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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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Social change in Moldova (1991-2017) in the social science and political expertise reflection
Matei, Mihaela ; Maslowski, Nicolas (advisor) ; Německý, Marek (referee)
This thesis analyses the interception of the social change in the social science and politically expert literature from a historical perspective of the post-soviet development of the Republic of Moldova. The first chapter introduces the main hypotheses and the research design of the master thesis. The following chapter offers the development of the concept social change in a larger context of the classical and new theories. The aim of the thesis is to find out theories of social change in the Moldovan literature between after 1991. The results of a content analysis will be presented in the third chapter. Finally, the last section of the thesis focuses on suggestions for the further development of this analysis.
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Ukraine Constitutional reform in 2004 and Its Impact on the Development of the Country
Poloncarzová, Diana ; Šír, Jan (advisor) ; Zilynskyj, Bohdan (referee)
The thesis deal with the constitutional reform in Ukraine approved in 2004 There were optimistic expectations about the regime change and moving closer to the model of West European states in 2004. The scope is to identify whether Ukraine followed the path of democratic transition or remained as an unstable hybrid state. It is focused on constitutional changes of the following chapters - elections and referendum, parliament, president, council of ministers and redistribution of power between these roles and impact on legislation and executive power. The regime type is influenced by these changes. Ukraine was classified as an authoritarian regime during Kuchma's second term in the Presidential office. The political system had been changed in 2006 when the new constitution came to power. Between a various classifications the most common ones, which had been used, were a semi- presidential system or presidential-parliamentary system. The choice of improper political system could be one of the key reasons leading to the failure of democratisation of the country when attempted.
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Development of civil society organizations focusing on women's rights in Tunisia before and after the first democratic elections
Homolková, Tereza ; Muhič Dizdarevič, Selma (advisor) ; Klípa, Ondřej (referee)
In this master thesis I deal with civil society organizations in Tunisia with a focus on women's rights. Firstly, I present the conceptual frameworks I work with and I set the indicators on the basis of which I assess the organization. I present context in which organisations are operating, I describe the history of Tunisia and the state of women's rights in Tunisia. First I focus on the period before the first democratic elections, between 1987 and 2011, when president Zin Abidin bin Ali ruled. Then I move on to the period after the first democratic elections, which took place in 2011, until 2018. Subsequently, I compare the functioning of civil society organisations with a focus on women's rights in these two periods. I discuss what organizations have to deal with during their operation, what influences them and what problems they concentrate on within the framework of women's rights. I collect information and data using document analysis, and then analyze the data with open coding.
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Social change in Moldova (1991-2017) in the social science and political expertise reflection
Matei, Mihaela ; Maslowski, Nicolas (advisor) ; Německý, Marek (referee)
This thesis analyses the interception of the social change in the social science and politically expert literature from a historical perspective of the post-soviet development of the Republic of Moldova. The first chapter introduces the main hypotheses and the research design of the master thesis. The following chapter offers the development of the concept social change in a larger context of the classical and new theories. The aim of the thesis is to find out theories of social change in the Moldovan literature between after 1991. The results of a content analysis will be presented in the third chapter. Finally, the last section of the thesis focuses on suggestions for the further development of this analysis.
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Ukraine Constitutional reform in 2004 and Its Impact on the Development of the Country
Poloncarzová, Diana ; Šír, Jan (advisor) ; Zilynskyj, Bohdan (referee)
The thesis deal with the constitutional reform in Ukraine approved in 2004 There were optimistic expectations about the regime change and moving closer to the model of West European states in 2004. The scope is to identify whether Ukraine followed the path of democratic transition or remained as an unstable hybrid state. It is focused on constitutional changes of the following chapters - elections and referendum, parliament, president, council of ministers and redistribution of power between these roles and impact on legislation and executive power. The regime type is influenced by these changes. Ukraine was classified as an authoritarian regime during Kuchma's second term in the Presidential office. The political system had been changed in 2006 when the new constitution came to power. Between a various classifications the most common ones, which had been used, were a semi- presidential system or presidential-parliamentary system. The choice of improper political system could be one of the key reasons leading to the failure of democratisation of the country when attempted.
