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Germany's European policy in the Western Balkans on the example of Croatia's accession to the EU
Radalj, Lovorka ; Handl, Vladimír (advisor) ; Zimmermann, Volker (referee)
The master thesis "Germany's European policy in the Western Balkans on the example of Croatia's accession to the EU" deals with the role of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Europeanisation of the countries of the Western Balkans in order to achieve stability in the region and peaceful resolution of the conflicts. Germany's main objectives in its European Policy in the Western Balkans have been to restore democracy, liberal economic market, rule of law, resolution of the refugee problem, protection of minorities, protection of the human rights and regional cooperation. The stabilisation of the Western Balkan should be achieved by its integration with the West: EU and NATO. Germany is intensively present in the Western Balkans since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Through its active involvement in the crisis of Kosovo, Germany strengthened its leadership role and responsibility within the EU. At the same time it also strengthened its position in the Western Balkans by its political, economic and humanitarian engagement. The focus will be on the description and interpretation of the motives of Germany's involvement in the integration of the Western Balkan in the EU. The aim of the thesis is to interpret the steps Germany took as a strong advocate of the EU- accession by the example of Croatia's...
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Regional Transition - From Conflict to Cooperation
Kuľková, Miroslava ; Ditrych, Ondřej (advisor) ; Karlas, Jan (referee) ; Koschut, Simon (referee)
Doctoral thesis Regional Transition - From Conflict to Cooperation examines the transformation of world regions from non-cooperative to. It brings reconceptualization of the peaceful change, which it understands as a continuum - negative peace, positive peace, and security community. This understanding builds on the existing literature on peaceful change, yet the conceptualization of the stages is innovated. The main goal of this dissertation is to capture the dynamic process of transition from negative to positive peace, and from positive peace to the security community. It uses findings from the literature on peaceful changes and trust-building to build two comprehensive mechanisms of transition that are subsequently traced with the method of process-tracing in two cases of the region for each type of transition. The focus is on the entities and activities producing the qualitative change in the regional relations. For the transition from negative to positive peace, Western Balkans in the period from 1999 to 2011, and Southeast Asia from 1966 to 2003 are chosen. For the transition from positive peace to the security community, Western Europe (1957-2004) and North America (1940s- 2011) are chosen.
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The 2016 Coup d'Etat Attempt in Turkey and its Impact in Kosovo: A look into the Media Discourse Surrounding the 2018 Gulenist Extraditions and the Resulting Turkish-Kosovo Relationship.
Day, Ryan ; Žíla, Ondřej (advisor) ; Hornát, Jan (referee)
The overall purpose of this thesis is three folded; to analyze Turkey's constantly changing influence since the 1990s in the Western Balkans, consider the failed 2016 coup attempt in Turkey and the anti-Gülenist campaign by Erdogan in the region (with Kosovo as the focus), and to delve into the international and local media discourse surrounding the deportations of suspected Gülenist from Kosovo with the help of Turkish intelligence on March 29, 2018. Employing a mixed methodology approach, the author evaluated existing sources in an attempt to answer the research question; "In what ways has the 2016 Coup d'état attempt in Turkey resonated in the Western Balkans, and how did the local and international media discourse portray the 2018 Gülenists extraditions from Kosovo to Turkey?" The research holds that while the media discourse displayed Kosovo and Turkey's actions as being in violation of numerous international laws, the issue was quickly swept away from the spotlight. Since 2012 (the beginning of the Erdogan-Gülen rift) and especially following the 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey, Erdogan has been emboldened by his growing personal relationships with key Balkan politicians. This has led to continued demands (thus far met with little success) that Western Balkan states arrest and deport...
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Komparace investiční atraktivnosti zemí západního Balkánu
Lepková, Tereza
The thesis deals with the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the Western Balkan states with an emphasis on the factors of investment attractiveness, which influence the inflow of FDI. The theoretical part of the thesis defines the basic characteristics of FDI and defines general factors of investment attractiveness based on existing studies and research. In the practical part, the investment environment in the individual countries of the Western Balkans is analyzed. In conclusion, the individual countries are compared according to the representative factors of investment attractiveness.
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Evropská integrace Černé Hory: Ekonomická kritéria
Jetelina, Patrik
This bachelor thesis is dealing with the topic of Montenegro’s preparedness to meet the economic Copenhagen criteria, as one of the key conditions to join the European Union. The thesis finds out that the economic Copenhagen criteria are too general and hard to measure, thus these criteria must be substituted with the category of so called “sub-criteria.” The aim of this thesis is to critically evaluate positive and negative changes in the field of the economic sub-criteria, and to evaluate Montenegro’s economic state for joining the EU ending with the year 2017. To accomplish this goal, the thesis is using the benchmarking method, together with the time-series and structure analysis of the economy. Discussion presents the results of the evaluation and the thesis argues why 2 out of total 11 sub-criteria are problematic: which are the public finances, and human and physical capital and the investments into R&D.
