Over the last two years the number of refugees and asylum seekers in European countries dramatically increased, with asylum claims mostly originating from countries affected by war and poverty, especially in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. The rapid increase of the mobility of migrants raises contradictory reactions in society and individual countries can not agree on an acceptable solution. Against the background, Western European countries usually approach the immigrants more openly than Eastern European countries. A big role in the question of acceptance of migrants in different countries is played by the media. In contemporary society, the media constitute the main source of information about what is happening in the world and intermediate events in which the public cannot participate directly. Therefore it is important to examine how mass media in Eastern and Western European countries present the issues of solidarity, human rights, and the right to asylum. The aim of this master thesis is to find out what the main differences are in the case of printed mass media and whether the western newspapers create a better image of refugees than eastern media. As a representation of an Eastern European medium one Czech daily newspaper was chosen and from Western newspapers one German medium...

The study investigates the development of counter-terrorism in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia between 1989 and 2017, with a focus on developments of the Criminal Code and changes in the institutional framework. A description of counter-terrorism developments is constructed for each country. Subsequently, general hypotheses about counter-terrorism development derived from existing literature are tested using causal-process tracing tools, resulting in preliminary conclusions about the causes of the identified developments. The results indicate that changes in the Criminal Code were primarily driven by external pressure from international organisations, whereas institutional changes tended to result from country-specific processes, threat perception and inspiration from abroad. Keywords: Counter-terrorism, terrorism, Visegrad, Central Eastern Europe, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia

The study deals with application of related variety concept and other evolutionary economic geography approaches in the economic landscape of postsocialist states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The goal was to define different types of variety and explore the relationship between these varieties and economic development in CEE countries between 1993 and 2009. The analysis is based on the theoretical and analytical framework presented in studies realized in the most developed countries of Western Europe. The important finding is that this kind of research allow to conclude that different types of variety influence the economic development, but some of the results are different from those in prior studies. The porfolio effect of unrelated variety was not confirmed. However, the results show strong evidence that related variety stimulates employment growth and usually contributes to GDP growth of CEE countries. The results also indicate, that high variety of related sectors could be crucial for future development of new industries (especially in Central Europe). Keywords: evolutionary economic geography, related and unrelated variety, economic development, Central and Eastern Europe

As housing is one of the important parts of gross domestic product and one of the most significant components of people's wealth it is vital to investigate the determinants of its prices. Therefore, we analyze housing prices in Central and Eastern European coun- tries using pooled mean group estimator and vector autoregressive models. The objective of this thesis is to find out whether the fundamentals of housing prices are comparable across different countries and how the shocks in the economy affect housing pricese. For our analysis we used housing prices per square metre, GDP per capita, unemployment rates, 5-year interest rates, harmonised indices of consumer prices and construction cost indices. The conclusions of using pooled mean group estimator suggest that GDP, un- employment, interest rate and HICP indeed significantly affect the housing prices. The results of empirical analysis of individual countries using vector autoregressive model con- clude that shocks in the determinants affect housing prices with lags of 2 to 3 quarters and that the individual countries are driven by slightly different fundamentals.

This thesis has covered the democratic development of Poland and Ukraine from 2010 to 2021. The purpose of this study is to test if Merkel’s theory of embedded and defect democracy together with the addition of Boogaard’s diffusely defect democracy can explain the development in Poland and Ukraine. The questions that will be answered are: Shall Poland and Ukraine be classified as embedded or defect democracies?What are the differences and similarities in these countries’ classifications between 2010 and 2021?Is Merkel’s theory about embedded and defect democracy able to explain the development from 2010 to 2021?Poland and Ukraine were classified as diffusely defect democracies. There are some similarities between Poland and Ukraine regarding the rule of law, but Ukraine is more defect than Poland. Merkel’s theory is a better explanation for Ukraine than Poland due to that Ukraine has had the defects during a longer period.

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The thesis "Electoral Geography of Postcommunist Countries in Central and Eastern Europe" deals with the topic of electoral geography, which is a part of the political geography. The basic hypothesis of the paper is based on opinion that the postcommunist countries experienced the twenty years of development in the postcommunist period which made their electoral geography very similar to one in Western Europe. This hypothesis is proved by three different areas of electoral geography. The first part is composed by the analysis of the electoral geography of the founding elections in the 17 postcommunist countries (including the GDR). In the paper is proposed after the research of all 17 countries the categorization of founding elections on the basis of electoral geography. The second part examines the electoral geography of capitals. The research is focused on the size of the lectorate in the capital compare to the whole country, on the diverhgence of electoral results in the capital and in the whole state and on strength of the party families in capitals. Folowing these three areas is proposed the catehorisation of the postcommunist capitals into the five groups. The third part deals with variability of the electoral results inside the state.

