The idea of International Division of Labor (IDL) came along with the diffusion of the capitalism as production way. However, had a IDL background in the block of socialist countries that if it organized since the scope of the Council for the Economic Mutual Assistance (CMEA). Throughout the decades where the CMEA was effective, the countries that were part of the Council had created an important scene of interdependences uncountable to the exchanges of merchandises and services, economic control, promotion of cooperation institutions and specialization, and an infrastructure in which if they supported the economic relations between the members. However, chain instead of net interdependences no if show mature and solid to resist, without being damaged, to the re-approach with the capitalist countries, from the Seventies and to the collapse of the real socialism in the Nineties. Concerning this aspect, we believe that the referring limitations to the CMEA have origin in the historical and structural formation of the proper Council. Thus, this work aims to analyze the trajectory of four decades of existence of the CMEA (1949-1991) from its beddings and proper structures of functioning and to point elements that can have contributed for the process of weakness and posterior dissolution of the Council. / A idéia de Divisão Internacional do Trabalho (DIT) surgiu com a difusão do capitalismo como modo de produção. Contudo, houve historicamente uma DIT no bloco de países socialistas que se organizou desde o âmbito do Conselho para o Auxílio Mútuo Econômico (CAME). Ao longo das décadas em que esteve vigente o CAME, os países que constituíam o Conselho criaram um importante cenário de interdependências em relação às trocas de mercadorias e serviços, regulação econômica, promoção de instituições de cooperação e especialização, e uma infraestrutura na qual se apoiavam as relações econômicas entre os membros. No entanto, esta rede de interdependências não se mostrou madura e sólida para resistir, sem abalos, à reaproximação com os países capitalistas, a partir dos anos setenta e ao colapso do socialismo real nos anos noventa. Nesse sentido, acreditamos que as limitações referentes ao CAME têm origem na formação histórica e estrutural do próprio Conselho. Dessa forma, este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a trajetória de quatro décadas de existência do CAME (1949-1991) a partir de seus fundamentos e estruturas próprias de funcionamento e apontar elementos que possam ter contribuído para o processo de enfraquecimento e posterior dissolução do Conselho. / Mestre em Economia

The construction of the Czechoslovakian socialist state was accompanied by numerous social projects, through which the communist dictatorship strived to influence even the most ordinary aspects of everyday lives of its citizens. The mass production of the off-the-peg clothes, which was subject to the state scientific research, was characteristic of the clothing industry after the year 1948. As a result, extensive somatometric projects were run on the Czechoslovakian territory (ADAGO, GOLIÁŠ, DEKOLT I-III). Their purpose was to map the population sizes, create a unified clothes size scale and develop a new methodology for cut structure. Simultaneously with this research, discussions about the ideal fashion canon, which would reflect the socialist ideology, also took place. The thesis analyses the clothing expert discourse of the period in a broader context and takes into account its informative value with regard to the period's conceptions of clothing, corporality, and fashion. Key words socialist dictatorship, socialist ideology, clothing industry, off-the-peg clothes, somatometry, clothing research, anthropometry, expert discourse

no / The 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH) was the most violent phase of the dissolution of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), of which, for almost 50 years, BiH was one of six constituent republics. In the course of the war BiH¿s three main ethic groups- - Muslims, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs, with active involvement of neighbouring Croatia and Serbia, fought each other in pursuit of its own vision of BiH political and territorial (re) organization. The causes and the character of the war remain contentious, the main disagreement being over the issue of whether it was a war of aggression by BiH¿s neighbours or a civil war. Essentially, it contained the elements of both, which determined the way the war was fought, the multiplicity of actors involved, and complexity of agendas played out in the course of the conflict, its settlement and peace building process. The fighting was brought to end by an intense international military and diplomatic campaign, which pushed the worrying parties into compromise none of which considered just. The task of implementing complex terms of the peace agreement was put overwhelmingly in the hands of international actors, while local parties pursued the strategy of obstruction, trying to assert their own interpretation of the peace agreement that would accommodate some of their war aims.This paper looks at war veterans associations, as one particular type of non- state actors engaged in undermining peace settlement in the specific context of BiH war. Because of their position on the continuum between combatants and outside actor, and the nature of relationship with the political leadership negotiating the peace agreement, this case could provide different insights into the issue of spoiling in the types of contemporary conflicts characterised by multiplicity of both actors and agendas, and complex strategies needed to pacify them. The paper starts by brief analysis of the political and economic goals behind the 1992-1995 war, narrowing inquiry into Bosnian Croats self- rule as a political project and goal of the strategy of spoiling pursued by Bosnian Croat war veterans associations. It then reflects on the terms of the peace agreement, indicating some of the main areas the implementation of which was actively obstructed by this group. The analysis of the war veterans association deals with their origins and the position in the Bosnian Croat post- war power structures, the sources of their funding and their official and hidden agenda. The probe into spoiling tactics focuses on three important aspects of the peace agreement i.e. refugee return, war crimes prosecution and institution building, and is followed by a brief analysis on the impact of various strategies the international community as a custodian of peace has used to sustain its implementation.

