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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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Shaping the Europeanization in Diplomacy: Development of the Czech "Dissident Tradition" in European-Related ideas
Yang, Zihan ; Matějka, Ondřej (advisor) ; Handl, Vladimír (referee)
This master's thesis examines the evolution of dissident European-related thoughts and the relationship between these thoughts and the practice of Czech Europeanization, especially in the field of foreign policy. The goal of the thesis is to analyze whether these developing ideas served as a theoretical basis for later European-related foreign political practices, both in terms of the activities of dissident politicians and in terms of the continuation of its diplomatic paradigms and ideologies on a larger period. Therefore, this thesis takes a Reflectivism stance by examining the development of European-related ideas of three selected Czech dissidents (Václav Havel, Jiří Dienstbier and Petr Pithart) in chronological order. It then analyzes how these ideas have changed in the political practices and reflections of the dissidents after 1989. The three selected dissidents are famous figures both in the political sphere and among dissidents, and their literature significantly contributed to this topic, which made their views become representative within the scope of this research topic. The thesis concludes that the dissidents' European discourse had deep historical and philosophical roots. This background, combined with the influence of geopolitical events during the Cold War (such as the Helsinki...
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Unlearned Social Change: A Study of Transitory Order
Tomášek, Marcel ; Šubrt, Jiří (advisor) ; Maslowski, Nicolas (referee) ; Rasiński, Lotar (referee) ; Červinková, Hana (referee)
The thesis is a qualitative study of grey zones and grey phenomena on the border of economy and politics in the Czech Republic from 1995 to 2013. The widely ingrained presupposition that the closing dot to the 'transition phase' was the Europeanization process as connected to the procedures associated with becoming an EU member is commonly spread and taken for granted. Given verifying this presumption, the research field has been divided into two distinctive subperiods: the first one investigates patterns of practice as they were associated primarily with the stage of the change, which may be labelled as post-privatization/secondary privatization (1995-2004). The second subperiod in focus (2004-2013) has been the period from entering the EU in 2004 to the shockwave of reconstitution of the Czech political scene in 2013 after the government-parliamentary-clan-clientelist structures collision and the resignation of the Czech government. The empirical sources for the inquiry have been primarily the particular instances of happenings and problematic undertakings in the overlap of politics and economy as they are registered and referred to, for the given period of 1995-2013, in the weekly periodicals - Respekt, Ekonom. The theoretical grounding of the study has been developed from identifying four waves...
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Communication and organisation of a pan- european political party on the example of Volt Europa
Lekeš, Martin ; Stauber, Jakub (advisor) ; Michal, Aleš (referee)
This thesis concerns the political party of Volt Europa, which was founded in 2017 as an attempt to create a political party on the pan-european level. The thesis describes the mutual relationship between political parties and the European Union, as well as the evolution of typologies used to describe internal organisation of political parties. The thesis utilises the typology of Nicole Bolleyer, who divided political parties into hierarchies, stratarchies and federations. In the analytical part of the thesis there is an attempt at categorising the party Volt Europa into one of these three categories, with the help of an analysis of the party statutes and interviews with key party members in various positions.
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Character and development of Gender Impact Assessment on the background of the framework of the gender mainstreaming concept
Hondlíková, Kristýna ; Hejzlarová, Eva (advisor) ; Vítek, Leoš (referee)
The thesis is aimed at - previously not researched - Gender Impact Assessment in the Czech Republic. It analysis, evaluates and interprets the character and development of the assessment process applied by three ministries in 2007-2014. A total of 236 outputs from the assessment were studied through the qualitative content analysis and the created analytical tool. The results were both explored with statistical methods and evaluated and interpreted simultaneously. The conceptual and theoretical part of the thesis explains the gender mainstreaming concept, the Czech legislative framework of Regulatory Impact Assessment and the theories of gender equality, public policy evaluation and Europeanization. The research is supported by the data obtained from interviews with expert which both describe and evaluate the assessment process and suggest recommendations for its improvement. It has been proved that primarily the assessment deals with some obstacles mainly caused by its authors who may put less emphasis on impact on equality between men and women, downplay it, do not respect the rules, do not have wide range of formulations, copy the formulations, assess more different impacts at the same time or do not have sufficient knowledge of the gender issue. Secondarily some systemic obstacles - the...
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Selective adjustment to EU regulatory provisions in new member states : the case of electricity market liberalization in Bulgaria and Czech Republic
Neofitov, Alexander ; Weiss, Tomáš (advisor) ; Cibulková, Petra (referee)
The present work aspires to provide a comprehensive analysis of the policy developments through which European-level prescriptions regarding the liberalization of national electricity markets have been accommodated within the domestic policy contexts of two new member states of the European Union: Bulgaria and Czech Republic. Despite being subjected to uniform demands, adaptation to community regulatory provisions in the two countries has prompted divergent patterns of policy change, resulting in full compliance in the Czech Republic and a failure to meet EU objectives in Bulgaria. In order to address the observed inconsistency the envisaged research identifies a causal link between the outcomes of regulatory compliance and the influence of utility regulation as a sector-specific EU governance pattern on the dynamics of resource re-distribution at the domestic level. A major concern of the research is how contextual factors, such as incumbent power balances across actor populations in the target policy area condition the impacts of EU inputs on domestic policy decisions. In this respect the work hypothesizes that due to transition "sediments" in the new EU member states external rules may be selectively applied in order to match the existing realities and lead to outcomes that diverge from the...
