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The impact of a new scramble for Africa between the EU and China - a comparative case study of foreign direct investment in Senegal and Zambia
Mocák, Filip ; Kučerová, Irah (advisor) ; Mazač, Jan (referee)
The goal of this research is to shed light on the impact of European foreign direct investment and growing Chinese foreign direct investment in Sub-Saharan Africa through lenses of neocolonialism and orientalism. A case study analysis is utilized to grasp the topic appropriately. Two case studies were set - Senegal and Zambia case study. While Senegal serves predominantly as a case study for the impact of EU foreign direct investments, The case study of Zambia helps to understand how Chinese FDI inflow affects Sub-Saharan countries. Therefore, six hypotheses were outlined. This work researches the impact of FDI on the level of democracy represented by the democratic index of The Economist Intelligence Unit, business freedom embodied in The Heritage Foundation's economic freedom index, and stability of state symbolised by the fragile state index studied by The Fund for Peace. All three indexes above are available for free online. The correlation between EU FDI and level of democracy was confirmed while Chinese FDI negatively affects democratic development in studied countries. Next, European FDI positively affects the level of economic freedom in Senegal as well as Zambia. Nevertheless, increased Chinese FDI inflow to the countries deteriorated their economic freedom. Lastly, there is no clear...
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A comprehensive analysis of integration of EU energy markets and aspects affecting the process of integration between 2000 and 2019
Mocák, Filip ; Holubcová, Jitka (advisor) ; Mazač, Jan (referee)
This Master's thesis analysed integration process of national energy markets through non- legislative and legislative EU documents. The aim was to study integration of national energy markets and aspects that had influence on the integration process through interpretative content analysis. Additionally, the definition of internal energy market was augmented. The internal energy market requires not only competitiveness, market-based approach, customer orientation and flexibility, but it is also necessary to ensure security of supplies, diversification of suppliers, sustainability, and transparency. Four aspects were analysed. It was partially proven, that several initiatives and proposals made by the European Commission were implemented by the member states in binding EU legislation (energy packages) in the period from 2000 to 2019. The initiatives presented by the European Commission were far more ambitious. However, as it was pointed out several times in Commission's publications that progress was rather slow in transposition of EU legislation into national laws by the member states which significantly prolonged integration process. Main problems were deregulation of gas prices for end users, ownership unbundling and independence of national regulatory authorities. Next, geopolitics within the EU...
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Comparative analysis of political and economic organizations MERCOSUR and Pacific Alliance
Mocák, Filip ; Krausz Hladká, Malvína (advisor) ; Svitková, Katarína (referee)
The purpose of this work is to examine two political and economic blocs of South America; MERCOSUR and Pacific Alliance. Concretely, it focuses on the way of founding above mentioned organizations as well as it stresses economic power of both coalitions and their potential for the future. Region is analysed by realism perspective. While MERCOSUR was understood as a product of bandwagoning executed by Brazil's neighbours, the research about Pacific Alliance was based on balance of power behaviour. I used two research strategies: (1) a descriptive method applying bandwagoning and balance of power concepts on process of creation of both respective organization and (2) comparative analysis to compare coalitions and bring insight on current success of Pacific Alliance and potential outlook in the future. Since the relevant continent is considered as zone of peace, the realistic view on power was enriched by economic aspect. Hence, a driving force in regional affairs is economic, rather than military power. In case of Pacific Alliance, The focus was on two founding members, Chile and Colombia, since both are considered as secondary powers on the South American continent. The main sources to conduct this research were published economic reports and academic articles, analyses and journals. Even though...
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