<p>This dissertation takes a step towards providing a better understanding of post-socialist welfare state development from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. The overall analytical goal of this thesis has been to critically assess the development of social policies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania using them as illustrative examples of post-socialist welfare state development in the light of the theories, approaches and typologies that have been developed to study affluent capitalist democracies. The four studies included in this dissertation aspire to a common aim in a number of specific ways.</p><p>The first study tries to place the ideal-typical welfare state models of the Baltic States within the well-known welfare state typologies. At the same time, it provides a rich overview of the main social security institutions in the three countries by comparing them with each other and with the previous structures of the Soviet period. It examines the social insurance institutions of the Baltic States (old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, short-term benefits, sickness, maternity and parental insurance and family benefits) with respect to conditions of eligibility, replacement rates, financing and contributions. The findings of this study indicate that the Latvian social security system can generally be labelled as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models. The Estonian social security system can generally also be characterised as a mix of the basic security and corporatist models, even if there are some weak elements of the targeted model in it. It appears that the institutional changes developing in the social security system of Lithuania have led to a combination of the basic security and targeted models of the welfare state. Nevertheless, as the example of the three Baltic States shows, there is diversity in how these countries solve problems within the field of social policy. In studying the social security schemes in detail, some common features were found that could be attributed to all three countries. Therefore, the critical analysis of the main social security institutions of the Baltic States in this study gave strong supporting evidence in favour of identifying the post-socialist regime type that is already gaining acceptance within comparative welfare state research.</p><p>Study Two compares the system of social maintenance and insurance in the Soviet Union, which was in force in the three Baltic countries before their independence, with the currently existing social security systems. The aim of the essay is to highlight the forces that have influenced the transformation of the social policy from its former highly universal, albeit authoritarian, form, to the less universal, social insurance-based systems of present-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This study demonstrates that the welfare–economy nexus is not the only important factor in the development of social programs. The results of this analysis revealed that people's attitudes towards distributive justice and the developmental level of civil society also play an important part in shaping social policies. The shift to individualism in people’s mentality and the decline of the labour movement, or, to be more precise, the decline in trade union membership and influence, does nothing to promote the development of social rights in the Baltic countries and hinders the expansion of social policies. The legacy of the past has been another important factor in shaping social programs. It can be concluded that social policy should be studied as if embedded not only in the welfare-economy nexus, but also in the societal, historical and cultural nexus of a given society. </p><p>Study Three discusses the views of the state elites on family policy within a wider theoretical setting covering family policy and social policy in a broader sense and attempts to expand this analytical framework to include other post-socialist countries. The aim of this essay is to explore the various views of the state elites in the Baltics concerning family policy and, in particular, family benefits as one of the possible explanations for the observed policy differences. The qualitative analyses indicate that the Baltic States differ significantly with regard to the motives behind their family policies. Lithuanian decision-makers seek to reduce poverty among families with children and enhance the parents’ responsibility for bringing up their children. Latvian policy-makers act so as to increase the birth rate and create equal opportunities for children from all families. Estonian policy-makers seek to create equal opportunities for all children and the desire to enhance gender equality is more visible in the case of Estonia in comparison with the other two countries. It is strongly arguable that there is a link between the underlying motives and the kinds of family benefits in a given country. This study, thus, indicates how intimately the attitudes of the state bureaucrats, policy-makers, political elite and researchers shape social policy. It confirms that family policy is a product of the prevailing ideology within a country, while the potential influence of globalisation and Europeanisation is detectable too.</p><p> The final essay takes into account the opinions of welfare users and examines the performances of the institutionalised family benefits by relying on the recipients’ opinions regarding these benefits. The opinions of the populations as a whole regarding government efforts to help families are compared with those of the welfare users. Various family benefits are evaluated according to the recipients' satisfaction with those benefits as well as the contemporaneous levels of subjective satisfaction with the welfare programs related to the absolute level of expenditure on each program. The findings of this paper indicate that, in Latvia, people experience a lower level of success regarding state-run family insurance institutions, as compared to those in Lithuania and Estonia. This is deemed to be because the cash benefits for families and children in Latvia are, on average, seen as marginally influencing the overall financial situation of the families concerned. In Lithuania and Estonia, the overwhelming majority think that the family benefit systems improve the financial situation of families. It appears that recipients evaluated universal family benefits as less positive than targeted benefits. Some universal benefits negatively influenced the level of general satisfaction with the family benefits system provided in the countries being researched. This study puts forward a discussion about whether universalism is always more legitimate than targeting. In transitional economies, in which resources are highly constrained, some forms of universal benefits could turn out to be very expensive in relative terms, without being seen as useful or legitimate forms of help to families.</p><p> In sum, by closely examining the different aspects of social policy, this dissertation goes beyond the over-generalisation of Eastern European welfare state development and, instead, takes a more detailed look at what is really going on in these countries through the examples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In addition, another important contribution made by this study is that it revives ‘western’ theoretical knowledge through ‘eastern’ empirical evidence and provides the opportunity to expand the theoretical framework for post-socialist societies.</p>

