|
|
NATO in the fight against terrorism and the formation of collective identity
Štulcová, Iveta ; Karásek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Karlas, Jan (referee)
Diploma thesis "NATO in the fight against terrorism and the formation of collective identity" deals with the impact of the threat of international terrorism on collective identity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The September 11th terrorist attacks on the US soil constitute a milestone in the history of NATO. The article 5 of Washington treaty was invocated for the first time. The main argument of the thesis states that, despite disagreements among allies about the role of the Alliance in the fight against terrorism after the September 11th , NATO was capable of reinforcing its collective identity and reformulating its purpose. The main goal of the thesis is to define a relationship between the perception of the threat of terrorism within NATO and collective identity of NATO, on the basis of arguments of social constructivism and with constructivist methodology. Discourse analysis of key NATO documents confirms the impact of September 11th on the transformation of strategic consideration of the Alliance, which has led to initiation of several efforts to fight terrorism. Outcomes of discourse analysis of United States, United Kingdom, France, Czech Republic and Poland reveal that terrorism has reinforced collective identity among NATO member states and has become a new threat for Alliance...
|
|
|
Testing selected theoretical approaches concerning the building of a US radar base in the Czech Republic
Holý, Petr ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Drulák, Petr (referee)
The aim of this work is to test the ability of three selected theoretical approaches to explain the response of the Czech Republic to the American offer to build the ABM radar device on the Czech soil. These theories are: neorealism, utilitarian liberalism and constructivism. Each of these approaches looks at the social reality from a different perspective which allows us to view the issue in its complexity and diversity. Each theory also uses a different set of independent variables to explain the behavior of the Czech government in this case (these variables are: autonomy and influence for neorealism; domestic interests for liberalism and international and domestic norms for constructivism). Thanks to this variety of variables we are enabled to critically evaluate which key factors played the crucial role in the Czech decision-making process in this particular issue and possibly also to point out some assumed regularities which might play an important role in forming of the Czech security policy as such. The main task of the first chapter is to provide some broader historical and political context of the case. Next three chapters are then dedicated to testing of the theories by comparing their deductively phrased hypothesis with the value of dependent variable, which for our work is represented...
|
|
|
Joint Africa-EU Strategy - comparison with other partnerships between the EU and African countries and reasons of approval
Vodová, Tereza ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
The core theme of this diploma thesis is the Joint Africa-EU Strategy. This treaty was signed by the EU and the African Union in 2007 in order to transform mutual relations, establish partnership and cooperation in several thematic areas. Considering the partnerships between EU and Sub-Saharan countries embedded in the Cotonou Agreement and the partnership between EU and North-African states incorporated in the Mediterranean partnership as well as in the EU Neighbourhood policy, this paper examines the role and reasons for creation of the new partnership. Guidance is provided by the theory of partnerships, which defines the basic characteristics of the type of international relations called this name. To the main conclusions of this work belongs that the new partnership has brought before all the broadening of cooperation in the security area and that the main motivations for conclusion of the treaty was influence in Africa from the side of the EU and strengthening of legitimacy and position and deepening of development cooperation from the side of the AU.
|
|
|
Democratic Peace in Theory and Practice
Olejníková, Lenka Barbora ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Rychnovská, Dagmar (referee)
The thesis "Democratic Peace in Theory and Practice" aims to present the Democratic Peace Theory as an international relations theory with a practical significance for the political practice. The Democratic Peace Theory will be first analysed as a part of a broad liberal tradition of International Relations Theory, and then particular ways of how the theory is empirically related to the practices of international politics will be examined. The main objective of the thesis is the analysis of the complex nature of the Democratic Peace Theory with the emphasis on the potentiality of the theory to have larger political impact.
|
|
|
China and USA in UN peacekeeping operations in 1989-2010
Evanová, Jitka ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Bureš, Oldřich (referee) ; Fürst, Rudolf (referee)
China and USA in UN Peace Operations in 1989-2010 Mgr. Jitka Evanová Summary The thesis discusses the growing role of China and decreasing role of USA in UN peace operations since 1989 with the aim to find the reasons behind their behavior. First, two chosen theories of international relations - neorealism and its modified version and English school - are described, independent variables determined and consequent hypotheses formulated. Second, the increasing Chinese and decreasing American activities in UN peace operations is shown by describing their gradually changing behavior in three areas: voting in the Security Council, personnel contributions to peacekeeping operations and financial contributions to the UN peacekeeping budget. Third, the hypotheses are tested using the congruence method that examines the explanatory power of the theories. If a reality is consistent with the hypotheses' prediction, there is a possiblity of a causal relationship between independent variable and the dependent one. I conclude that modified neorealim has the highest explanatory power as its predictions are consistent with the outcome in both cases. English school can to a certain degree explain Chinese behavior but is weak in the American case. Neorealist predictions are weak in both cases. In the end, I suggest possible...
