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Emil Souleimanov, Tomáš Hoch: Role Ruska v konfliktech a oficiálních mírových procesech v Abcházii a Jižní Osetii v letech 1991–2008. 1. vydání. Praha: Auditorium, 2012, 99 stran, ISBN 978-80-87284-34-6 (signatura knihovny ÚMV 59 455).

The quality of public decision making depends significantly on the quality of analysis and advice provided through public organizations. Champions of \"evidence-informed\" policy making claim that rigorous evaluation practices can significantly improve attainment of cost-effective outcomes. After decades of experience, performance information is more sophisticated, but evaluation practices and capabilities vary enormously. Public agencies gather and process vast amounts of information, but there has been little analysis of how this information is actually utilized for policy and program improvement. This article examines how government agencies use evidence about policy and program effectiveness, with attention to four themes: (1) the prospects for improving \"evidence-informed\" policy making, (2) the diversity of practices concerning evidence utilization and evaluation across types of public agencies and policy arenas, (3) recent attempts to \"institutionalize\" evaluation as a core feature of policy development and budget approval, and (4) the relationships between public agencies and nongovernmental sources of expertise.

Collaboration between actors in political decision-making processes is crucial from both an actor and a process perspective. Previous studies have highlighted the role of preference similarity, power, and opportunity structures as drivers of collaboration. However, these studies have focused on single policy sectors and have therefore overlooked possible differences in effects across sectors, as well as interactions between sectors. This article innovates by taking a cross-sector perspective. Applying exponential random graph models to collaboration networks covering 11 decision-making processes, we show that relational opportunity structures have a fairly consistent influence on collaboration, whereas the effects of social and institutional opportunity structures vary across processes. The effect of institutional opportunity structures is contingent on the importance of institutional arenas. Our hypothesis on cross-sector influences receives partial support. Opportunity structures and interactions between sectors add to preference similarity and power, which have a strong and robust influence on collaborative tie formation.

Abstract PS 1: Climate Change and Health – ‘Examining the impact of climate change on migration patterns and health outcomes’ - Patricia Schwerdtle and Jiming Zhu, Auditorium A & B (Rectory), September 3, 2025, 11:00 - 12:00 Climate change, migration, and health are deeply interconnected, yet often treated in isolation or in dyads across policy and practice. This opening presentation provides a structured synthesis of these domains to clarify the conceptual landscape, assess the latest evidence, and identify practical pathways for action. Drawing on high-level global syntheses - including the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, the forthcoming WHO Global Report, and the upcoming Lancet Commission on Climate Change, Migration and Health - this presentation first explores how climate change acts as a risk multiplier, driving both mobility and health inequities through complex exposure pathways. Migration is framed as both an outcome of climate stress and a potential form of adaptation, while health is examined across the entire migration cycle, from pre-departure through to return. The second part of the talk distills emerging evidence on how these interactions are playing out globally, highlighting areas of deep uncertainty and vulnerability. Finally, grounded examples from Chad and South Africa illustrate how climate-resilient, low-carbon, and migrant-inclusive health systems can be built using practical, locally informed tools such as vulnerability and capacity assessments (VCAs). These cases demonstrate the power of system-level thinking and participatory implementation in translating theory and evidence into meaningful change.

Public sector unions are major interest groups in American politics, but they are rarely studied. New research would not only shed much-needed light on how these unions shape government and politics, but also broaden the way scholars think about interest groups generally: by highlighting interests that arise inside governments, drawing attention to long-ignored types of policies and decision arenas, and underlining the importance of groups in subnational politics. Here we explore the effects of public sector unions on the costs of government. We present two separate studies, using different datasets from different historical periods, and we examine several outcomes: salaries, health benefits, and employment. We find that unions and collective bargaining increase the costs of government and that the effects are especially large for benefits. We view this analysis as an opening wedge that we hope will encourage a more extensive line of new research—and new thinking about American interest groups.

The production of thermal energy in buildings using internal greenhouses makes it possible to obtain substantial gains in energy consumption and, at the same time, contribute to improving occupants’ thermal comfort (TC) levels. This article proposes a study on the producing and transporting of renewable thermal energy in a circular auditorium equipped with an enveloping semi-circular greenhouse. The numerical study is based on software that simulates the building geometry and the building thermal response (BTR) numerical model and assesses the TC level and indoor air quality (IAQ) provided to occupants in spaces ventilated by the proposed system. The building considered in this study is a circular auditorium constructed from three semi-circular auditoriums supplied with internal semi-circular greenhouses. Each of the semi-circular auditoriums faces south, northeast, and northwest, respectively. The semi-circular auditoriums are occupied by 80 people each: the one facing south throughout the day, while the one facing northeast is only occupied in the morning, and the one facing northwest is only occupied in the afternoon. The south-facing semi-circular greenhouse is used by itself to heat all three semi-circular auditoriums. The other two semi-circular greenhouses are only used to heat the interior space of the greenhouse. It was considered that the building is located in a Mediterranean-type climate and subject to the typical characteristics of clear winter days. The results allow us to verify that the proposed heating system, in which the heat provided to the occupied spaces is generated only in the semi-circular greenhouse facing south, can guarantee acceptable TC conditions for the occupants throughout the occupancy cycle.

By developing the concept of \"gastronationalism,\" this article challenges conceptions of the homogenizing forces of globalism. I analyze (1) the ways in which food production, distribution, and consumption can demarcate and sustain the emotive power of national attachment and (2) how nationalist sentiments, in turn, can shape the production and marketing of food. The multi-methodological analyses reveal how the construct of gastronationalism can help us better understand pan-national tensions in symbolic boundary politics—politics that protect certain foods and industries as representative of national cultural traditions. I first analyze the macro-level dimensions of market protections by examining the European Union's program for origin-designation labels that delineates particular foods as nationally owned. The micro-level, empirical case—the politics surrounding foie gras in France—demonstrates how gastronationalism functions as a protectionist mechanism within lived experience. Foie gras is an especially relevant case because other parties within the pan-national system consider it morally objectionable. Contemporary food politics, beyond the insights it affords into symbolic boundary politics, speaks to several arenas of sociological interest, including markets, identity politics, authenticity and culture, and the complexities of globalization.

A sold-out crowd celebrated Arab culture and heritage at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's (ADC) Turaath Night at George Washington University's Jack Morton Auditorium on Dec. 8. ADC's national executive director Abed A. Ayoub welcomed attendees, noting that there could be no better way to start the holiday season than by laughing together. The comedians joked about what it means to be truly Arab and fully American--and their audience nearly fell out of their seats laughing. Host comedian Said Durrah poked fun at his Gaza/Syrian American family and the hilarious ways he navigated growing up in his white neighborhood in Mayo, MD.

In a concert auditorium, conditions at different seats vary greatly, and are mostly affected by the view of the stage and the received sound of the performance, the former of which has been much less studied. With a focus on visual seat location, this study systematically investigates the effects of three visual factors: distance, lateral angle, and vertical angle, on the subjective seat preference of a symphony music performance, with one additional reference auditory factor: loudness (audio gain). Experimental investigation used virtual reality presentations of a 3D static orchestra on a stage with simplified orchestral audio, so that each factor could be changed independently. Results show that all factors significantly affect preference: smaller distances, smaller lateral angles, and vertical angles around 18° are preferred. Experiment results agree with those of an online questionnaire using corresponding stage-view images. A prediction model based on the results is proposed.