Far-right parties and their supporters have long been associated with climate skepticism and opposition to climate action. However, all far-right supporters do not share these views, and some even emphasize the importance of caring about the environment. Prior research has not paid much attention to this question; this thesis hence aims to investigate which kinds of far-right supporters are more likely to hold pro-environmental views. The study argues that it is essential to disentangle different eco-friendly attitudes related to the (national) environment on the one hand, and to (global) climate change on the other hand. Using prior research on far-right values and climate change attitudes, the study focuses on regional differences and various individual-level characteristics such as attitudes towards the nation- state, state sovereignty, and individuals’ socio-economic background. The empirical analysis uses the European Social Survey’s data from 2016 and employs multiple linear regression. The results demonstrate that there is indeed a “green divide” between concern for the environment and for the climate among the European far-right, particularly in Eastern Europe. Nationalist attitudes were statistically related to caring for the (national) environment, and not as much to climate responsibility. Female and older far-right supporters care more for the environment, while younger far-right supporters have higher climate responsibility. These results demonstrate the heterogeneity of far-right supporters and their pro-environmental attitudes. They also suggest that certain groups within the far right may be more open to environmentally friendly politics than others, and that an emphasis on the environment instead of on climate may greatly impact polarization in modern environmental politics.

Die Erforschung des städtischen Kirchenmusiklebens zählt zu den Desiderata der Musikwissenschaft.

Polen wird in Westeuropa häufig als ein Land wahrgenommen, in dem Sicherheitsfragen eine im Vergleich zu den faktischen Bedrohungen unverhältnismäßig große Bedeutung zugemessen wird. Gleichzeitig klagt es aber über das gegenseitige Nichtverstehen: Der „außenstehende Westeuropäer“ sei in seiner unwissenden Perspektive nicht in der Lage, die wahren Gründe für das ausgeprägte polnische Sicherheitsdenken zu durchschauen. Die Arbeit ist darauf ausgerichtet, Einblick in das Innere der polnischen Sicherheitspolitik zu gewähren. Sie untersucht die sicherheitspolitische Sinnbildung und den Stellenwert von Sicherheit in der Außenpolitik, um festzustellen, dass die Konstruktion der Sicherheit in Polen auf historische, kulturelle und politische Referenzen zurückgreift, denen häufig ein symbolischer Wert zugeschrieben wird. In theoretischer Hinsicht greift die Studie auf Überlegungen aus der Außenpolitikforschung und den Security Studies zurück. Sie nimmt den Gedanken auf, dass die Außenpolitik auf einem gesellschaftlich konstruierten Deutungssystem basiert, das die Grenzen des politisch Möglichen bestimmt und verwendet einen diskursiven Begriff der „Sicherheit“. Sie baut auf den Erkenntnissen konstruktivistisch und kritisch geprägter Ansätze aus der sicherheitspolitischen Forschung der „Kopenhagener Schule“ um Ole Wæver und Barry Buzan auf, die in Form der Theorie der securitization zusammengefasst wurden. Die Dissertation präsentiert Ergebnisse einer diskursanalytischen Untersuchung öffentlicher Debatten über die Außenpolitik, die in Polen in den Jahren 1999-2006 geführt wurden. Untersucht wurden zwei Sektoren von Sicherheit: die Konstruktion der politischen Sicherheit in den Narrationen über Russland und den Westen sowie die Konstruktion der gesellschaftlichen Sicherheit innerhalb des Europadiskurses. Als Ergebnis entsteht zum einen ein Überblick über die diskursiven Mechanismen und Ressourcen, die die Artikulation von Sicherheitsinteressen sowie ihre Legitimierung in der Öffentlichkeit ermöglichen. Zum anderen stellt die Analyse unterschiedliche Wirkungsmechanismen im Zusammenspiel zwischen der Nationalisierung und der Transnationalisierung fest, was die verbreitete Sicht differenziert, dass Transnationalisierung in Polen automatisch als eine Gefahr wahrgenommen wird. / Poland is often perceived in Western Europe as a country which attaches much more importance to security issues than its real threats demand. At the same time it complains of mutual non-understanding: the outsiders from Western Europe are blamed for not being able to see through the good reasons for the pronounced polish security thinking. The study aims at allowing an insight in the internal logic of the polish security policy. It analyses how meaning is constructed in the security policy and which importance security will be attached to security in the foreign policy in order to realize that the construction of security in Poland uses historical, cultural and political references with symbolic value. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Foreign Policy Analysis and Security Studies. It incorporates the idea that the foreign policy is grounded on a socially constructed meaning system that determines the limits of political opportunities and employs a discursive definition of security. It follows the constructivist and critical approaches in the Security Studies, especially the theory of securitization by Ole Wæver and Barry Buzan from the Copenhagen School. The dissertation presents the results of the discourse analysis which investigates the public debates on foreign policy from 1999 till 2006. It analyses two sectors of security: the construction of the political security in the narration about Russia and the West as well as the construction of the societal security within the discourse about Europe. As a fist result emerges an overview of mechanisms and resources that enable the articulation of security interests and their public legitimation. As a second outcome the study ascertains diverse mechanisms in the interaction between nationalization and transnationalization, which differentiates the general opinion stating that the transnationalization is perceived in Poland automatically as a threat.