The courses taught in English—listed below—are designed both for international students (including Erasmus students) and CEVRO Institute students who have been studying social science (or a similar program) at least one year on the undergraduate level. The courses cover a wide range of topics and disciplines such as political science, international relations, history or applied economics. After completion, students are awarded easily transferable European credits (For more on ECTS see below). International students are advised to sign up for about 5 courses in each semester.

 

Brouchure "Study Abroad in Prague at CEVRO Institute" for download (613 kB, PDF)

(The below courses will be opened provided that a sufficient number of students sign up for them. For this reason applicants are recommended to announce alternative courses in the application form).
 

This course is based on a comparative approach towards current political developments in countries of (primarily, but not exclusively) the Visegrad Four, i.e. in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. Following general discussions of what the notion of Central Europe means and how we can understand it, the course will elaborate historical and social issues helping to shape the region currently known as Central Europe. After historical considerations are taken into account, the region as a whole is put under scrutiny, beginning with communism through regional attempts at integration, up to the accession procedures regarding EU and NATO. Finally, political and social issues in all of the four countries will be presented with topics like foreign policies, major rifts, party systems, institutional arrangements etc.

The aim of the course is to inquiry into the dichotomy between the two predominant forms of organization of state and markets, i.e., capitalism and communism. Students will become acquainted with various theories and history of these competing visions and with different approaches to analyze them. The course also focuses on the analysis of capitalism and communism in practice and on their important political, economic and social consequences.

The course builds on knowledge of basic economic principles and applies it to explain the effects of globalization on development, quality of life, poverty, culture, foreign trade, environmental quality and the power of national governments. It focuses on causes and consequences of globalization as well as on its different manifestations in different parts of the world. The overarching aim of this course is to provide students with an understanding of contemporary changes, trends and processes affecting the global economy, countries, regions, and industries. One of the most important goals is to develop a critical understanding of the “global economy”—its origins and operation.

 

Students are introduced to the historical overview and contemporary approaches to broadly defined (not only Chicago School) law-and- economics. The course explains the link between economics and existing institutional settings, identifies the impacts of competition upon the quality of institutional environment, and clarifies the limits

of market co-ordination mechanism. The framework is applied to the problems of quality of justice, growth and development, environmental quality, transition and desocialisation.

 

The course systematically analyzes the reasons for and impacts of state interventions in the economy. It deals with the typology of interventions and economic justifications of arguments for interventions in the economy in the area of price and product regulation, anti-trust legislation, anti-discrimination laws, environmental protection, money and taxation.. The course highlights both the intended and the unintended consequences of governmental policies, explains the essential difference between the market and bureaucratic management, and identifies the structure of motivations of the actors in the case of particular state interventions.

 

The course is devoted to the arguments for and the analysis of public expenditures. It covers topics such as public and private provision of “public goods”, externalities and public ownership. The second part of the course introduces a series of case studies explaining the nature of public expenditures in different sectors of the economy such as health care, social security, and schooling and discusses different reform proposals.

 

The course examines the contemporary European security in a comprehensive fashion. Besides covering the changing nature of the European security environment (threats and risks to European security; energy, environmental, human and cyber security) and the evolution of transatlantic security relations, it focuses on the emerging institutional framework of security policy-making in Europe (European security architecture). In particular, the post-Cold War evolution of NATO and the EU as security institutions is discussed, as are the instruments of their security policies.

 

The course is focused on the analysis of party systems in Western Europe and their development in the post-war period. The course introduces key methodological and theoretical approaches to party system analysis. These approaches are important especially due to the huge amount of empirical facts that need to be sorted, analyzed

and compared. Various theoretical approaches enable comparing party systems and allow for putting party systems in institutional and societal contexts. The empirical level of the analysis is also given importance. The theoretical tools are always completed with empirical examples in order to provide students with the ability to apply theoretical concepts on the particular cases.

 

In what way does the politics work in a country that has undergone transition from totalitarian to democratic regimes? What is the character of political culture, tools of political mediation, or major controversies? These and many other questions are to be discussed and answered during this course, which should make it possible for

students to obtain more thorough insight into political behavior, culture, and also the political practice of the Czech Republic. Among major issues to be elaborated in the classes you can find topics like Czech political traditions, sources of political culture, impact of communism, popular perceptions of politics and political parties, major political controversies, relation of Czech politics to European level of governance

and other all-European questions.

 

The course is designed to provide sociological evidence and interpretation of major changes, which have occurred in post-communist countries after the collapse of the communist regimes in 1989. Particular emphasis is placed on the processes and relationships, which have shaped the new socio-economic structure, attitudes, values and political system. The most important issues to be discussed include: privatization and the formation of the entrepreneurial class, the formation of elites during the first stage of the transformation, the development of the labor market, education and human resources, inequality of earnings and incomes, formation of socio-economic status and its consistency, main patterns of intragenerational social mobility during the transformation period, perception of changes in life conditions of the main social classes and groups, formation of the middle class, perception of inequality and changing norms of distributive justice, principal changes in social policy, the shaping of political attitudes and changes in voting behavior of social classes. In addition to standard texts (books, papers), most recent empirical evidence concerning various social processes will be discussed. Students are therefore required to understand very elementary forms of presenting surveys and statistical evidence (percentages, simple tables, means, simple graphs and figures.

