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European Union and FRONTEX: A Civil-Security Relations Analysis
Netopil, Petr ; Kučera, Tomáš (advisor) ; Karásek, Tomáš (referee)
This research focuses on the Civil-Security Relations between the EU and its border agency, FRONTEX. Relationships between the state and its border guards vary wildly in space and time in terms of the level of militarization, which is why this thesis set out to define the situation of the EU's first uniformed and armed service. A single case study was used, as FRONTEX as a transnational border agency is a deviant case. This research creates a typology of security services within the state and then places FRONTEX within it. In the discussion that follows, the relationship between the EU and FRONTEX seems to be matched best by the relationship between a state and its gendarmerie, though the police force is also very close. Furthermore, there are exceptions where the agency behaves more like an army or a civilian service. In terms of real-world analogues, it tracks most closely with the relationships between Latvia, Finland, and their respective border guards.
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Frontex: A Gendarmerie of the EU or just a Border Assistance?
Netopil, Petr ; Kučera, Tomáš (advisor) ; Bahenský, Vojtěch (referee)
This research focuses on the Civil-Security Relations between the EU and its border agency, FRONTEX. Relationships between the state and its border guards vary wildly in space and time in terms of the level of militarization, which is why this thesis set out to define the situation of the EU's first uniformed and armed service. A single case study was used, as FRONTEX as a transnational border agency is a deviant case. This research creates a typology of security services within the state and then places FRONTEX within it. In the discussion that follows, the relationship between the EU and FRONTEX seems to be matched best by the relationship between a state and its gendarmerie, though the police force is also very close. Furthermore, there are exceptions where the agency behaves more like an army or a civilian service. In terms of real-world analogues, it tracks most closely the relationships between the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and their respective border guards.
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(Gender-Neutral) Conscription in the Nordic Countries' Armed Forces
Šťastníková, Štěpánka ; Plechanovová, Běla (advisor) ; Ludvík, Jan (referee)
While conscription has been experiencing a modest, albeit notable comeback in the past decade, the emergence of its gender-neutral variant is largely overlooked. Through a comparative case study of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, this thesis explores the reasons that led to or hindered the introduction of gender-neutral conscription in the three Nordic countries. Given the countries' similarities in many areas, the thesis aims to explain why Norway and Sweden introduced gender-neutral conscription, whereas Finland retained conscription only for men. To do that, the three cases are analysed using an original framework based on the surveyed literature, which features the following factors: national security situation, role and character of conscription, its legitimisation, integration of women into the military and thematization of gender equality in the military. On the one hand, the analysis identifies common patterns in the cases of Norway and Sweden across most of the factors. In the two countries, the security situation was perceived to be relatively favourable, conscription was used as a tool for the recruitment of future active-duty soldiers and thus the practice was considerably selective, conscription was reformulated to address changing circumstances, women were integrated into the military...
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The power of the General: Which factors influence the level of authoritarianism in the Southern African context?
Wordsworth, Ronan Peter ; Riegl, Martin (advisor) ; Doboš, Bohumil (referee)
1 Abstract This paper sets out to answer the central question on the causes of authoritarianism within the regional context of Southern Africa. The hypothesises of the article are that there are several factors that contribute to authoritarian levels within the South African Development Community (SADC). The research aims to adequately define the concept of authoritarianism, and then investigate the relationship between authoritarianism and five different indicators. The links are explored for level of authoritarianism against the level of military expenditure of the government, the threat perception of the government, whether there is a single dominant-party system of government, whether the country has a history of coup d'états, and finally, the dominant party in the civil-military relations. This leads to an investigation into the role that the military plays within authoritarian regimes, and which factors lead to increased authoritarianism. Due to the unique post-colonial context whereby many liberation movements and fighters were then installed as leaders of the country, there is a 'special relationship' between many leaders in the Southern African Development Community and the respective military and defence leadership and this paper will seek to explore these links. It is hypothesised that...
