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Reception of Strategic Economic Narratives: Case Study of the Kenyan News Discourse.
Řehák, Vilém ; Kučerová, Irah (advisor) ; Horáková, Hana (referee) ; Záhořík, Jan (referee)
Strategic narrative is a communicative tool for political elites to construct a shared meaning to the international politics, to articulate state's interests, to change the discursive environment, and to shape the behaviour of other actors. It has three different dynamics, which proceed simultaneously and reinforce each other: formation of the narrative within the given state, its projection in the international arena, and its reception in other states. Theory of strategic narratives fits well into the framework of new regionalism, which tries to analyse relations between the processes of globalization, globalism, regionalization, and regionalism. Until recently, such analyses were conducted from state-level and positivist perspective. As a result, the dimension of reception remained understudied. The presented thesis is an attempt to fill this gap. It analyses global political economy from the interpretivist constructivist perspective: it uses the leading local newspaper as a data sources and analyses media (news) discourse as one form of a broad societal discourse. Such an analysis can help us to analyse how local society assesses and reacts to strategic narratives and their internalization or rejection by local elites. In my thesis, I focus on narratives of the three superpowers (the US, the EU,...
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The Barcelona Process within the External Relations of the European Union (The Contribution of Spain)
Bocianová, Kateřina ; Kučerová, Irah (advisor) ; Abrhám, Josef (referee)
The Barcelona Process represents the European Union's effort to define complex and coherent strategy towards the countries of the Mediterranean region. Mutual relations have been gradually developed from the 1960s; nevertheless only particular initiatives were undertaken with the aim to deal with the specific aspects of the relations. With regard to the development of the European Communities and considering events on the international scene it was necessary to define more complex strategy that would comprise not only economic aspects but also political, security, social and cultural aspects. The introduction of the thesis addresses to defining and arrangement of the external relations of the European Communities/European Union. Then it deals with the development of mutual relations until 1995 according to every decade, in which there are mentioned and described initiatives and activities of EC/EU in the Mediterranean region as well as events on the international scene that had significant impact on the shaping of the agenda. Year 1995 represents a break-through because of the fact that during the first Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held in Barcelona on 27 - 28 November 1995, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was created and we are talking about the starting point of the...
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International Monetary Fund: Trends in the Scope of Activity in 1989-2014
Szabo, Jakub ; Parízek, Michal (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
The main goal of this bachelor thesis is to evaluate possible ideological changes inside the IMF in the time period from 1989 to 2014. This goal is achieved by examining annual reports published by the IMF, with attention on the most important tools of the IMF. Issues discussed through the IMF's surveillance and conditionality are the main indicator of possible reforms and changes. Based on the existent literature and example of the reform of the World Bank four hypotheses are formulated. Those hypotheses are dedicated to monitoring changes in perceived importance of welfare state, small government, good governance and fiscal policy. Firstly, current literature is presented with definition of the main concepts used in this thesis. Secondly, important tools of the IMF are described. Thirdly, collected data is described and this thesis concludes with data evaluation. With application of the methods of descriptive statistics and content analysis this thesis concludes with statement, that important shift from emphasis on weak state to strong state occurred and good governance became important theme of IMF's interest. However importance of the theme fiscal policy persisted.
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Between Power and Perception: Analyzing China's Influence in International Relations
Karásková, Ivana ; Kučerová, Irah (advisor) ; Stuchlíková, Zuzana (referee) ; Harnisch, Sebastian (referee)
The doctoral thesis focuses on the People's Republic of China's influence in international relations. It follows two main research objectives, a theoretical and an empirical one. The first goal is to more firmly establish the concept of influence and distinguish it from power, the second is to analyze China's influence in the Czech Republic before, during and after the 'restart' of Czech-China relations in 2012. The thesis rests on the idea of a conceptual 'filter' through which power (conceptualized as ability) passes on its way to becoming influence. As a result, the effects of policies implemented by an actor who aims to exert a power on another actor are co-dependent not only on its power, but also the perception of the actor which is being influenced. The thesis claims that in case of a significant distance (defined geographically or otherwise) between 'the sender' and 'the receiver', perception matters more as it has greater ability to amplify or decrease the effects of the sender's power - i.e. the influence. The latter objective aims at explaining the methods the People's Republic of China uses to impose its interests on others and the receivers' reactions to such efforts. The thesis uses a case study of the Czech Republic as a country where China's influence is just getting established and...
