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The Impact of the EU Accession Process in Shaping Democratization: The case of Albania
Bruci, Ergys ; Pikal, Kamil (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
The accession process of Albania into the European Union is defined by the gradual fulfilling of the Copenhagen criteria. With the aim of promoting democratization reforms in candidate countries and improvement in the Copenhagen political criteria, the European Union has exerted pressure into domestic political structures in Albania through a series of Europeanization Mechanisms. This dissertation uses qualitative analysis to examine the impact of the Europeanization Mechanisms in the democratization process of Albania after the signing of the Stabilization and Association agreement. The theoretical domain of the research falls within Europeanization and Quality Democracy theory. The data gathered in the form of document analysis and interviews serve to test the hypothesis of the direct relationship of Europeanization an input in democratization in the case of Albania. The results suggest that both the conception and practical application of the Europeanization mechanisms with regards to the democratization process are faced with a series of challenges. Democratization is a process that combines structures, policies, and norms. In their current formulation, Europeanization mechanisms are able to affect only the first two. In terms of practical application, extreme polarization of Albania's...
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PAX and 'Patriotic Priests' in years 1945-1956
Kryšpínová, Tereza ; Kubát, Michal (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with movements of "progressive priests" where Catholic Priests and Laics participated and which existed in some satellite states of the Soviet Union. It describes this phenomenon on example of Association PAX and so called "Patriotic Priests" - two Polish Catholic movements in 1945-1956. The work shows both groups in a context of state-church relationship and describes some reasons why these kinds of movements came into existence. First part compares situation of Catholic Church in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Central European countries, which belonged to what is called Eastern Bloc and most of their citizens were Roman Catholics. It also refers to an existence of movements similar to "Patriotic Priests" in Czechoslovakia and Hungary and describes reasons why there was such a similarity in state politics against Church in all these countries. Next chapter analyses two particular examples of catholic movement, which promoted an ideology based on conjunctions of Catholicism and Communism. First of them is a group called "Patriotic Priests". At the beginning it was a society of priests who helped the Polish resistance in the Second World War, but it changed to a movement which organized all collaborating priests. It should have separated leaders of Polish Church who...
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The "Non-citizen" Issue in Latvia during the EU Accession Process
Kofránková, Alžběta ; Švec, Luboš (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to examine the attitude of the European Union to the non- citizen issue in Latvia during the accession talks and its impact on legislative changes in Latvia in this area. The thesis asks such questions as whether Latvia has fulfilled all formal and informal criteria of the accession to the European Union concerning non-citizens and whether the recommendations that were part of the European Commission's regular reports were effective. Further I would like to answer the question how important the other two international bodies were, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe, and to what extent the European Union was dependent on their recommendations. Using primary and secondary sources, I will try to show that the main aim of the reports was to improve the situation of non-citizens in Latvia, bringing in the standards of the European Union. Becoming a member of the European Union, Latvia has theoretically fulfilled the required conditions; the question is what the situation has been like in practice.
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Polish-Hungarian Friendship in the Contemporary Polish Press
Apolenář, Jaroslav ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Irmanová, Eva (referee)
The bachelor thesis Polish-Hungarian Friendship in the Contemporary Polish Press deals with the Polish-Hungarian friendship, the phenomenon of traditionally good mutual relations between the two nations, in selected Polish press periodicals (Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Rzeczpospolita and Wprost). Firstly, the phenomenon of the Polish-Hungarian friendship and the relevant situation concerning the contemporary Polish press (especially the ideological and ownership factors) are introduced. Consequently, word frequency analyses and qualitative content analyses of the corpora comprising of articles concerning the Hungarian and Polish- Hungarian history and the peak of financial crisis in Hungary in 2008 are conducted; the individual periodicals are analysed, as well as the groups of titles (liberal and conservative) and all the periodicals as a whole. Lastly, a synthesis of the analyses' results is conducted and the research question, whether any signs of the Polish-Hungarian friendship can really be found in the Polish press and whether they are more significant in the conservative group of periodicals, is answered.
