Since the beginning of the Cold War, the influence of public opinion on presidential decision-making has been debated. Because the United States is a democracy, one would expect that public opinion and the ideas and concerns of the people should weigh on the decisions of the policy makers. In theory, at least, presidential decision-makers should not solely determine policy. Yet most presidential administrations would have the public believe that they are leading, not following, public opinion based on their inherent charge as elected officials to advocate what they perceive to be in the best interest of the country. It is important to understand the relationship between public opinion and executive decision-makers. Comparing U.S. policies implemented in response to terrorist attacks against U.S. sovereignty and Iraq's persistent pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by presidents from two different political parties offers an opportunity to analyze how public opinion is viewed by presidents, what actions the administrations took to influence public opinion, and whether public opinion ultimately affected the foreign policy decision-making of the executive. How and when public opinion constrains policymakers and their options is essential to understanding why certain policy decisions for the use of force are made and what decisions can be predicted in the future.

What are the origins of tactical innovation in large, bureaucratic, military systems? This study will provide a detailed analysis of how the German Army in World War One took advantage of innovative tactical methods developed by their junior and non-commissioned officers in the field. While many historians often look at the results of WWI from the perspective of the General officers and politicians (i.e., top-down), they often overlook the important roles played by creative junior officers in revolutionizing the manner in which the German Army fought. These innovations, when supported by senior leadership, led to massive operational and strategic gains for the German Army late in World War One. I will explore how the German Army successfully applied these tactical innovations at the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, a.k.a. The Battle of Caporetto in 1917. The result was a crushing Italian defeat. This success encouraged the German leadership to attempt similar offensives in 1918 on the Western Front in France. Initially successful, the offensives later stalled. However, the lessons of these attacks formed the basis for what would become universally known as the Blitzkrieg, or â lighting-warâ tactics. These lessons continue to effect how modern militaries employ combined arms in maneuver warfare today. This case study will highlight the importance of â bottom-upâ tactical innovation within todayâ s U.S. military.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyze the threat posed by certain social movements during the post-Mao reform era and the various methods of social control used by the Chinese government to deal with them. The thesis will use historical data and three case studies to examine the influence and popularity of social movements and methods of control, from surveillance to physical intimidation to imprisonment and forced exile. The thesis will also explore the evolution of social control over the decades of social change in China. What characteristics of a social movement threaten the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? Does the CCP have a preferred method of social control, and has that method withstood the test of time? Does the increasing number of protests signify that China is losing control over its population? What does the future hold?

A tariff policy is two-sided and may be compared to a wall. Every export from a country is some other country's import, and every tariff imposition, while apparently a domestic law to bring in a revenue or build up home industries, is, at the same time the means of keeping out some other country's exports. Too often, we look upon only one side of the wall--our own side. We are likely to regard the tariff as a means of controlling the inflow of foreign goods or as a means of raising revenue. But to understand the tariff policy and employ it to its fullest advantage or disadvantage we must be willing and capable of looking over the wall to understand the effect of a tariff--or any other commercial policy--on the aims and aspirations of other nations.

ANOTATION The thesis focused on František Soukup (1871-1940) and political party Czechoslavic Social Democratic Party, because he was the member of this party since 1896. Text describes his life before World War I. The work combines biography of František Soukup and development of the workers and social democratic movement in the context of political modernization - first at the example of party's newspaper, in which Soukup works. In the centre, there is a main theme of the party before World War I - the universal suffrage. Conclusion presents Soukup's activities after the legalization of this requirement, i.e. his work and speeches in House of Deputies, which are placed in contrast with his activities in the Socialist International. The aim of the thesis is write the biography of an important representative of the party and on this basis - analyze political discourse of social democracy at the end of the century. KEY WORDS: political parties, social democracy, František Soukup

These days are western democracies in serious crisis. We could observe this crisis in disconnection societal topics, not only, but especially political, from the citizens, who are affected with these topics the most. The citizens are becoming apathetic; they have no interest file their energy beyond their own private and professional life. This situation could develop in two directions. The first way means conservation of current state, status quo, and it leads to not so happy future. Or another way change of course happens and the interest in public life will be activating in the citizens. And I believe in the second possibility. However, there is lot to do, to revise many aspects of public life, e.g. political parties, funding to these parties, institute of representation and how community perceive it, or elections, the way legitimation.