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International Trade Liberalization in the European Union Development Policy
Foitová, Lucie ; Kučerová, Irah (advisor) ; NÁHRADNÍ, OPONENT (referee)
Diploma thesis' ultimate objective is to assess the role of International Trade Liberalization in the European Union Development Policy and to put the EU's activities in this field within the global framework of world trade in the context of the WTO. European Union within its budget and the European Development Fund provide more than half of all global funds for world development assistance and is thus the world leader. Its main objective is the gradual integration of developing countries into the world economy, promoting sustainable development and especially poverty eradication. The thesis is on a number of examples confirming the absence of general consensus on the benefits of liberalization of world trade not only for developing countries, but also in general. It cites numerous studies highlighting the growing concern of poor countries about the impact of continued trade liberalization, resulting in a dramatic increase in imported agricultural and food products, which the developing countries cannot compete. The thesis is in its conclusions commenting on realistic voices within the EU leadership, taking into account concerns of developing countries about the rapid and complete liberalization of trade as legitimate. EU is the largest commercial and development partner in the world and therefore must take...
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Economic Diplomacy in the 21st Century
Sláma, Tomáš ; Plechanovová, Běla (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
This study examines the changing nature of the economic diplomacy in past and recent years. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been an important dynamics in the international relations. The consequences of this dynamics touch also the economic diplomacy, which is transformed by the effects of the economic globalisation and becomes more complex and important at the same time; it becomes one of the most influental instruments of state's foreign policy. The growing complexity means that there has been new players, issues and arenas emerged. New players, state and non-state; the latter have deep impact on the nature of economic diplomacy. Bussiness sector, represented mostly by transnational companies (TNCs) and "the global civil society" represented vy international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) shift the balance of power within the state. The central role of state is challenged and his power fragmentised. Except this horisontal widening of economic diplomacy yb growing numbers of its actors, it is also deepening in terms of its agenda. The national policies become internationalised or even globalised (services, investment, enviroment, customer protection, labour standards) and the regulation of international trade puts pressure on national governements to to reconsider the strategy and their...
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Brain Drain: Hindering Development of Lesser Developed Nations?
Galeano, Mario ; Parízek, Michal (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
Mario Galeano Thesis- Migration and Remittances: Hindering the Development of Lesser Developed Nations? International Economic and Political Studies Supervisor: Mgr Michal Parizek Abstract As migration has become recently one of the highlights for studies in sociology and economics and is becoming ever more apparent in the political discourse world-wide, the objective of this study is to widen our understanding of its effects on culture, politics, economy and development, particularly in Latin and Central America. It can be considered that the accelerated migration after the fall of Communism will not be slowing down, as economic inequalities within nations keep putting pressure on populations and as the levels of globalization open-up new spaces into which the former primary pressure for migration can be absorbed. An interaction of these two factors thus propels both the supply and the demand for migration. This thesis seeks to understand both sides of the migration phenomenon and investigate to what extent migration is hindering the development of Latin American nations that fall under the attraction of some more developed world powers and which subsequently lose the status of a self-sustaining economy. The study analyzes the case of migration of Central American workers primarily to the United States,...
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Selected Geopolitical Aspects of the EU's Energy Security
Lang, Petr ; Romancov, Michael (advisor) ; Landovský, Jakub (referee) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
This thesis deals with the geopolitical aspects resulting from the increasing EU dependence on natural gas imports from the external suppliers. In addition to the investigation into he current situation of the EU market with natural gas, nature of major suppliers is explored, the thesis tries to identify the main risks to the security of supplies, especially the possibility of politically motivated supply disruption. From a broader perspective, it scrutinizes whether the natural gas market is driven by the market-based principles and regulated by international organizations (Market and Institutions scenario) or the bilateral relations between producer and consumer are the decisive factor (Regions and Empires scenario). Furthermore, the analysis of relevant documents issued by the EU institutions is also included and the thesis aims to assess the feasibility of the single 2 European external energy policy. Finally, the thesis includes two case-studies: the first one is dealing with energy relations between Russia and Belarus and Ukraine. The second one is dedicated to the Nord Stream gas pipeline project.
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Deconstruction of interdependence between the pro-export segment of Russian energy and raw material insufficiency of European market - Case study on the relationship of Russia's energy policy to their own role in the natural gas market
Růžička, Jan ; Střítecký, Vít (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
The author of the diploma thesis focuses on the securitization of a portfolio of energy importing strategic raw commodity of natural gas from Russia and CIS countries to the European consumer market (in the context of the Common Market of the European Union). Because this import is by part of European market agents perceived as a potential geopolitical instrument of the Russian Federation, they securitize interdependent trade and economic relationship and shape it to the form of political and economic threat. But the question is how much this form of securitization is an appropriate form of reaction. Under such thesis, the author focuses primarily on the analysis of approaches to securitization of the individual actors (EU, Russia, transit actors - states and corporations as well as key companies operating across whole network), and analyze their validity and logic. The second section of the thesis is the prediction of possible scenarios for European energy security in terms of its raw material inadequacy in the segment of natural gas. The prediction is done through a model of future development of natural gas segment including the possible development of the Russian energy sector as such.
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