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Challenging Hegemony: Coercion, Repression and Protest in Liberal Democracies.
Čapinská, Barbora ; Kýrová, Lucie (advisor) ; Gagnon, Jean-Paul (referee) ; Wahlström, Mattias (referee)
Barbora Čapinská Abstract for dissertation thesis Challenging hegemony: coercion, repression, and protest in liberal democracies Year of defence: 2022 Abstract: This dissertation project identifies and classifies the types of coercive and repressive methods liberal democratic states use to prevent, resist, or suppress protest via analysis of secondary literature from several disparate academic fields. Despite the substantial fragmentation of the relevant research, it systematizes and clarifies the terminology used to describe these phenomena and combines the extant findings from all relevant research strands. Above all, the project stresses the fact that repressions are employed in response to a threat posed by the challengers, but the degree of this threat, or respectively legitimacy of the protest, is influenced or even constructed by the mass media coverage of protest and social movements. By endorsing a discourse-theoretical prism and the concept of hegemony, a relational definition of state, and a three-dimensional view of power, the author proposes to view protest and repression as a hegemonic struggle, in which protest is a counter-hegemonic discourse and the state an embodiment of hegemony suppressing challenges. To supplement existent typologies, the author introduces the concepts 'institutional...
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NRA and Its Influence on American Politics
Havlíčková, Marta ; Sehnálková, Jana (advisor) ; Čapinská, Barbora (referee)
The topic of this thesis is the National Rifle Association (NRA), an interest group in the USA. The aim of the thesis is to analyze NRA's influence on American politics. To achieve that it describes NRA's membership, organization, public image and financing. It describes NRA's functions and political goals and analyzes the method it uses to achieve them on the U.S. federal level. The thsis concludes that the NRA sees any regulation of the ability to buy, keep and bear arms as a breach of constitutional rights. It states that any further regulation is a step towards the creation of a national arms registry and towards weapons confiscation. It succesfully prevents stricter regulations by efficient voter mobilization, lobbying and financial contributions to election campaigns. Although it claims to be bipartisan, it mainly contributes to Republicans.
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