|
|
|
Realist theories and the causes of the US invasion to Iraq
Klincová, Lucia ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Rychnovská, Dagmar (referee)
The bachelor thesis called "The realist theories and the causes of the US invasion in Iraq" discusses the motivations that led the representatives of the United States of America to the decision to invade Iraq. These causes are analyzed based on the theoretical approaches of the offensive and defensive realism. We focus directly on the theories by which we create hypotheses suggestive of the possible causes which could have led the United States to this decision. Every hypothesis then takes into account the public debate of the presented causes. This thesis mainly focuses on the effort to gain the access to the Iraqi oil resources, the strengthening of the U.S. currency, the weakening of the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein and the tendency to eliminate the potential threats caused by the weapons of mass destruction. After defining the theories, taking into account the public debate and formulating the hypotheses, we are trying to confirm or refute them and thus highlight the real causes of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which is the essential purpose of this bachelor thesis.
|
|
|
Institutional aspects of the democratic deficit: The role of national parliaments in EU matters
Knutelská, Viera ; Plechanovová, Běla (advisor) ; Karlas, Jan (referee) ; Braun, Mats Rickard (referee)
This dissertation deals with institutional aspects of the democratic deficit of the European Union, particularly the powers of national parliaments and their capabilities to influence decision-making at the European level. The national parliaments' role in European integration became an interesting research area thanks to their greater involvement in the EU affairs in the last twenty years. However, because of the many developments of the European integration in the last twenty years (including both deepening and broadening of integration), many questions remain open. These include involvement of national parliaments both on European level and on national level; for obvious reasons, the latter has been studied less regarding the parliaments of the Member States that joined the Union in 2004 and 2007. While this dissertation deals with some aspects of the work of national parliaments of all Member States, more detailed studies are devoted to the cases of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. This dissertation poses questions in the three main areas of research that are all devoted to some practical aspects of national parliaments' involvement in European affairs. First, it examines the involvement of national parliaments at the European level and whether national parliaments do have the...
|
|
|
Great Britain and the Common Security and Defence Policy of the EU: A neofunctionalist and liberal intergovernmentalist approach
Pfeifer, Tomáš ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Grünvaldová, Tereza (referee)
Velká Británie a společná bezpečnostní a obranná politika EU: Neofunkcionalistický a liberálně mezivládní přístup Abstract Tomáš Pfeifer In December 1998, a significant conference of British and French government officials assembled in the town of St. Malo in France. Their diplomatic efforts resulted in a joint declaration which is commonly regarded as the beginning of the current phase of European cooperation in the field of security and defence policy. In a few months' time, the fundamental architecture of the future European security and defence policy was plotted out, and shortly afterwards, Javier Solana was presented as its new head. It was an remarkable detour from the decades-long period of Cold War stagnation during which European cooperation was carried out mostly by the Western European Union and other more or less formal institutions. This work analyses the problem of joint European security from the viewpoint of the United Kingdom, which is not only one of the ESDP inititators, but also a dominant European military player with a rich and complex foreign policy history and, consequently, a finely structured system of needs and preferences. The British have been traditionally seen as a stumbling block of the EU, as an awkward partner in European integration; what are, then, the reasons that moved...
|
|
|
Council of the EU after Lisbon treaty: changes in gualified majority decision-making and their influence on the positions of member states
Kučera, Václav ; Plechanovová, Běla (advisor) ; Karlas, Jan (referee)
The main aim of this thesis is to analyze the impact of a new system of qualified majority voting under the Lisbon Treaty on the position of member states in the Council. The paper mainly deals with potential transformation of member states weight in the Council. With the help of so-called power indexes, the absolute and relative voting power of member states in the Council will be determined. In the first part of the thesis, qualified majority is introduced also in the historical development, i.e., how its form ranged from the emergence of the European Communities to the present. Emphasis is of course placed on detailed description of the key articles of the Lisbon Treaty, relating to qualified majority voting in the Council. The answer to the question whether the new criteria of qualified majority will mean a different result of the vote in the Council, can be found in the fourth chapter of this thesis. An important element of analysis of qualified majority under the Lisbon Treaty is its comparison with the Nice system in terms of fairness and efficiency. At the conclusion of this thesis, the historical development of the expansion of qualified majority voting in the Council at the expense of unanimity is included. Identification of those states which were most often in the past, when voting by...
|
|
|
The Current Position of the USA in the International System - What Security Policy?
Kudláčková, Iva ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Hynek, Nikola (referee)
This graduate thesis analyzes the security policy of the United States during the previous administration of President George W. Bush and the current administration of President Obama. The first section is devoted to a detailed analysis of the security strategies of both administrations as well as to their practical applications, not only in the field of defense and military, but also in foreign trade and building of alliances and partnerships. Based on this analysis the first part concludes that, although the Obama's security policy is criticized for being just a "Bush lite", it differs clearly in almost all mentioned areas. The thesis identifies, as the most essential, the difference in the overall concept of the security policy, which is multilateral and less militarily engaged at the time of the Obama administration than during the Bush administration which is characterized by unilateral approach with pre-emptive use of force. The second part of this thesis thus builds on these major differences. Based on previous analysis of both policies then generates hypotheses which aim at finding a cause of this change. To test the hypotheses this study makes use of three classical theories of international relations, which include elements that have been previously identified as a possible driving force...
|
guest ::