The primary objective of the course is to offer some insights into various understandings of what Europe is. Therefore, the course presents a critical analysis of the key features accompanying the formation of European society and the system of states and presents theoretically grounded views on the processes related to their evolution. Moreover, the course intends to ground its explanations in the general, sociological understanding of history, thus transcending the “mechanical” enumeration of more or less important events, discussing instead long-term developments, bearing within themselves values and opinions justly understood as core elements of European culture and identity. The course is not intended to produce a single explanation of “Europe”, but rather to highlight cornerstones of our contemporary understanding of Europe.

The course's objective is to help students achieve a complex understanding of American foreign policy, including its history, intellectual and philosophical background, typology, and the policy-making processes. Three distinct, though closely linked perspectives will be employed: (1) Historical perspective (key factors, trends and milestones in the history of U.S. foreign policy); (2) discoursive perspective (mapping the key traditions and schools of thought in American foreign policy, as well as the contemporary U.S. foreign policy debate); (3) institutional perspective (practical foreign-policy making and the key participating governmental and non-governmental institutions).
 

The course links competition policy, regulation and strategic management. The course will cover relevant concepts of industrial organisation and marketing strategies. Determinants of competition will be explained as well as reasons for regulation and deregulation in general but the focus will be on real markets and industries. The subject will be examined from both the firm’s position as well as from the position of the government. By explaining the main statutes of related legislation, its enforcement, and implications for business and management, the course will supply students with arguments useful in their future careers. The core of the course will be lectures, presentations and discussions of case studies and topics related to the Czech economy.
 

This course is based on a comparative approach towards current political developments in countries of (primarily, but not exclusively) the Visegrad Four, i.e. in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. Following general discussions of what the notion of Central Europe means and how we can understand it, the course will elaborate historical and social issues helping to shape the region currently known as Central Europe. After historical considerations are taken into account, the region as a whole is put under scrutiny, beginning with communism through regional attempts at integration, up to the accession procedures regarding EU and NATO. Finally, political and social issues in all of the four countries will be presented with topics like foreign policies, major rifts, party systems, institutional arrangements etc.

The course builds on knowledge of basic economic principles and applies it to explain the effects of globalization on development, quality of life, poverty, culture, foreign trade, environmental quality and the power of national governments. It focuses on causes and consequences of globalization as well as on its different manifestations in different parts of the world. The overarching aim of this course is to provide students with an understanding of contemporary changes, trends and processes affecting the global economy, countries, regions, and industries. One of the most important goals is to develop a critical understanding of the “global economy”—its origins and operation.

 

The course is devoted to the arguments for and the analysis of public expenditures. It covers topics such as public and private provision of “public goods”, externalities and public ownership. The second part of the course introduces a series of case studies explaining the nature of public expenditures in different sectors of the economy such as health care, social security, and schooling and discusses different reform proposals.

 

The course is created to broaden student’s knowledge about conflicts in one of the ethnically complex regions of the world – South Caucasus. It is a meeting place of different traditions and cultures: Christian and Islamic. This is a region, where regional and world great powers compete for political influence and for control over energy resources. In order to understand the logic of these conflicts, the first part of the course will be theoretical and will introduce with the terminology and major theoretical approaches of ethnic violence. There will be also discussed the conflict resolution theories. The second part will be concentrated on the explanation of the causes and results of ethnic conflicts in South Caucuses and the current situation. Students will be able to apply theoretical tools to analyze those conflicts and the possible ways of their resolution. The aim of the course is to familiarize the students with actual conflicts in the South Caucasus with respect to factors that generates those conflicts. The course explains the logic of major theories of ethnicity and ethnic conflict, illustrating and critiquing them with empirical examples in the region of South Caucasus. Finally, the course analyzes conflict resolution theories and the strengths and weaknesses of each and identifies alternative policy tools available to outside parties for helping to resolve ethnic conflicts.

 

The course examines the contemporary European security in a comprehensive fashion. Besides covering the changing nature of the European security environment (threats and risks to European security; energy, environmental, human and cyber security) and the evolution of transatlantic security relations, it focuses on the emerging institutional framework of security policy-making in Europe (European security architecture). In particular, the post-Cold War evolution of NATO and the EU as security institutions is discussed, as are the instruments of their security policies.

The aim of the course is to provide a short outline of the relationship between Germany and Central and Eastern Europe during the last two centuries (from Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to the government of Angela Merkel). This course shows also the positive role of Germany in Europe after WW II and its decisive support for the Eastern Enlargement of the EU after 1990. Germany is a key player in the international politics of Central and Eastern Europe as far as political, economic, security and other issues are concerned. For these reasons it is necessary to study the relationship between the largest EU member and Central and East European countries.

