2007/1

Interview with Josef Bečvář, researcher of the Institute for Public Opinion Research of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

Old age and aging of individuals are phenomenons that took important place in society as early as former times. During twentieth century the question of aging got new meaning, because it newly started to overreach from individual level to all-society. As a result of improvement of some social conditions (f.e. medical care, lifestyle, hygiene, living standard etc.), that was already initiated approximately at the beginning of the nineteenth century, dying started to be moved to higher age and people live longer. In modern societies this event usually goes with decline of natality and fertility. In final effect combination of these two factors causes the process that is known as demographic aging. In general we have to distinction between two views of problems of aging. The first view is focused on individual aging, the second one on demographic aging of human population. But it is clear that both of these views relate to each other. Similarly this article offers the roundup of problems of demographic aging, but also gives a touch of questions about longevity and quality of life, that gain ground in connection with theme of individual aging.

The aim of this article is to signify the profile of the Czech political parties from the point of view of their voters and with reference to some fundamental determinants of voting behaviour. Text tries to apply the theoretic bases and empirical research to the current Czech party system. Consequently, the author notices the social approach to the parties and party system functioning or more precisely to the social cleavage affecting the key individuals and identifying the formative processes of this system.

The article stands as a first part of a series about the question answering process during standardized surveys. The series conceptually draws on the Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology (CASM) and hence it maps primarily cognitive aspects of responding process. At the very beginning the interview situation itself is described and its interactional/communication, cognitive and formal components are defined. The answering process is in accord with prevailing theories described in the course of the question interpretation, memories retrieval, making the judgement and editing the answer. The first part of the whole series concentrates on the interpretation phase. The topic of question representation is elaborated thru the psychological conception of mental representation in detail and several examples show implications for survey quality. Schemas and scenarios are then described as an “at hand” tools for interpretation of the question, and these are again illustrated by some examples. In the end, priming is mentioned as another possible source of interpretation bias.

The text focuses on public opinion in Czech Republic and Poland relating to the plan of U.S. government to locate some parts of U.S. national missile defence in these countries. It describes and compares main shifts of developments of public attitudes in both countries to the project as well as to eventual referendum in this matter within the period up to the first half of 2007. The text shows main demographical, societal and political differences in both countries and discusses reasons and motives behind particular attitudes of Czech and Polish citizens.

The electronic version of the first number of the fifth edition of the review Czech Society (Naše společnost). Czech Society issues Center for Public Opinion Research, Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.