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The Soviet Annexation and Occupation of Estonia
Svobodná, Šárka ; Švec, Luboš (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
SVOBODNÁ, Šárka. Sovětská anexe a okupace Estonska. Praha, 2011. 59 s. Bakalářská práce (Bc.) Univerzita Karlova, Fakulta sociálních věd, Institut mezinárodních studií. Vedoucí bakalářské práce Doc. PhDr. Luboš Švec, CSc. Abstract The thesis The Soviet Annexation and Occupation of Estonia discusses different understanding and explanations of events, which are connected with Estonian loss of sovereignty in 1940 and after. The thesis aims to show, how differently the two once "fraternised" nations may regard their common history and how a burden of different apprehension of history still influences their relations today. The thesis does not intend only to describe the events, but merely to point out the differences of interpretations in works already written, concerning backgrounds of their origin. The first part focuses on analysis of Soviet, Estonian, and contemporary Russian authors. The next part is dedicated to collective memory and to specificities of Estonian and Soviet/Russian interpretation of the events. In the Estonian case, idealisation of national heroes is emphasised, in the Soviet/Russian case is examined the way of its development. At the end a particular example of conflict between two interpretations is presented: clashes between Estonians and Estonian Russians because of meaning of the...
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Cultural Policy of the United States and the USSR after World War II.
Vorlová, Tereza ; Reiman, Michal (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
After the Second World War the United States and the Soviet Union started off with almost opposite models of cultural policy, eight years later in the midst of Cold War their cultural policies were as close as they ever would get. Cultural policy had changed; this thesis analyzed the quality and direction of this change. In the Soviet Union the post-war ideological campaigns have changed the nature of Soviet cultural policy in the sense that punishment was no longer lethal. The purpose of these campaigns had become redefining what Soviet culture should look like. This policy, however, was not practical, but rather rhetorical. The ultimate goal was not to affect culture, but rather to demonstrate what it should and should not look like. Cultural policy proper was overshadowed completely by cultural policy as display. In the United States the House Un-American Activities Committee attacked the most prominent and loud center of American culture - Hollywood. In this case again, the purpose of this policy has not been to exert actual influence on culture, but rather to insist, that there are parts of culture that can be "un-American". In the American case this policy was even more "as display" than in the Soviet Union, simply because the HUAC could not be the source of actual restrictive cultural policy. Overall...
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A Holistic analysis of polish return migration programs
Chlebek, Claudia Maria ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Filipová, Lucie (referee)
In this dissertation, the effectiveness of three Polish return migration programs will be analysed against a combination of return migration theories and economic channels. It will examine the motivations behind their conception, and the services, grants or initiatives implemented with the aim of addressing the needs of new and existing migrants, improving communication channels, and most importantly, developing the environment, means and incentives that will attract migrants to return to their homeland. Any failures to properly identify and address the needs, desires and aspirations of migrants with the structure of the return migration programs greatly delimit the success of the respective program through lesser participation and diminished societal impact.
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Making moments of history : how the comparison between the 1953 uprising and the 1989 revolution is contributing to a new German story
Boniface, Donna ; Smetana, Vít (advisor) ; Vykoukal, Jiří (referee)
Since reunifying in 1990, Germany has been working to develop an identity that represents the people of the two former German states. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the country still faced unique challenges as it reconciles the stories of the former capitalist and communist states. First, this study investigates the role of nation-building historical narratives and how they developed in the German context. Then it looks at the introduction of the East German uprising of 1953 into the national history of unified Germany and how this event has been used to shape the narrative around the 1989 revolution. Finally, it reflects on the significance of such a comparison for the historiography of the events.
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The Relations between the Polish United Workers' Party and the French Communist Party in 1956
Kůželová, Michaela ; Vykoukal, Jiří (advisor) ; Perottino, Michel (referee)
The master thesis -The Relations between the Polish United Workers' Party and the French Communist Party in 1956‖ deals with the relations between the Central European Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and the West European French Communist Party (PCF) in the crisis year of 1956. Analysing their mutual relations in 1956 is not only interesting from the point of view of East- West connections, but chiefly of the different approaches to Khrushchev's policy of destalinisation. Whereas the PCF was more or less under the Stalinist Maurice Thorez's control, which prevented Khrushchev's French supporters from influencing their party's politics, in case of the PZPR, the death of Bolesław Bierut in March 1956 made room for larger variety of opinions within the party. This master thesis describes not only the situation of both parties in 1956. It also analyses the images that the parties made about each other and the ways in which these images were spread and how they influenced the relations between them. The striking difference laid in the approach to the destalinisation. The parties perceived differently Khrushchev's -secret speech‖. The PCF leadership firstly denied its existence and later on claimed they did not know about it. The PZPR leadership decided to distribute the copies of the secret speech...
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