|
|
Responsibility for the United Nations peacekeeping operations.
Jarkovská, Michaela ; Bílková, Veronika (advisor) ; Balaš, Vladimír (referee)
Summary: Responsibility for the United Nations peacekeeping operations The purpose of this thesis is to analyze an issue whether the United Nations (UN) or troop contributing countries are responsible for the conduct of military contingents in the UN peacekeeping operations. The thesis focuses solely on UN-led operations and on peacekeeping forces - military troops contributed by member states in whole contingents, rather than as individuals. The reason for focusing on peacekeeping forces is their unique hybrid legal status. While they remain in the service of their states, they become for the period of their assignment international personnel under the authority of the UN. This thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter one describes the meaning and the legal basis of peacekeeping operations and defines which types of operation are subject of the thesis. Second chapter deals with general rules governing international responsibility of states. Chapter three examines legal personality and responsibility of international organizations, in particular the UN. These two issues are closely related because for an entity to bear international obligations, it must first be established that the entity is a legal person. The fourth and crucial chapter addresses the specific issue of responsibility for a conduct of...
|
|
|
The President of the Czech Republic
Herc, Tomáš ; Pavlíček, Václav (advisor) ; Jirásková, Věra (referee) ; Jičínský, Zdeněk (referee)
In terms of government structure, the constitutional system of the Czech Republic is based on the principles of the parliamentary form of government. That means executive powers are vested in the Government (Council of Ministers), which is accountable to the Parliament through the vote of confidence. The Head of State as a pouvoir neutre plays usually a representative and integrating role in this system. On the contrary the President lacks the political accountability and the Parliament (or another voting body) does not have any direct way of holding him accountable for his action. Except for high treason he also cannot be prosecuted for his actions during his term. The Government therefore usually influences the exercise of his powers by countersigning his acts or decisions. Nevertheless, the role of the Czech President within the constitutional system is not only ceremonial; through his powers he can also actively participate in the adoption of political decisions. He can even exercise some of his expressly granted powers not subject to approval of the Government or any other constitutional body. But is such extent of powers compatible with the fact of his non-accountability? The public debate about these issues has been arising repeatedly since the adoption of the Czech Constitution without...
|
|
|
The central bank, its legal status and scope of activities
Blažková, Jana ; Kotáb, Petr (advisor) ; Kohajda, Michael (referee)
The Central Bank, its Legal Status and Scope of Activities Central banks are very powerful institution and central banking is a very complex discipline. Monetary policy, the most important activity of central banking, has become the key instrument of macroeconomic stabilisation. The aim of my paper has been to analyse all the areas of central banks' operations, aiming especially at monetary policy and its instruments, and also to tackle the recently emerged doubts about what the main objective of central banks should be. I also provide a review and an analysis of the current legal status of the Czech National Bank from the independence and accountability point of view. The first chapter of my work is dedicated to the history of central banking. Second chapter examines the individual functions that central banks carry out, with third chapter analysing the most important of them, the monetary policy. The last chapter is dedicated to the Czech National Bank (CNB) and is subdivided into four parts: the first one is outlining the history of CNB, the second one gives us the detailed overview of the individual functions of CNB, its main target and instruments CNB uses to reach the target. The third one is devoted to CNB relations with European Union and the fourth part focuses on the legal status of CNB...
|
|
|
Accountability of international NGOs
Staša, Michal ; Skovajsa, Marek (advisor) ; Muhič Dizdarevič, Selma (referee)
Diploma thesis concerns two current issues filling scholarly magazines in recent years. The first one is a discourse about the global civil society, its existence, definition and scope. Thesis maps the basic approaches and creates three groups of authors: globalists, skeptics and empiricists. The second issue is about the need of better accountability which arises after few scandals of global institutions in the early years of new century. The scandals didn't avoid the international non-governmental organizations. The diploma thesis summarizes few types of typologies of accountability and introduces the basic areas divided into the two groups: moral and political accountability and procedural and internal accountability. The research part of thesis comprises the accountability assessment of three branches of international non-governmental organizations: Amnesty International, Greenpeace and Hnutí DUHA - The Friends of the Earth. The goal was to find the appropriate methodology for assessing the national branches and verify it. The main result is the modification of an existing methodology of One World Trust organization and the finding that the organizations have the low rate of accountability.
|
|
|
The impact of IMF financial aid on economic growth and inflation
Covalenco, Valeri ; Horváth, Roman (advisor) ; Mejstřík, Michal (referee)
The International Monetary Fund was created to promote financial stability, global monetary cooperation, high employment, international trade and sustainable economic growth. Together with the World Bank, IMF has a "monopoly" on offering loan programs for countries in deep crises or for development projects. In this thesis, we examine the effect of IMF, i.e. loan size and quotas, on the economic growth and inflation rate, by applying a dynamic panel regression on our dataset. In addition, we look at how the IMF Quotas influence the size of the loans. Our empirical results display significant evidence that IMF loans influence the GDP growth in a positive manner, in the medium term. Both Control of Corruption and Voice & Accountability have a negative influence on the economic growth. In other words, less corruption and stronger civil rights will halt the growth level of the economy. We also determined that IMF Quotas is not a robust indicator of the loan size. It is only driven by the past loan levels. Regarding Inflation determinants, IMF loans are not affecting the Inflation in a significant manner, while FDI and Control of Corruption - do. FDI exercises a positive influence on the CPI, while perception of less corruption has a negative effect on Inflation rate. JEL Classification D73, E31, F12,...
|
|
|
The Proposal for Changes of Organization Rules of Backer Elektro CZ Corp.
