisis in late modernity--causes, forms and possible solutions, for more than twenty years, and therefore, welfare state theorists speak about the last stage of welfare state development and reconstruction of the welfare state. When considering the relation of an individual to welfare state institutions, a basic approach in comparing social groups and measuring variability between them is poverty. After the collapse of communism researchers started to study so-called "new" poverty. During the transformation in post-communist countries significant changes in social policy occurred. The societal transformation from a socialist centrally planned to a post-socialist market economy, can theoretically be considered as a cultural change with structural and economic consequences. The empirical part of this paper concerns the process of de-traditionalisation in Czech rural areas in post-communist times, understanding as a melting-pot newcomers and "rooting" locals, and emblematically also outsiders who have an influence on rural community life.

The paper analysis the formation and factors of welfare dependency in the Czech Republic exhausting semi-structured interviews with welfare benefits recipients and with social administration staff, supplemented with other sources of information. The factors outlined by Ellwood [1994] as the rational, expectancy and cultural models interact in a specific manner. Wages when compared to social assistance benefits are not so fatally low. Among important factors determining long-term welfare dependency, barriers to access into the labour market, resignation on inaccessible chances, and several traits of the newly established social assistance system have been identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the core dilemmas of current welfare politics is the question of how to ensure social protection while providing incentives to seek employment at the same time. A way to address this dilemma is to base policies and policy models on the principle notion that 'work must pay'; in other words, income from employment should be higher than the social support of the unemployed. However, how accurately do these approaches and models represent the reality of benefit recipients, particularly in the context of increased employment precariousness? In this article, we use the cases of two disadvantaged regions in Czech Republic in order to contrast the presumptions of 'making work pay' policies with the everyday experience of welfare recipients. As we show, their situations are strongly shaped by current changes in the labour market, particularly the precarious character of accessible employment and high levels of indebtedness. The modelling of financial employment incentives and the public policies based on these calculations often do not correspond with the reality of welfare recipients that are often cycling in and out of precarious forms of employment. However, the authors' main claim is that the very idea of the 'work must pay' approach focuses on the wrong question. A truly functioning financial incentive would need to focus not solely on the difference in income between those who work and those who do not work, but rather should analyse what type of arrangements allow working households to rise permanently above the poverty line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: There is evidence that young people are less satisfied with their lives when they are unemployed or working in precarious conditions. This study aims to shed light on how the life satisfaction of unemployed and precariously employed young people varies across welfare states with different labour market policies and levels of social protection. Methods: The analyses are based on representative cross-sectional survey data from five European countries (Denmark, the UK, Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic), corresponding to five different welfare state regimes. For economically active young adults (N =6681), the prevalence ratios of low life satisfaction were estimated through multivariate logistic regressions. Results: In all five countries, unemployed young adults presented a higher prevalence of low life satisfaction. When we compared employees with people with permanent and temporary contracts, the former were more satisfied with their lives only in Germany and the UK, examples of conservative and liberal welfare regimes, respectively. Experience of unemployment decreased young adults' life satisfaction only in Germany and the Czech Republic, examples of a conservative and an eastern European welfare regime, respectively. In almost all countries, young adults with low economic self-sufficiency presented a higher prevalence of low life satisfaction. Conclusions: There are nuanced patterns of employment type and life satisfaction across European states that hint at welfare state regimes as possible moderators in this relationship. The results suggest that the psychological burdens of unemployment or work uncertainty cannot be overlooked and should be addressed according to different types of social provisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This teaching note describes a course, Viewing the World: Visual Inquiry in International Settings, which the author taught in the Czech Republic in 2009. Five students successfully completed the course, which consisted of designing a project, collecting and analyzing visual data, presenting findings, and writing a final report of a qualitative study relevant to social issues in the Czech Republic. The manuscript introduction provides context for the course with brief reviews of international social work literature, relevant Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, and principles of qualitative research. The course description, structure, learning objectives, texts, assignments, evaluation of how learning objectives were met, and suggestions for future courses are included. The author will provide the complete syllabus on request. