09/03/2020

The first issue of the Czech Journal of International Relations in 2020 is out

This time, all the contributions are in Czech: three peer-reviewed articles on the topics of political dimension of the Slovak National Uprising commemorations, racism in development cooperation, and introduction to feminist security studies as research agenda. The issue also includes six reviews on recently published titles.

The first article, written by Vladimír Naxera and Petr Krčál, is titled Oslavy výročí Slovenského národního povstání jako platforma pro vytváření obrazů nepřátel Slovenska. As the annual celebrations of the Slovak National Uprising in Banská Bystrica are one of the most important political occasions in the country, authors use semi-participative observation to analyse five anniversary celebrations of the event (2015–2019) and the securitization strategies inherited in the speeches of politicians at the celebrations. They are showing that not only topics related to the legacy of the anti-fascist uprising are securitized or serve as objects of the creation of moral panic during these events.

Rasizmus v rozvoji a v rozvojovej spolupráci is title of the second article, written by Tomáš Profant. It uses extant research to build a theoretical perspective on racism in development and development cooperation, and finds three main forms of racism – discursive, structural and everyday racism – within development. It analyses them and claims that racism in development can be studied with the use of this theoretical construction. In the conclusion it briefly answers the question of how can these forms of racism be fought.

The third article, Jak zkoumat gender v mezinárodní bezpečnosti? Úvod do feministických bezpečnostních studií, is written by Kateřina Krulišová and Dagmar Rychnovská. It asks how to make sense of the links between gender identities and the politics of international security, and introduces feminist security studies as a field of research which has pointed out that stereotypes about femininity and masculinity affect the construction of threats, understanding of aggression, and social sensitivity to different types of victims of violence. The article aims to situate feminist security studies into the context of security research in International Relations and to encourage its development in the Czech academic environment.

The new book reviews in this issue are:

Michal Smetana: Nuclear Deviance. Stigma Politics and the Rules of the Nonproliferation Game (review written by Miroslav Tůma)

Ladislav Cabada, Šárka Waisová a kol.: Bezpečnostní, zahraniční a evropská politika Visegrádské skupiny (review written by Adam Rosenheim)

Petr Jurek, David Šanc, Ladislav Cabada, Pavel Hlaváček, Michal Kubát, Sandra Štollová a Jiří Zákravský: Politika nejmenších evropských států (review written by Michaela Ducháčková)

Fawaz A. Gerges: Islámský stát: Cesta k moci (review written by Karel Černý)

Jaroslav Kurfürst: Příběh ruské geopolitiky. Jak se ruská myšlenka zmocnila více než šestiny světa (review written by Maria Avanesova)

Ondřej Filipec: Fenomén terorismus: česká perspektiva (review written by Nikola Medová)

We wish you pleasant reading.