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Europeanisation of Czech, Polish, and SLovak media in the context of three crises
Rosenfeldová, Jana ; Vochocová, Lenka (advisor) ; Gregor, Miloš (referee) ; Havlík, Vlastimil (referee)
The dissertation focuses on the level and form of Europeanisation of Czech, Polish and Slovak media in the intense phases of three crises - the migration crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The theoretical starting points of the thesis are the theories of the public sphere. Its functional variant is considered in the context of the "European communication space" as a means or a necessary condition for eliminating various deficits of the European Union, especially the democratic deficit. Of the various approaches to conceptualizing the European public sphere, the research in this thesis adopts a Europeanization approach, through the lens of which the European public sphere is seen as a network of national public spheres that are increasingly "Europeanized", and which relies on individual national media in its empirical efforts to detect the European public sphere. A parallel quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the content published on Facebook by six Czech, Polish and Slovak mainstream media outlets in the early stages of each crisis identifies different levels of Europeanisation across crises, reflecting the different levels of competences that the EU possessed in each of them. At the same time, it shows that EU issues and actors have managed to gain a foothold...
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Konferencia o budúcnosti Európy - záväzok, alebo prázdne slová Európskej únie
Fuchsová, Alexandra
The diploma thesis focuses on the topic of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which is considered as an unprecedented tool of deliberative democracy, facilitating a closer relationship between the European Union and its citizens. The objective of this research is to explore and evaluate the correlation between citizens´ trust in the European Union and their willingness to engage in the Conference on the Future of Europe, specifically in the Slovak and Czech Republic. Additionally, it scrutinizes environmental issues within the context of the Conference and measures aimed at protecting the environment. The research was conducted through a quantitative questionnaire survey, which was administered in both countries, with a total sample of 460 respondents. Statistical analyses were used to test the hypotheses, which revealed that the attitudes of the Czech and Slovak republic on this topic are not diametrically opposed, which made it possible to propose starting points for both countries in the same sense.
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Communication of the European Parliament and its influence on the democracy in the Czech Republic
Hrabětová, Magdaléna ; Hejlová, Denisa (advisor) ; Shavit, Anna (referee)
The aim of the thesis is to coherently unify the functioning communication strategies and tools of the European Parliament into one academic work. Furthermore, to provide an insight into the functioning of individual institutions of the European Union and introduce important concepts that connect communication with democracy. In the practical part, with the help of theoretical knowledge and qualitative research, we will gain a comprehensive understanding of the communication of individual Czech Members of the European Parliament with citizens, evaluate the effectiveness of EP communication, and assess its impacts on democracy in the Czech Republic.
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European Citizens's Initiative
Bartovic, Vladimír ; Král, Richard (advisor) ; Svobodová, Magdaléna (referee)
European Citizens' Initiative Ing. Vladimír Bartovic This thesis deals with the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) - an instrument of participatory democracy, which for a decade has allowed European Union citizens to influence the legislative process by asking the European Commission to submit a legislative proposal. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the implementation practice of the European Citizens' Initiative in the context of the case-law of the General Court and the Court of Justice of the EU and to analyse the new regulation on the European Citizens' Initiative. The thesis analyses reasons that led to the creation of the European Citizens' Initiative - especially the question of the existence of a democratic deficit. It analyses the embedding of the ECI in the primary law of the Union and compares it with other instruments of participatory democracy and similar institutes of the indirect legislative initiative available to the European Parliament and the Council. The thesis briefly deals with the first ECI regulation from 2011, its legislative process and its implementation at the national level. The core part of the thesis is the analysis of the application of the regulation in practice. It provides an overview of initiatives and summarises the positions of EU institutions, civil...
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Subsidiarity in EU law
Krátký, Jiří ; Tichý, Luboš (advisor) ; Pítrová, Lenka (referee)
Subsidiarity in EU law English Summary / Abstract The upcoming 30th anniversary of the Maastricht treaty is an opportunity to celebrate but also to critically evaluate the overall success of this significant political step towards deeper European integration. The Maastricht treaty incorporated the Principle of Subsidiarity as a general principle of law into the EU legal system. The Principle of Subsidiarity was intended as a safeguard against a creeping centralization and federalization of the alliance and a means of regulating the exercise of the Union's non-exclusive powers. Thirty years of experience is a good time to evaluate the success and fulfillment of that mission. This is all the more pertinent in 2021 as the EU finds itself on the threshold of a new public debate about the future of Europe. The Principle of Subsidiarity underwent several textual changes on the way to being anchored in the Treaties. Despite these changes the case law of the ECJ has remained for unclear reasons underdeveloped in comparison with other issues and areas of judicial review. The original emphasis placed on a judicial review of the fulfillment of substantial conditions and ex-post control of the principle has lately shifted to the ex-ante procedural one. Unfortunately, even this change did not bring the expected results....