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Europeization of ODS and KSČM in the context of the party system of ČR
Jirota, Tomáš ; Bureš, Jan (advisor) ; Polášek, Martin (referee)
The thesis aims to analyze and explain the origin, development and manifestations of the process of Europeanization of two players of the Czech party system - the ODS and the KSČM. The thesis starts with a theoretical part, which summarizes the current debate in political science and Europeanization in the context of political parties. The main aim was to trace the changes that were seen among those due to the involvement of political parties in the debate over the meaning of European integration for Czech politics and the practical integration into EU institutions. The basic hypothesis, which is verified, aims to examine the correlation and negativistic relation ODS and KSČM on issues of European integration after twenty years of exposure in the Czech party system. At the same time an analysis of election results mentioned parties to the European Parliament, as well as the method of election campaigns of parties in the same institution. The analytical part of the work analyzes the ODS and KSČM in the line of the general impact of European policies, program outcomes of affected parties, as well as electoral competition in elections to the EP and Czech national assembly. Key words: Europeanization, political parties, ODS, KSČM, European Union
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Europeanisation of political system of a federal state: the case of Belgium
Pluhařová, Jana ; Drulák, Petr (advisor) ; Kasáková, Zuzana (referee)
The Master thesis "The Europeanization of a political system of a federal state: the case of Belgium" investigates the Europeanization effect on a federal polity in Belgium. It discusses the relations between the federal government and the federated entities in Belgium. It addresses two questions. Firstly, what is the impact of European integration on the relations between the federal government and the federated entities in Belgium and secondly, does European integration strengthen or rather weaken the role of federal government towards regions and communities. In particular, it argues that the combination of two parallel processes - on the one hand, the deepening of European integration and on the other hand, the domestic devolution of powers in Belgium - resulted in a situation where the position of the federal government is strengthened despite the constant pressure of federated units on decentralization. Using Germany and Austria as typical cases of federations to compare, the thesis assumes that Belgium is an exceptional case of federation. While in Austria and Germany the European integration consolidates the existing relations between federal government and federated entities, in Belgium it completely changes them. It also argues that European integration shapes the dual nature of Belgian...
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The First and Second Referendum on the Treaty of Lisabon
Kašpar, Mirko ; Šlosarčík, Ivo (advisor) ; Kasáková, Zuzana (referee)
Master thesis "The First and Second Referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon in Ireland" is a comparative case study, which - using the concept of europeanization - analyses causes, which led to the opinion shift of Irish citizens on the Treaty of Lisbon between years 2008 and 2009. Whereas during the first poll in June 2008 Irish rejected the Treaty, 16 months later it was accepted by an expressive majority, when almost half a million people more voted for it. The thesis clarifies, which elements caused a totally different course and result, explores opinions of individual players such as political parties, government, trade unions, associations of interest or significant companies, observes course of the campaign before the referendum, summarizes and analyses outcomes and subsequent reactions both on national and Union level. From the discovered facts the thesis concludes, that behind the change of attitude of the Irish stood especially external effects. On one side pressure of the other member states of the Union and even the EU as a whole to finalize the process of institutional reform and also explicit refusal of repeating the scenario from 2005, when ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was terminated after disagreement of France and the Netherlands. On the other side acceptance...
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Policy determinants in the context of the EU's carbon neutrality goals
Žganec, Matej ; Martinková, Viera (advisor) ; Mazač, Jan (referee)
To meet the ambitious goals of carbon neutrality by 2050 that the European Union has set for itself, urban mobility is going to have to contribute much more to the overall reduction of greenhouse emissions. Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are the latest policy of choice coming from the European Commission set to deal with this issue. Interdisciplinary and based on best practices, this holistic transport strategy focuses on people, both as stakeholders in the planning process and as its ultimate beneficiaries. Although successful and popular, the take up process of these policies has been rather uneven across European cities. This paper attempts to uncover what possibly influences decision makers in small and medium sized European cities to adopt a SUMP, via binomial logistic regression on a large subset of cities (296) in 12 EU countries. The findings suggest that cities, which are in geographic proximity to an award-winning city, that have in their vicinity a higher education institution and that have continuously participated in European Mobility Week events, exemplify a higher likelihood to adopt a SUMP. Additionally, we differentiate between city networks, by grouping them as a "commitment" network and a "project" network. The findings indicate that, "commitment" networks have no...
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