Metropolitan University Prague

The article contributes to the conceptual mapping of the interaction between Euroscepticism and illiberalism, suggesting that there is a mutual reinforcement process between them. The overlaps cover the following areas: the critique of supranationalism, the resulting defence of national sovereignty, the defence of the (national) majority against any outside interference and a critical look at liberal norms and values. We argue that the cross-fertilisation between illiberalism and Euroscepticism occurs primarily in the domains of the cultural and value bases of politics. Euroscepticism and illiberalism feed each other's arguments, in some cases even proving unable to exist effectively without each other in the long term. The interconnection of the two concepts is demonstrated by three examples of European parties that are described in the literature as both Eurosceptic and illiberal (Alternative for Germany [AfD], Fidesz and Smer).

As the global green transition accelerates, demand for critical raw materials is surging. Within the literature, the term 'green sacrifice zone' has been adopted to describe areas that have experienced significant socio-environmental deterioration through the extraction of these materials. We take this concept as a starting point, arguing that while it holds considerable analytical and political promise, it remains underdeveloped, lacking both conceptual clarity and a robust analytical underpinning. To address this, we develop a framework to identify and analyse potential green sacrifice zones. We then apply it to a case study of Kalumbila District, Zambia-part of a 'new Copperbelt' experiencing intensified extraction. Utilising data collected during fieldwork in the area, we evaluate whether a green sacrifice zone is currently emerging in the district and examine what this in turn can reveal about developmental approaches undertaken within the 'green' paradigm as they play out in the Zambian context.

This article reconceptualises political cynicism as an elite-driven discursive practice in Russo-Mongolian relations, using the Power of Siberia 2 (PS2) gas pipeline as a revealing case. It demonstrates how Russia mobilizes moralized rhetoric - 'friendship', 'shared history', 'strategic partnership' - to legitimise asymmetry and retain symbolic leverage whilst eschewing substantive commitments. The analysis identifies four mechanisms through which political cynicism sustains this asymmetry. First, historical discursive anchoring binds contemporary dependence to Soviet-era narratives. Second, performative diplomacy stages cooperation whilst decoupling symbolic affirmation from material delivery. Third, obfuscation of asymmetry deploys egalitarian terminology to mask structural imbalances. Finally, normalization of structural neglect renders chronic inaction politically acceptable through structured ambiguity. Drawing on diplomatic discourse (1912-2025) and quantitative data on investment, debt and energy, the study reveals how Russia preserves a discursive influence whilst remaining materially disengaged from Mongolia's Vision 2050. By contrast, delivery-backed Third Neighbour Policy initiatives underscore the limits of political cynicism.

This article examines how popular musical practices in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Prague articulated and shaped Czech nationalist sentiment through intertwined forms of pastoral and urban nostalgia. In a rapidly modernizing city marked by migration, industrialization, and intensifying Czech-German antagonism, pubs, dancehalls and garden restaurants became crucial sites where everyday leisure intersected with the cultural politics of nationalism. These venues, many of which consciously evoked a rural atmosphere through architecture and repertoire, offered urban newcomers a symbolic refuge from the social dislocation of modern life. Here, brass bands and the emergent folk-like genre lidovka, alongside satirical caf & eacute; chantant couplets, became key media through which audiences negotiated the loss of traditional rural worlds and articulated desires for collective belonging.

This article explores the role of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive 2022/2464 (CSRD) and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) in enabling contributions toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The objective is to present and test a mapping tool for assessing corporate contributions to the SDGs, based on the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). By selecting the quantitative datapoint indicators from the ESRS, we create a point-by-point triple-way matching (ESRS → GRI → SDG) between the ESRS, GRI and SDGs. Moreover, we include the EU Taxonomy indicators (Regulation 852/2020) into this mapping. A Microsoft Access application was developed as a practical mapping instrument to assess corporate contributions to the SDGs, automate the connections between ESRS indicators and SDGs, and improve the transparency and comparability of sustainability reporting. This tool was tested for a sample of 20 large European companies, from different sectors. The results show that the companies’ disclosures follow the pattern of the ESRS datapoints contributions to the SDGs: SDGs 8, 12, and 13 dominate indicators and disclosures, while SDGs 2, 4, 11, and 17 remain underrepresented. The original contribution is a database of ESRS data points and EU Taxonomy ratios linked to each SDG and clarifying the contributions to sustainable development. We show how each ESRS standard contributes to SDG reporting, and which are the disclosure gaps that need to be addressed by the standard-setter EFRAG.