Syllabus
LS: 1. Hospodářské důsledky druhé světové války a problémy hospodářské obnovy 2. Československá ekonomika v podmínkách limitované demokracie 3.
Tržní ekonomiky v období prosperity (1951-1970) 4. Počátky západoevropské hospodářské integrace 5.
Vznik sovětského bloku centrálně plánovaných ekonomik a jejich systémové krize 6. Sovětizace československé ekonomiky a pokusy o ekonomickou reformu 7.
Hospodářské problémy rozvojových zemí 8. Důsledky stagflace na světovou ekonomiku a nástup neokonzervativismu v hospodářské politice zemí s tržní ekonomikou 9.
Krize a kolaps centrálně plánovaných ekonomik 10. Proces transformace české ekonomiky 11.
Důsledky pádu bipolarismu: tranzitivní ekonomiky, zrychlení evropské integrace, proměny světových hospodářských center 12. Fenomén globalizace ve světové ekonomice.
Annotation
Economic and Social History (from 1945 to the present)
Winter Semester:
The part of the course dedicated to social history (WS) presents the most important areas and trends of social development from 1945 up to present day. The course will first introduce the basic patterns of social development (the consequences of crises and war, formation of a welfare state, demographic trends). After this, the course will turn to different forms of social inequality and hierarchies (between particular social classes, vertical and horizontal mobility, etc.) in order to explain the dominant social movements (student, environmental) and their impact on the economy and the state in the second half of 20th century.
Special attention will be paid to how people’s identification with existing status quo varied (confidence in differently defined hierarchies or vice versa, the preparedness for nonconforming behavior), not only in relation to transforming structures (forms of ownership and the state) but also in relation to people´s everyday experiences (family, work, education and leisure time).
The connecting thread of the course will be the interpretation of development phases in the East and West, and, above all, it will highlight their similarities and differences.
Summer Semester:
The interpretation of economic development after WWII is structured into four development phases. The first phase covers economic recovery, and it will focus on the development trends bipolarism brought to the global economy. The second phase, which covers the 1950s and 1960s, confronts the free market economy of West with the centrally-planned economy of the Soviet Bloc. Subsequent phases will outline the changes in the global economy resulting from oil crises, especially the tendency to follow non-conservative neoclassical directions in the economic policies of the countries with a free market economy, and further, the escalation of crises in the Eastern bloc that led to its later collapse. The 4th and final phase clarifies the process of economic transformation of post-communist economics and focuses on global issues of current economic development. The economic development of Czechoslovakia is discussed within the scope of these phases (in the 4th phase of the Czech Republic).