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Military coup as a distinctive feature of Turkish military, the changing civil-military relations, and the current position of the Turkish army
Tkadlečková, Daniela ; Kučera, Tomáš (advisor) ; Záhora, Jakub (referee)
The July military coup attempt in 2016 forced the Turkish nation to decide, whether it would follow examples of Republic's past and support the coup, or whether it would turn away from the army, thus giving up on the traditional perception of the army as a guardian of secularism and values on which Atatürk built the Republic. This work analyses how the Turkish civil-military relations changed, what factors influenced this change and how the Turkish society currently perceives the army. The research focused on four interventions staged by the army in the 20th century, as well as on the July coup attempt. Military coup is understood as a specific feature of the Turkish army and it is examined based on the theory of praetorianism; the coups in Turkey are then being presented as interventions, that were repeated not only based on army's determination to protect stability and the Republic as such, but also based on the nation's acceptance of the interventions which did perceive the army as a last resort. Furthermore, the work presents reasons, which played a crucial role in the transformation of civil-military relations in the beginning of 21st century, and it compares, how the perception of army by the Turkish nation was changing before and after the July coup attempt.
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Comparative Study between the 2016 Failed Military Coup and Previous Successful Coups in Turkey
Safarli, Adil ; Kučera, Tomáš (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
The 2016 Turkish failed coup attempt was a striking political event of the year. Although Turkey is a country with a long history of successful military intervention and deep-rooted coup culture, the coup organizers could not achieve the desired outcome in 2016. The coups of 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997 have resulted in the government's change where the military played an important role by influencing the political sphere. However, the result was different in the coup attempt carried out on 15 July 2016. As the President, a large segment of military, political parties and a significant part of the society had an anti-coup attitude and stood up against the military coup. For this reason, the thesis attempts to compare the 2016 Turkish failed coup with the previous successful coups of 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997's in Turkey. The comparison is based on the hypotheses built on four civil-military relation theories and concepts: Military Professionalism, Civilian Supremacy, Social Cohesion and Public Institutionalism. According to the analyses, the findings indicate that the theories of Civilian Supremacy and Public Institutionalism better explain the failure of 2016 and the success of the previous coups than other theories.
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Military Conscription in contemporary Europe - how and why states still use it?
Hoppe, Dominik ; Kučera, Tomáš (advisor) ; Ludvík, Jan (referee)
This thesis addresses issues regarding military conscription within the European geographic area. It reflects lengthy and complicated evolution of military conscription, as well as its use case and eventual suspension or abolishment as a military recruitment tool in a post- Cold war Europe up until this day. Thesis also addresses academic and non-academic debate related to conscription and its development, typology, use-cases while it tries to uncover and summarize principal reasons, why was the concept of military conscription abandoned. Furthermore, it tries to evaluate those reasons against the current state of security environment in Europe, compare them and based on that, answer the question whether the relevance of those reasons is still valid or not. Especially in relation to the fact, that some of the countries that abolished conscription in the past, are bringing it back in form of mandatory military or civilian service, contrary to above mentioned reasons. Thesis comes to conclusion, that the relevancy of the issues with conscription from the past are less relevant in current European security environment.
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Examining the Growth of Private Military Contractors and their Applications in State Stability in Latin America
Austman, Connor ; Kučera, Tomáš (advisor) ; Bureš, Oldřich (referee)
Private military companies have rapidly filled in many operational force capacities that national militaries now longer have the capabilities to fill natively. As such, PMCs have expanded their rosters as well as their services provided to fill in many roles, and have carried out many such roles such as logistics management, personal and site security, and some inherently state functions such as training indigenous security forces and interrogation of prisoners. This rise has impacted national militaries in many facets of their operations and abstract professional bases. The ability of the PMC to carry out operations at the same standard as regular soldiers but with higher pay has impacted how the regular soldier views their own place in the professional national military, and creates problems for the establishment as a whole. This thesis will discuss the Iraq War as a case study and the impact of PMCs on the war, as well as introduce the Huntingtonian theories of soldier professionalism and corporateness, and will also employ a critical Marxist perspective to analyse the role and impact of PMCs in the modern military convention and in civil-military relations.
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