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the development of Czech policy after 1989 and the controversies it caused. It first looks at the ambiguous nature of the communist welfare state and then proceeds to outline the theoretical alternatives. After early and energetic changes in the system, stagnation set in around the mid-1990s. Despite some problems, the current performance of the system is satisfactory, but its outlook in terms of long-term efficiency is unsatisfactory, as it will generate a rising debt into the future. In particular, the disadvantaged situation for families, the insufficient work motivation, and the frozen pension system are all causes for concern. The political shift to the right after 2006 ushered in reform measures and new reform plans. While reforms are necessary, their feasibility is uncertain owing to the fragility of the Czech political scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses homelessness in the Czech Republic. In doing so the authors have used an operational definition common in the European Union. In order to explain homelessness in the Czech Republic, the article examines the relevant laws and governmental policies. Then the article discusses some causes of homelessness in the Czech Republic, a recent census of the homeless in the nation, the activities of service-providing organizations, the financing of social services in the nation, health and health care among homeless people, a new food bank, and the harmonization of the Czech Republic with the common objectives of the rest of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the developments of family policies in four post-communist countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary). A general tendency has emerged of implementing familist, gendered policies that encourage women to leave the labor market to raise children. The interplay of the ideological, economic and institutional legacy of the communist past with new economic, social and political conditions coupled with shifts in values have greatly influenced these policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An "institutional trap" is a sequence of misplaced regulatory steps that have increased the costs of institutional transformation to the level at which inefficient structures can remain stable, despite changes in the external economic environment. This is a common occurrence in Central and Eastern Europe because of the path-dependent nature of the postsocialist transformation process. This article examines the organizational and territorial transformations of housing, utility, and social welfare policies in the Czech Republic through a comparative analysis of institutional power geometries and household expenditures at the national scale. The results indicate that the Czech Republic is facing an institutional trap in the restructuring of its rent control and social welfare policies. The trap operates within three nested circuits: the power geometries of postsocialist reforms, the geographies of housing prices and social welfare, and the consumption patterns of disadvantaged households. The lock-in created by the trap can be resolved only through carefully targeted and synchronized social support and housing investment programs, parallel to rent liberalization. This article argues for comprehensive, rather than partial, solutions to the institutional trap and emphasizes the need for a deeper understanding of the relationships among institutions, space, and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the socio-economic determinants of welfare attitudes in the Czech Republic to those in Sweden, using survey data from the 1996 ISSP survey ‘The Role of Governments’. Many theorists of the transition have claimed that the post-communist countries have a different political dynamic that their west European neighbors. For example, David Ost claims that that citizens of post-communist countries during the 1990s were not sure of which class they would belong to and therefore, were not sure of their class interests. Similarly, Zagorski claims that in post-communist countries educational level becomes one of the most important determinants of welfare and socioeconomic attitudes, because the reform process is very complicated. Those with higher levels of education can better understand the complexities of the reforms and are more willing to accept short-term disadvantages for long-term gains. However, many experts have also claimed that the Czech Republic presents an exception to these trends. It is the one country in which party-competition is based on socioeconomic issues and voting is class-based. This study tests these three hypotheses, to determine whether the Czech Republic really does provide an exception to the general post-communist development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central debate about the transformation of postcommunist countries is how political approaches to institution building affect firm restructuring and creation. This debate has largely been dominated by theories that emphasize either the depoliticization of institutional designs or the determining impact of preexisting social structures. By examining the relative economic performance of Poland and the Czech Republic in the 1990s, this article offers an alternative, embedded politics analysis that views firm and institutional creation as intertwined experiments. Czech attempts to implant a depoliticized model of reform impeded institutional development and the reorganization of sociopolitical networks, in which firms are embedded. Poland facilitated institutional experiments not only in the ways it promoted negotiated solutions to restructuring but also in the ways it empowered subnational governments. The study utilizes data on manufacturing networks, privatization, bankruptcy, and regional government reforms collected between 1993 and 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the postcommunist Czech Republic, we see planners being transformed from technocrats closely identified by the public with government bureaucracies and party estate objectives into political actors in private and quasi-private practice, with direct relations to the public they will need both as patrons and political constituencies. Planners play complex roles in the new planning. Often the sole proponents of the public interest, they also mediate the conflicting interests that are generated by broad institutional change. Planning itself faces contradictory demands. On the one hand, legitimacy within a democratic system requires citizen participation. But citizen participation is at odds with state demands for managerial autonomy, demands which persist no matter what underlying social and economic interests are being served. Citizen participation is also potentially at odds with professional authority and planners are beginning to experience populist resistance. Although most attention is focused upon privatization or marketization, this article has emphasized political decentralization and democratization, other important aspects of the present transformation.