The course is focused on a comparison of international trade theory recommendations to the real-world trade policies, and on explanation of the divergence of the policy from the theory. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

a) describe principles of exchange and division of labor and their significance for the wealth of the society;

b) describe ways of restricting the exchange and division of labor and identify consequences of such restrictions;

c) orientate themselves in the historical development of the insights on (international) exchange and in the historical development of different modes of trade policies;
d) explain the arguments that make the majority of society support trade restrictions and why these arguments are not sustainable and are based on misunderstanding and ignorance of economics.

 

The course provides an introduction to comparative legal science. It studies especially European Continental Law and Common Law. It also includes Jewish legal tradition, Canon Law and Islamic Law. The course surveys legal sources, institutes and history of the legal traditions through comparative method. Historical method analyzes common roots of continental and Anglo-American law in Roman, Jewish and Christian legal traditions and the differentiation of Continental and Common Law traditions since medieval era until today and aims at critically analyzing and identifying the impact and role of the historical legal traditions in a modern state. The course builds a theoretical basis that enables students to understand legal aspects of European and Transatlantic integration processes and prepares for eventual profession in the institutions and organizations connected with the EU and NATO.

The course is focused on the analysis of party systems in Western Europe and their development in the post-war period. The course introduces key methodological and theoretical approaches to party system analysis. These approaches are important especially due to the huge amount of empirical facts that need to be sorted, analyzed

and compared. Various theoretical approaches enable comparing party systems and allow for putting party systems in institutional and societal contexts. The empirical level of the analysis is also given importance. The theoretical tools are always completed with empirical examples in order to provide students with the ability to apply theoretical concepts on the particular cases.

The course aims to introduce students to the study of public policy as a discipline, within a broader context of the development of contemporary societies; to exemplify public policy’s practical application and the ways public policy as a scientific discipline attempts to apprehend social problems and devise solutions thereof; to do so by defining the key terms, concepts and methods of public policy; and to engage students in critical thinking and studying, systematic work with scholarly literature, and writing scholarly texts.

The primary objective of the course is to offer some insights into various understandings of what Europe is. Therefore, the course presents a critical analysis of the key features accompanying the formation of European society and the system of states and presents theoretically grounded views on the processes related to their evolution. Moreover, the course intends to ground its explanations in the general, sociological understanding of history, thus transcending the “mechanical” enumeration of more or less important events, discussing instead long-term developments, bearing within themselves values and opinions justly understood as core elements of European culture and identity. The course is not intended to produce a single explanation of “Europe”, but rather to highlight cornerstones of our contemporary understanding of Europe.
 

There are a couple of ways to evaluate study results. Courses are usually ended by oral or written examination, presentations or course papers. CEVRO Institute uses the ECTS (European Credit Transfer System), which is a credit system based on relative student workload. The workload includes lectures, seminars and self-study. The standard number of credits per academic year is 60 credits, i.e. 30 credits per semester. As for the evaluation, CEVRO Institute gives grades from “A” (the best grade) to “E”, while “F” means “failed”. The courses are usually one semester and may be held in one semester or both. This depends on the number of students who wish to attend the course. Each course consists of weekly lectures (about 80 minutes). Some courses may be coupled with seminars at which students present their papers. In most courses students are required to elaborate a course paper. The second requirement for the course is an exam (written test or oral examination).

 

The entry requirements for exchange students are basically set by partner universities of CEVRO Institute. CEVRO Institute only expects that students have good study results and a good command of English in order to follow English-taught classes. For coming to CEVRO Institute, we encourage international students to have successfully finished at least one academic year at their home university.

As for the application process, students should first apply through their home university/faculty (international office or a similar office). Applicants shall fill in the application form, which is available on the CEVRO Institute web-pages. In the application form students mark the courses they wish to study at CEVRO Institute. The application form should be sent by e-mail as well as in the print form signed by the Erasmus coordinator of their home faculty. We will then send them an acceptance letter, where we confirm that they have been admitted to the study at CEVRO Institute.

 

Basically there are two deadlines for applications: (1) for the fall term and (2) for the spring term.

Application deadline for the fall term: 27 May 2011

Application deadline for the spring term: 1 November 2011

 

CEVRO Institute is equipped with wireless Internet. Students are recommended to bring their laptop. On their arrival students receive login information to enter the school system. There is also a computer lab available at the college.

 

There are plenty of opportunities to find accommodation in Prague. The cheapest way of accommodation is to apply for a room at dormitories. Students who wish to live in these student dorms may notify us in the application form, and CEVRO Institute will assist them. Living in the dormitories is a great way to get to know Czech and other international students. Most students are housed in double bedrooms with a shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. Prague is a very unique place with many things to see and enjoy.  If you need more practical information about the Czech Republic, you may try Guide to studying and living in the Czech Republic

For further information about Prague see http://www.cityofprague.cz