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Analysis of Ronald Reagan's foreign policy
Horňák, Jakub ; Veselý, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Eichler, Jan (referee)
Even though the Cold War ended almost 30 years ago, it has been one the most discussed phenomenon not only among IR scholars but also within the public. The whole Cold War discourse addresses many controversial question and who ended the Cold War is one of these questions. Basically, there are two schools of thought, one of which gives the credit to General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and his reform policies. The second one perceives the US President Ronald Reagan and his unapologetic foreign policy as the most decisive factor in the End of the Cold War. By employing the methodology of analysis, this thesis aims to assess the impact of Ronald Reagan and his foreign policy on the End of the Cold War. This thesis tests the hypothesis that Ronald Reagan and his foreign policy were the most decisive factor in the End of the Cold War.
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Reflections on the Global Order after the End of the Cold War: the Perspective of Francis Fukuyama and Samuel P. Huntington
Jurásek, Miroslav ; Veselý, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Lehmannová, Zuzana (referee) ; Vlček, Dalibor (referee) ; Gombár, Eduard (referee)
The times coming with the End of the Cold War were very turbulent. Politicians had to take into the consideration lots of scenarios and the next global trends to make correct decisions. Most of the very numerous visions of the future global order followed more or less the twofold pattern: order or anarchy. "The End of History and the Last Man" and "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" written by two prominent American political scientists Francis Fukuyama and Samuel P. Huntington and published at the beginning of the 90s are the most representative works that fit into this pattern. These provocative and controversial theories have been criticized and empirically challenged by many on one side, on the other side it hasn't impeded others to use them as a starting point for their next analyses. This dissertation thesis is a contribution to the debate between the dissenters and the supporters of these theories from a predictive point of view. Through the research theoretical methodology it is argued that the examined theories are still valid even nowadays because their theoretical essence (or hard core in the Lakatosian research program) has not been refuted yet. Nevertheless, the hard core of the theories determines their very specific character which puts forward the importance of the factors labelled in the Lakatosian framework as an external history of a science. These factors organized according to the Mehtas criteria of so called strong idea are, especially in the social sciences, decisive for how a theoretical construct is accepted in a broader non-academic context. It is demonstrated that both theories fulfill all criteria to be very influential in practice, although the idea of clash of civilizations is even more powerful in this respect. The specific features of all theories are illustrated on two case studies: Union of South American Nations and Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Firstly, the selection of these case studies is justified and secondly, the anomalies in terms of the Lakatosian methodology are identified and then explained. There have been found no unexplainable anomalies, which practically confirms the validity of both research programs on one side, on the other side it facilitates a better assessment of the studied theories in a sense of their interpretative scope and possibilities.
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