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The aspects of representative democracy in churches associated in the Ecumenical Council of Churches of the Czech Republic
Kobylka, Petr ; Kubátová, Hana (advisor) ; Vinš, Petr Jan (referee)
The thesis analyses the elements of representative democracy in the structures of churches associated in the Ecumenical Council of Churches of the Czech Republic. Although churches have not a generally democratic structure, the author examines whether they contain elements of representative democracy, according to the criteria for the functioning of democracy given by Robert Dahl. The thesis is also based on the work of Luca Badini Confalonieri, who describes the issue of democracy within the Roman Catholic Church in his publication. The thesis outlines the roots of democracy in churches in the books of Old and New Testaments of the Bible and the church history, especially in the context of religious diversity in the Czech lands. The historical core of the problem is how to properly appoint leaders of ecclesial communities, whereas this problem is already being described in the Bible. Furthermore, the work deals with the organizational structures of twelve selected churches in the Czech Republic, examines the methods of election or appointment of their representatives and bodies. For this purpose, the church was divided into three categories - the Roman Catholic Church, churches with an episcopal element, protestant synodal-congregational, and congregational churches. The work also points to...
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The Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation in the EU: the Three Cases of Yellow Cards
Shkaruppa, Maria ; Knutelská, Viera (advisor) ; Plechanovová, Běla (referee)
This Master thesis focuses on the three occurrences of the so-called Yellow Card procedure, a part of the Early Warning Mechanism introduced into the EU legislative practice with the Lisbon Treaty. The analysis of the practical cases helps to shed light on the development of the interparliamenatry cooperation among the national parliaments of the EU Member States and the ability of this cooperation to affect the EU decision-making process. The work discusses how the Mechanism was institutionalised and whether it established a more direct link between the EU decision-making and the EU citizens, thus creating an additional accountability channel. The thesis addresses to which extent the Mechanism is capable of compensating the national parliaments for being cut off from the EU processes. The next task of the work is to assess how well the interparliamentary cooperation works and whether in the three practical instances the Mechanism proved to be effective. Furthermore, the thesis elaborates on whether the novelty was successful and if it realised the potential to curb the democratic deficit problem in the EU. Attention is given as well to the practical issues with the Mechanism implementation and to how the national parliaments are capable of dealing with them. All in all, the thesis at hand is a...
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Impact of the immigration crisis on the European public debate - Europeanization of the national public spheres in Austria and Germany
Mekýšová, Kamila ; Knutelská, Viera (advisor) ; Jeřábek, Martin (referee)
This diploma thesis deals with the impact of the recent immigration crisis in Europe on Europeanization of national public spheres and its implications for the democratic deficit of the European Union (EU). The main aim of this work was to determine, whether there is a tendency towards Europeanization of public spheres in two selected EU member states (Austria and Germany), and if it is the case, closely examine the forms and specific characteristics of this process. Besides the Europeanization of public sphere, a Europeanization of collective national identity was studied, as it is considered to be an essential part of Europeanized national public spheres. In order to provide answers for these questions, a qualitative content analysis was used for this research, analyzing opinion articles from two selected quality newspapers from each studied country. Newspapers with different political affiliation were chosen in order to get the most representative sample for the analysis. This research covered the debate on migration crisis within period of one year (May 2015 to April 2016). A general trend of Europeanization was recorded in both national public spheres within this debate.
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Democratic deficit and legitimacy of european institutions
Jetelina, Jaroslav
This bachelor thesis is written from the position of a student of the International Territorial Studies at the Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies at the Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic with the objective to theoretically investigate and analyse the alleged deficiencies in the democratic polity and institutions of the European Union. In order to do that, this bachelor thesis aims to introduce the main features and development of democracy, polity of the European Union and forms which the alleged democratic deficit may take. Moreover, main governing institutions of the EU (European Commission, Council of the European Union, European Parliament) are believed to cause this alleged phenomenon from its insufficient legitimacy and hence they are the very source and the reason of criticism of the EU. This thesis therefore also compares these main institutions with the main governing institutions of the USA (US Congress, the President of the USA) which are considered to be democratic and legitimate towards the electorate in order to find the differences and possibly spot the insufficiencies of the democratic polity of the EU.
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European citizens' initiative: An effective tool of participatory democracy?
Fitzeková, Tereza ; Kasáková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Šlosarčík, Ivo (referee)
European citizens' initiative was introduced by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and further specified by Regulation (EU) No 211/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011, as a tool of participatory democracy; and this thesis examines whether European citizens' initiative is an effective tool. It starts with an introduction of theories of legitimacy and democratic deficit related to the European Union, in connection with which the European citizens' initiative came into existence, and also the theory of participatory democracy, within the scope of which the European citizens' initiative can be placed. The thesis then specifies three criteria in order to examine the effectiveness of this tool. In the first criterion, it analyses the criteria set for the European citizens' initiative in the above-mentioned Regulation in comparison with similar tools on national levels, and with regard to other academic analyses on this topic. In the second criterion, the thesis examines citizens who use European citizens' initiative on the basis of a questionnaire among representatives and substitutes of selected initiatives. In the third criterion, it analyses up-to-date results of two initiatives with closed collection of statements and with European Commission's conclusions,...
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