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Means to an End: Arab Spring
Tanev, Stefan Latchezarov ; Riegl, Martin (advisor) ; Hesová, Zora (referee)
The thesis discusses the progress or lack thereof of in the Middle East, specifically Egypt to achieve "democracy". It will critically explore the reasons why the Arab Spring happened, what were the factors and what changed in Egypt during those times until the present. I will show how it was before the revolution in Egypt which toppled ex-president Mubarak, examine the transition phase when ex-president Morsi was in power, and at the end the second revolution or coup d'état by current president El-Sisi. With that said Egypt will be compared with the other countries in the region; Tunisia, Libya and Syria, and we will see what are some of the similarities in the revolutions as well as some of the differences.
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Democratisation aspects of Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean
Kolek, Lukáš ; Weiss, Tomáš (advisor) ; Tomalová, Eliška (referee)
The bachelor thesis deals with the democratization aspect of newly introduced Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean. The European Union in the Southern Mediterranean has for a long time prioritized its security and economic interests. After the Arab Spring the European Union redefined its regional policy and declared its intention to support democratization of the region, which the new partnership supposed to symbolize. In the form of case study focused on Egypt in a period from March 2011 to January 2013 this paper addresses the question of whether the EU's ambitions to democratize the region reflect its actions. The first chapter of this thesis introduces the relations between the EU and the Southern Mediterranean in its historical context. The second chapter is devoted to the creation of the new Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean and analyzes its aims, mechanisms and benefits in the context of democratization. The last part of my paper answers the two sub questions. The first evaluates, whether the EU applied the principles of "more for more" and "less for less" considering the Egyptian progress in democratic transition. The second one focuses on whether the benefits offered by the EU reflect the needs of...
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Democratisation proces in Libya and its reflections
Horáčková, Zuzana ; Černý, Karel (advisor) ; Německý, Marek (referee)
This work examines relevancy of theoretical aproaches on the subject of democratization processes presented by Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington and Fareed Zakaria, and it discusses a level of relevancy of their theoretical concepts and theses in comparison to the democratization process in Libya, which started in spring 2011. First, the theoretical part of this work presents specific historical, sociocultural, political, religious and economic contexts of Libya from a historical-sociology perspective with a focus on the democratization and liberalization processes in Libya. It discusses democratization factors and reasons, which are applied on the situation in Libya. The empirical part of this work presents reflections and perspectives of the democratization process in Libya from an emical perspective of a Libyan citizen. These reflections are confronted with the theoretical approaches presented in the first part, especially with Huntington's Third Wave. The empirical part reflects the processes of the previous non- democratic regime of Muammar Kaddafi, then the fall of the regime and the revolution situation in Libya, a new democratic regime and finally, the perspectives of consolidation of democracy in Libya.
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Social movements and their impact on the transition to democracy: the case of Zapatistas
Petříček, Martin ; Dvořáková, Vladimíra (advisor) ; Müller, Karel (referee) ; Opatrný, Josef (referee) ; Měšťánková, Petra (referee)
This dissertation aims to enrich the discussion about the role of social movements in the process of democratisation, ie. to assess their role in the transformation from authoritarian to democratic regime. In particular, it tries to find the way how to assess the impact of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) and related movement on the Mexican transition to democracy in 1990s. The analysis tries to identify possible impacts on three different levels -- political (which means regime transition), social (which is related with the change of the nature of the relations between state and society, once described as corporatist) and economical (which means the end of neoliberal policy promoted by recent Mexican governments and the introduction of more equal, "more democratic" policy in zapatista logic). It looks both at the formal (direct through bargaining) and informal (influence) impact of the zapatista movement. From the methodological point of view, the study is case analysis, in some parts it uses historical analysis. The text is structured into five chapters. The first chapter shows main theoretical and methodological approaches to the social movements with special focus on Latin American context. It is followed by explaining the principles of methods used to assessment of the zapatista impacts. The second chapter presents main approaches to social change and process of democratic transition. The third chapter contains the historical analysis of transformation of relation between state and society during 20th century, from the introduction of (state) corporatist model in 1930s to its gradual dismantling in the late 20th century. The fourth chapter analysis the evolution of EZLN from its beginning in Lacandon jungle in southern Mexican state of Chiapas. In relation with the emphasis of movement's goals, the period from 1994, when zapatista uprising in Chiapas started, to 2010 is divided into four stages. In the fifth chapter, theoretical findings are applied on EZLN and zapatista movement and formulated hypotheses are tested.
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