The subject matter of this paper is an analysis of the current system of political parties funding in the Czech Republic. The aim of the thesis is to critically assess the current legal regulation and to point out potential shortcomings and possibilities for improvement. At a time when public confidence in political parties is characterized by a systematic and long-term downward trend, it is a recent and widely discussed topic. We may well ask whether the legal regulation of this issue does not provide room for improvement and innovation. The extensive topic is structured into two areas - the question of financial resources and the question of control and transparency. The paper is composed of five chapters. Chapter one deals with the political parties in general and with the law of political parties, especially with constitutional aspects. The second chapter examines the financing of political parties, its basic principles, models and division. In brief, it covers also the development of funding. The subject of the third chapter is a detailed description of the funding of political parties in the Czech Republic. In the fourth chapter the thesis deals with control, transparency and enforcement, at both the general and the specific level, when Czech regulation is subject to scrutiny. Chapter Five is...

The topic of this thesis is political marketing with a focus on marketing communication of Czech political parties. Its title is "Image of political parties in the Czech republic" and describes use of political marketing and its methods or instruments in Czech political environment. At first the thesis describes methods of political marketing especially marketing communication and how five chosen Czech political parties (ODS, ČSSD, KSČM, TOP 09, VV) use them. What is useful, where are mistakes etc. The thesis is focused on image of chosen parties. The aim is to find out, if the identity (planned image) of political parties corresponds with perceived image by young people (18-30 years, university educated). Due to this aim a focus group and a quantitative research were conducted. Their results were compared with planned image detected in interviews with marketing managers of particular parties (except VV). Moreover the thesis contains recommendations for parties for improving their communication to achieve their planned image.

Thesis advisor: Nasser Behnegar / Political ideology can be described in terms of value pluralist theory. Much of the variation between political ideologies can be explained by the fact that the principles that are essential to society--liberty, equality, fraternity, peace, loyalty, and civilization--are incommensurable and often conflict forcing each person and community to emphasize some principles over others leading to an imperfect society. Each political ideology is a combination of interests and the selected balance of principles and thus can be essentially defined according to the level of preference for each of these six principles. This paper studies major political ideologies throughout the globe and develops a model for understanding them in these terms. This paper further argues for a pluralist democracy, with constantly shifting ideological dominance in a community as the next best thing to an impossible utopia and the only means of preventing the collapse of society due to a lack of essential principles. This model makes clear the fallacy of understanding political ideology in terms of "left" and "right," which not only oversimplify political ideology but also fundamentally misrepresent it. It also leads to narrowing visions of politics that prevent significant changes to a political system and undermine the possibility for pluralist democracy. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Esta pesquisa visa fornecer uma explicação para o quadro de ampla desconfiança em partidos políticos no Brasil. Mobilizando modelos culturalistas e racionalistas para entender esse fenômeno, o trabalho se inicia com uma discussão teórica sobre o lugar da desconfiança numa democracia representativa, passando para o debate pormenorizado de como a literatura tentou tratar do objeto dessa dissertação, nacional e internacionalmente. Por sua vez, os capítulos empíricos, fundamentados sobre testes de qui-quadrado, análises de correspondência e regressões logísticas ordinais, revelam os efeitos assimétricos das principais variáveis elencadas pela literatura, em que seu efeito negativo sobre a desconfiança é maior do que seu efeito positivo sobre a confiança. Argumenta-se que o quadro ilustra a consolidação de uma cultura de desconfiança em partidos políticos no Brasil, com consequências e importância incertas atualmente para a compreensão da intrincada relação entre partidos políticos e sociedade civil. / This research aims to provide an explanation to the broad distrust in political parties in Brazil. Using culturalist and racionalist models to assess this phenomenon, this work starts with a theoretical discussion about the place that distrust has in a representative democracy, going through a detailed discussion on how the literature tried to study this dissertations object, nationally and internationally. The empirical chapters, grounded in chi-square tests, correspondence analysis, and ordinal logistic regressions, reveal asymmetric effects from the main variables brought out by the literature, where its negative effects on distrust are bigger than its positive effects on trust in political parties. It is argued that this scenario illustrates the consolidation of a culture of distrust in political parties in Brazil, with unknown consequences and importance for the comprehension of the intricate relation between political parties and civil society.