Political elites are the foundation of contemporary representative democracies. This reality highlights the unique scientific and practical significance of studies on political elites. The paper presents a non-standard research approach. Some aspects of using evolutionary game theory models to study the evolution of cooperative behaviours among representatives of political elites are presented. To that end, two models of 2 × 2 games were developed: a single-population and a two-population model. The first one assumes the existence of interactions between representatives of the same population, while the second focuses on interactions among individuals from two different populations. The analyses used two interaction schemes: Stag Hunt and Chicken. Standard replicator dynamics was employed to describe the evolutionary process. The results of the analyses are presented in a graphic form in phase diagrams. The presented approach should be treated as a supplement to traditional research approaches used in social sciences rather than as an alternative.

By stepping up linkages with post-Soviet states and by creating a various and sophisticated scope of soft power instruments, the Russian federation has striven to maintain its strong influence and simultaneously sought to block Western impact in the Post-soviet region. The principal goal of this study is to explore how the Russian political establishment and the influential Russian Orthodox Church are working together to generate Orthodox Christian linkages in the post-Soviet state of the Republic of Moldova and how they are using Orthodox aspects related to “Orthodox identity” and “Orthodox brotherhood” with a view of obtaining support and admiration of the population of this country. The Russian Orthodox Church as an institution is increasingly becoming an effective tool of the Russian concept of soft power, which is taking on growing dimensions and dangerous forms in the hands of the current Russian political leaders. A success or failure of this kind of Russian soft power is subsequently evaluated in the conclusion.

This article introduces the notion of existence of three main character layers of the EU in international politics – a political layer, a normative layer and an economic one. This claim originates from a long-run theoretical debate about EU´s international actorness. The theoretical part is followed by a qualitative content analysis. Its purpose is to identify the presence of one or more of the character layers in EU´s bilateral relationship with South Africa and their possible dominance throughout the duration of their cooperation. The content analysis focuses on key documents and treaties that were signed by both partners. The results show that in the recent years, role of two of these layers – the political and the economic one – is equalising and dominance of either one of them is not clear-cut. Only the normative layer has been lagging behind in the long run.

The collapse of the Communist regime allowed the transition of Czechoslovakia to democracy. It was inherently connected with the restoration of the pluralistic party system. This caused the establishment or renewal of a considerable number of political parties. They faced the question of what foreign-political orientation to choose. As the preferred way revealed soon so-called „return to Europe“, which was closely linked to the accession of the Slovak Republic to the European Union. However, this effort was not entirely trouble-free. For example, the disintegration of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic or the way of Vladimír Mečiar´s governing affected this effort. Each political party also had different ideas about the European Union and the form of European integration. This article is therefore interested in the image of European integration in the discourse of important Slovak political parties, such as the Movement for Democratic Slovakia, the Slovak National Party, the Christian Democratic Movement, the Party of the Democratic Left, the Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement and Coexistence until the 1998 elections. This was a period that had a significant impact on the formation of the attitudes of political parties and movements towards the European Union. This work tries to answer the question of what the European Union was associated with, in the contemporary debate and what affected the period discourse. The aim is also to find out if there are similar associations in relation to European integration or not.