|
Limits of demokracy
Folková, Zsófia ; Kysela, Jan (advisor) ; Pithart, Petr (referee)
The central themes of the thesis are the limits of democracy, the qualities that distinguish it from other political regimes, the criteria necessary for its existence, and the character of the regimes that arise if one or more of these criteria are not met. The first part of the thesis presents fundamental concepts and theories that deal with these questions, the goal of the second part is to apply these theoretical considerations to a particular case, namely Hungary. The first part focuses primarily on the definition of democracy and non-democracy, on the functioning and characteristics of regimes in the "grey area" between democracy and authoritarianism, on the definitions of relevant terms and on the ways in which various theories of democracy, authoritarianism and hybrid regimes approach these concepts and definitions. The first chapter presents the theories of democracy that are relevant to the discussion about hybrid regimes: the minimalist concept, the procedural minimum and the extended procedural minimum. The second chapter focuses on the definition of the opposite of democracy, the third chapter presents a cognitive-linguistic approach to the links between democracy and authoritarianism. The last two chapters of the first part offer a brief overview of the theories of hybrid regimes and...
|
| |
|
Political Systems of Malaysia and Singapore Through the Prism of Hybrid Regime Theory
Holík, Jiří ; Mlejnek, Josef (advisor) ; Romancov, Michael (referee)
This graduate thesis comparatively analyzes key features of political systems of Malaysia and Singapore using the chosen concepts of hybrid regimes theory. In the first part, main conceptualizations of this theory are presented to be later critically assessed. What follows is a thorough comparative analysis of political systems of the countries in question using the concept of "chain of democratic choice" introduced by Andreas Schedler as a framework for analysis. Subsequently, operationalized concept of competitive authoritarianism by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way is applied. The outcome of the analysis is the classification of Malaysia as competitive authoritarian while Singapore is classified as a case of hegemonic electoral authoritarian regime. As far as theory is concerned, the thesis argues that although hybrid regimes themselves cannot provide for a unique mid-range regime type, some concepts connected to the paradigm offer an appropriate tool for the study of nondemocratic regimes.
|