Plíšková, Pavla ; Tvrdíková, Hana (referee) ; Němeček, Petr (advisor)
Bachelor´s thesis analyses the present state of the organization rules of Backer Elektro CZ Corp. It specializes chiefly in organization structure. It describes the structure and refers to determinate deficiencies. It includes proposals of possible solutions of identified problems which should resoult in the improvement of cooperation and cost reduction of the company in future years. Main objektive is more effective organization of manpower.
|
|
|
Rent-seeking in public procurement: evidence from the entry of political challengers at electoral thresholds
Palguta, Ján
This paper shows that political challengers affect rent-seeking in public procurement. I use data from municipal governments in the Czech Republic to construct new measures of political rent-seeking in procurement and test whether the entry of additional challengers into municipal legislatures affects the rent-seeking practices. Because the entry of challengers is endogenous to the performance of incumbents, I predict the challenger entry using quasi-random variation in the vote share of challengers near the threshold in proportional elections. I show that legislatures with additional challengers allocate fewer procurements to political donors, double price savings in procurement and use more competitive procurement auctions. The entry of extra challengers leads to greater economic benefits in legislatures with fewer political parties and in legislatures entered by local-level political movements. My findings highlight the role of local-level movements in enhancing political accountability and the value of monitoring the behavior of politicians.
|
|
|
INGOs and the concept of good governance: the case of Amnesty International
Zlotos, David ; Dvořáková, Vladimíra (advisor) ; Vymětal, Petr (referee)
In this paper, Jürgen Habermas' account on 'The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere' will be set into relation with the emergence of INGOs as actors in the public sphere. The emergence of NGOs, and later INGOs, can be closely linked to the transformation of the public sphere as described by Habermas. An account from the early beginnings of non-governmental associations to the institutionalized status of INGOs following the establishment of the UN aims to describe the roots and roles of such organizations as actors within the public sphere more precisely. The concept of 'good governance' will be related to the commitments of the INGO Accountability Charter of which Amnesty International (AI) is a signatory. The case of AI will then be used as an example to apply the insights gained from the theoretical perspectives explored before. The question of whether AI is successful in its application of good governance relies on the definition of 'successful'. In this paper, the definition is given by Habermas' definition of the actorness in the transformed public sphere and the fulfilment of the commitments to the INGO Accountability Charter. Identifying AI as an actor in the public sphere provides the ground on which the development and controversies surrounding this INGO will be analyzed. Understanding the role AI aspires to play is an important factor. In this context, the controversies AI has faced in the public eye become a starting point into the inquiry of what role good governance plays in AI's communicative efforts. These, in turn, are a key to the organization's attempts to counterbalance negative perceptions and to maintain its position as a successful communicative actor. The end will be formed by conclusions given on the analysis of AI's employment of good governance in transformed, transnational civil society. Points for future research will be indicated if applicable.
|
|
|
Failure of humanitarian assistance - a case study of Haiti
Hudáková, Miriama ; Zemanová, Štěpánka (advisor) ; Knotková, Vladimíra (referee)
This thesis is dealing with one of the little explored spheres of international relations - humanitarian aid. The paper specifically devotes its failure in three main areas, namely the media, accountability and management of resources and aid dependency syndrome. Its aim is to analyze the possibility of eliminating these errors in the case of Haiti given that these failures were repeated throughout history of humanitarianism. In the present study I also include steps that in the future may contribute to more effective and transparent humanitarian assistance.
|
|
|
The relationship of independence and accountability of central banks on the example of the CNB and the FED
Johnová, Dana ; Ševčík, Miroslav (advisor) ; Řežábek, Pavel (referee)
The aim of this thesis is an analysis of the development and changes in the relationship of political and economic independence and accountability of central banks on the example of CNB and FED. I use the method of comparative analysis of the qualitative characteristics of central banks. The theoretical and methodological part is focused on the historical evolution of central banking, as well as on the relationship between central bank independence and its accountability, credibility and transparency. The next section is devoted to analyzing the benefits and the risks of an independent status. The largest chapter deals with the ways of measuring the legal and the actual independence of central banks, the calculation of legal independence from the selected indices are applied to the CNB. Finally I make an evaluation of degree of independence of the CNB and FED and I try to explain what degree of independence and accountability is optimal.
|
guest ::