Jugendfeier or Jugendweihe, the youth ‘rite of passage’ ritual has been ideologically re-and-de-contextualised by various movements throughout the last 150 years of German history. It is most commonly associated with the communist German Democratic Republic where it was used as a state initiation ritual for the foundation of ‘socialist personalities.’ This thesis focuses on Jugendfeier the ‘youth celebration’ ceremony as performed by the German Humanist Association (Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands) in Berlin. Jugendweihe originated in the mid-nineteenth century as an alternative to Catholic First Communion and Protestant Confirmation. In the former East Germany between 1956 and 1989 more than seven million students aged thirteen to fourteen undertook the ritual. Significantly, it is claimed that in present-day Germany more than 100,000 students annually take part in the ritual throughout post-socialist Germany in one form or another. This thesis highlights the often contradictory nature of Jugendweihe by examining its historical development and continuation in post-socialist Germany. It contrasts the official views of Jugendweihe in the eyes of its organisers and supporters, as well as the unofficial opinions of its participants in the GDR and in contemporary Berlin. It is often assumed that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German regime along with its culture, politics, economy, rituals and everyday way of life would likewise fade away. This thesis reconstructs the history of Jugendweihe from its Christian origins, details its implementation as a state-ritual in the GDR, and engages with the German Humanist Association’s adaption of Jugendfeier in reunified Berlin. A study of such a contested ritual sheds light on larger discussions concerning identity, community, theories on ritual, and perceptions of secularisation and humanism. By studying the practices of a largely ‘atheist’ group that rejects religion, it challenges what constitutes collective and individual notions of religiosity and secularity.

Resume The goal of this paper is to describe the situation of churches and religious societies with respect to the legal system, through the changes that affected the Czech legal systém throughout the recent half of the century. Because it is impossible to fully deal with the entirety of the history of state and law over the century, it will focus on the developments during the totalitarian regime of the Communist party and on the results thereof. The main goal is therefore to make a comparison, this will be a comparativistic endeavor, and there will not only statutes and legal documents be described, but also the practical applications of these statutes and documents, and there will be focus on theoretical and constitutional basis behind the laws. Unfortunately, with the constrains of the current format, it is impossible to fully describe even one era of Czech statehood, therefore there will be an arbitrary selection of topics on which the facts will be demonstrated and from which they will be extrapolated. The other topics will only be adressed to in a general manner. Also, it is not possible to include in full the divergent approaches of law towards the various individual churches. Some of those differences can be shown, in part, but not all of them, fully. The paper therefore needs to focus of one...

Master thesis Soviet union, our model deals with comparison of Soviet and Czech construct novels and focuses on basic motifs in selected novels. For analysis we choose couples of novels to focuse on sphere of ideologically significant aspects in each novels. Its a factory in novels Cement and Cesta otevřená, formation of "new world" in wasteland in novels Dravá řeka and Modré údolí and motivic structure positive hero in novels Daleko od Moskvy a Luisiana se probouzí. Based on text analysis and interpretation this work specifies existing knowledges about influence of Soviet construct novels on formation and development of this genre in Czechoslovakia. Key words: interpretation, motifs, construct novel, socialist realism

The thesis deals with propaganda poster as a specific medium of communist propaganda between 1948 - 1956. The first part describes a historical context regarding the social, political and economical reconstruction. The thesis is focusing on poster as a specific tool of propaganda concerning a connection to Soviet Union and a socialist realism as an official art style. At the same time the thesis is describing the communist propaganda and its characteristic elements with the connection to a new media control and censorship. The propaganda poster is viewed as a distinctive medium used by communist propaganda for a persuasion and ideological influence to society. The thesis is focusing on posters oriented on building a new attitudes to work and work process as a typical part of first years of communist regime in the time of building of a socialism in Czechoslovakia. Based on archive files the work is describing how and in which institutions were the posters controled and created. The last part is trying to bring an analysis of specificgroups of posters from the representation, stereotypes, input contect, typical rhetoric and symbols point of view.

Jiří Pilip Prague 9, District committee, Czechoslovak communist party, Trade union, Social structure English abstrakt The diploma thesis deals with structure of communist party and trade union in district of Prague 9, District committe of Communist party itself, Application of communist party mechanism on trade unions and other parts of mass social organisation on Prague 9 as Czechoslovak youth union, Czechoslovak- soviet friendship union , Local action committee of national union.

Diploma thesis focus on depicting functions of Local comitee oc Comunistic party of Czechoslovakia in district of Prague 9 on local level. It describe processes which had preceded its own decision on particular events as seizure of power by Czechoslovak Communist Party in February 1948. It centres on the issues solved by CCP as party education process or different variety of work initiatives as well as relationshisp between CCP Prague 9 and other organization anticipated on the process. Key words Communist party of Czechoslovakia, Prague 9 district, Work initiatives, , party education, social organisation,