Jaká byla zahraniční politika České republiky v období 2007-2009 a proč? What was the Czech foreign policy like during the years 2007–2009 and why?

How have countries in the EU that were previously under Communist rule influenced the creation of a European policy towards other Post-Soviet nations? This study explores countries including the Czech Republic and Poland and shows how they have helped develop a coherent policy based reconciling political and historical foreign policy identities.

European countries work together in crisis management, conflict prevention and many other aspects of security and defence policy. Closer cooperation in this policy arena seems to be the only viable way forward to address contemporary security challenges. Yet, despite the repeated interaction, fundamental assumptions about security and defence remain remarkably distinct across European nations. This book offers a comparative analysis of the security and defence policies of all 27 EU member states and Turkey, drawing on the concept of ‘strategic culture’, in order to examine the chances and obstacles for closer security and defence cooperation across the continent. Along the lines of a consistent analytical framework, international experts provide case studies of the current security and defence policies in Europe as well as their historical and cultural roots. ​

This book examines the impact of EU membership on the foreign policies of the 12 new member states that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. Among scholars of European politics there is a general consensus that membership in the European Union changes the countries that join. Yet considerable debate remains over what exactly changes, to what extent, how or why these changes happen, and why some countries, policies, and institutions change more than others. Expert contributors examine the impact of EU integration and membership, with chapters on the 12 new EU entrants since 2004: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Malta, Bulgaria, and Romania. Utilizing a common analytical framework, each of the country case studies examines the impact of EU membership on the foreign policies of the new member states in three key areas: foreign policy making institutions and procedures, interests and preferences, and strategies and actions. The New Member States and the European Union will be of interest to students and scholars of European Studies and European Union Politics.

Since World War II, Germany has confronted its own history to earn acceptance in the family of nations. Lily Gardner Feldman draws on the literature of religion, philosophy, social psychology, law and political science, and history to understand Germany's foreign policy with its moral and pragmatic motivations and to develop the concept of international reconciliation. Germany's Foreign Policy of Reconciliation traces Germany's path from enmity to amity by focusing on the behavior of individual leaders, governments, and non-governmental actors. The book demonstrates that, at least in the cases of France, Israel, Poland, and Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic, Germany has gone far beyond banishing war with its former enemies; it has institutionalized active friendship. The German experience is now a model of its own, offering lessons for other cases of international reconciliation. Gardner Feldman concludes with an initial application of German reconciliation insights to the other principal post-World War II pariah, as Japan expands its relations with China and South Korea.

The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics is an authoritative overview that will help a wide readership develop an understanding of the region in all its political, economic, and social complexity. Including Central Europe, the Baltic republics, South Eastern Europe, and the Western Balkans, as well as all the countries of the former Soviet Union, it is unrivalled in breadth and depth, affording a comprehensive overview of Eastern European politics provided by leading experts in the fields of comparative politics, international relations, and public administration. Through a series of cutting-edge articles, it seeks to explain and understand patterns of Eastern European politics today. The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics will be a key reference point both for advanced-level students developing knowledge about the subject, researchers producing new material in the area, and those interested and working in the fields of East European Politics, Russian Politics, EU Politics, and more broadly in European Politics, Comparative Politics, Democratization Studies, and International Relations.

Focused on the role of Central Europe in international politics at the turn of the 20th century, the authors take stock of the knowledge about the discipline of IR, enhance the visibility of scholars from Central Europe, and fill the void which has emerged after several researches on Central Europe were completed in the 1990s.