Although island disputes have returned to the geopolitical theatre on a small scale, to date, virtually no previous research on territorial interstate island disputes and violent escalation exists. This paper argues that when an island is positioned in a strategic location, because of its unique attacking, defending, and trade capabilities this may induce a willingness towards- and eventual use of violence in the attempt to conquer or defend the territory. This paper attempts to answer: under what circumstances do island disputes escalate? by modelling the influence of strategic locations on violent island disputes. It draws observations from Altman (2020c) and a novel data frame (1920 – 2020) with additional cases and an alternative operationalization of strategic locations along important lines of communication. It finds that island disputes are more likely to occur without BRD than non-island disputes. Meanwhile, island disputes escalate violently more often than they do not. An island’s strategic location, notwithstanding a broad or narrow operationalization, does not have a statistically significant effect on a violent outcome of a dispute. Instead, the presence of military garrisons, ceteris paribus, resulted in the most statistically significant effect. Consequentially, the causal mechanisms were adapted to include military garrisons.

CHINA IN GLOBAL AND REGIONAL POLITICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY - GEOPOLITICAL CLASH WITH JAPAN, INDIA, USA, RUSSIA AND EUROPE Mgr. Martin Petrtýl Supervisor: Doc. Dr. Bořivoj Hnízdo, PhD. Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences This dissertation discusses the current and future role of China in the 21st century. I worked with the idea to prepare a systematically detailed analytical study of the country in relation to its surroundings as well as its internal environment for more than 8 years, including many interruptions. I, above all, contemplated about the way how to truly scientifically, i.e. credibly, it means in the maximum possible the limits of verifiability, develop a full work that could hold up to the colleagues from the scientific community and myself. It is logical it was and is my attempt to allow minimal possibility of any criticism of this work for its formal, content, or other deficiencies. First, I decided to analyse in some detail the currently known theoretical approaches and methods of study, not only in political sciences, especially those used by political geographers, but also in other related fields, especially in the field of study of international relations, sociology, political science or general security studies. I did not want to study the issue is the...