How do religions and nationalism interact in secular democracies? With its history of nationalism based on religious ideologies, and the subsequent forced separation of state and religion, Japan provides a valuable case to examine how religion and nationalism interact and affect the politics of a secular state. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand and synthesize the divide within the literature regarding the idea that Shinto is fundamentally nationalist in nature. Due to Shinto's historical ties to Japanese nationalism, it is clear that religion and nationalism played a role in Japanese politics in the past. However, with Japan's transition to democracy and the constitutional provision of the separation between religion and state, religion's effect on nationalism in Japan has become blurred contemporarily. In order to explore these relationships between Shinto, nationalism, and Japanese politics, I investigate how political groups and religious organizations influence nationalist sentiment in political institutions and public opinion in Japan using the Japanese Value Orientations survey and an original dataset. I find that even though the evidence is mounting against the accuracy around the idea of State Shinto and the fundamentally nationalist nature of Shinto, the narrative persists. The existence of nationalist circles perpetuates these narratives, regardless of the truthfulness of the association between Shinto and nationalism because this narrative serves as a benefit to some groups. Shinto may not be automatically nationalist, but there are still nationalistic Shinto practitioners. The description of Shinto as inherently nationalist is not likely to go away while that description still serves a purpose.

The diploma thesis deals with the analysis of British party system and its special features, with the focus on the main political parties in Great Britain, their history, their development and the current position within the system. The thesis employs methods of analysis of specialized sources in the English language mainly. The aim of the first part is to provide theoretical knowledge to establish background for better understanding the rest of the thesis. The following part of the thesis deals with the main political parties in Great Britain, their development, programs and their current position in the system. The most important part of the thesis is the last one, which focuses on Liberal Democratic Party, its beginnings, development and puts emphasis on the two last elections in 2010 and 2015. There is an attempt to provide an opinion on what were the reasons of the election results depending on election program, electorate and other specifications.