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Member State's positions towards Western Balkans Enlargement
Války, Oliver ; Knutelská, Viera (advisor) ; Jeřábek, Martin (referee)
This thesis studies the positions EU member states take towards the Western Balkan Enlargement. We examine what forms these positions. We examine what influence does the net contribution to the European budget have, net contributors are less likely to support further Enlargement. The levels of migration and the feeling that migration is a concerning issue do not have relevant influence on the popularity of the Enlargement. We found no relevant correlation between the feeling of European citizenship and the support for the EU membership for the Balkan countries. We can, however, see that the New Member States are much more likely to support the EU enlargement than are those who became EU members before 2004. We have chosen four cases for case studies. In the case study of France, we can observe the influence of the French president on the Enlargement process and the resulting reform of its method. In the German case, the position of the political elites is a strong support of the Enlargement, even if the public are not that enthusiastic and have a lot of influence, since the German parliament has to also approve beginning of any accession talks. In the case of Greece, we can see how Greece was able to use its position as an EU member and gain leverage in their dispute with Macedonia over the name of...
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Return Decisions of Highly Skilled Migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina after 2005
Andrlová, Anna ; Žíla, Ondřej (advisor) ; Šístek, František (referee)
Brain drain, or human capital flight, is a phenomenon which represents a society-wide problem in the post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). At present, more than half of the people claiming BiH nationality live abroad, out of which a significant part possesses tertiary education. Loss of human capital carries negative socio-economic consequences which hinder the country's development. On the other hand, brain gain, i.e. return of highly skilled migrants to their country of origin, might reverse some of the unfavourable effects. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of the return of highly skilled migrants remains under researched not only within the region of the Western Balkans, but also on a global scale. Although this type of migration has increasingly attracted the attention of many scholars from various academic and non- academic fields, contemporary literature on this topic suffers from limitations and tends to oversimplify the returnees' motivations to purely economic incentives. This study attempts to describe the complex factors leading the highly skilled migrants to return to BiH. Based on the 33 respondents' subjective preferences from the spheres of career, family and lifestyle, this work provides an insight into the decisions of returnees in the context of the developing Western Balkan country.
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The Limits of the EU's Political Conditionality Approach in the Western Balkans
Křiklánová, Michaela ; Karlas, Jan (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
The thesis aims to unravel the relationship between the EU's enlargement strategies and democratization in the Western Balkan countries by looking on the impact of the strategies on changing democracy levels in two empirical cases: the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia. Over more than a decade, the effect of the conditionality tool on democratization has been curbed by an insufficient emphasis placed on pro-democratic reforms and by the role of security concerns which were often prioritized over aims directly linked to democracy promotion. Grounded in the conflicting objectives theory, the thesis demonstrates that the recently employed strategy appropriately sequencing goals while prioritizing democratic transition over security concerns is more effective in inflicting domestic democratic change. Subsequently, the following necessary and sufficient conditions for a successful sequencing strategy were defined: strong emphasis on democracy-related goals combined with clearly outlined temporal perspective, and corresponding action of international actors.
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European Union as a State-Building Power
Zdrálek, Jan ; Ditrych, Ondřej (advisor) ; Kučerová, Irah (referee)
This thesis concentrates on the role of the European Union as a state-building power. It scrutinizes EU foreign policy in terms of state-building phenomena in three selected areas: Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership, and Southern Neighbourhood. First, it presents the EU as an increasingly powerful international actor and a normative power. Then, it overviews the existing literature on state-building with a special focus on Francis Fukuyama's neoliberal approach and David Chandler's critical remarks. The thesis is methodologically grounded in the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), specifically the four-value fuzzy set QCA, which enables to bridge the quantitative and qualitative approaches. The analysis operates with 23 cases (countries) and five variables in order to assess the EU state-building practices in relation to the targeted states' resilience. Drawing on the moderate generalizations from QCA results, the thesis concludes that the EU is, indeed, a state-building power which strengthens the resilience of states through its state-building practices.
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NATO enlargement to Western Balkans and its strategic importance
Tesařová, Šárka ; Karásek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Karmazin, Aleš (referee)
This Bachelor thesis deals with the analysis of the development of the integration of Albania and Croatia into NATO structures. The first part describes the NATO open door policy along with the accession criteria and accession process. The key part is the analysis of whether and how the candidate states have fulfilled the established accession criteria based on the criteria of the NATO Enlargement Study, focusing in particular on selected factors - national political situation, public opinion, defence expenditure, professionalism, interoperability, diplomatic relations and cooperation with NATO, involvement in missions and relations with neighbouring states. It also examines the strategic interests of NATO in the Western Balkan region, and NATO may have been motivated by an attempt to strengthen its position in the Balkans. The outcome of the thesis is the assessment of the preparedness of the individual candidate states, where neither Albania nor Croatia fully met the accession criteria and the final decision of NATO was therefore more based on political judgment and strategy in the Balkans.
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