This diploma thesis deals with the comparison of the political regimes of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia and Franjo Tudjman in Croatia in the years 1991 - 1997 from the point of view of the theory of authoritarian regimes. The subject of the research was to determine the similarities and differences that the regimes showed in a given period. In the beginning of the work, the author approaches the theoretical core of the concepts of authoritarian regimes by Juan J. Linz and the competitive authoritarianism of Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way. The analytical part of the work consists of a synchronous dual-case study of Serbia and Croatia focused on the main aspects of authoritarian regimes and their subsequent comparison. The output of the thesis consists in a critical analysis of the features of both examined regimes at the level of limited political pluralism, the relationship between mentality and ideology and depoliticization versus mobilization and application of theories of authoritarian regimes to Serbia and Croatia in a given period. An important finding was that although the countries showed many similar features, the main differences were in the character of Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman. The work concludes that Serbia and Croatia can be included in hybrid semi-competitive...

This essay aims to explain why Colombia has not consolidated into a liberal democracy between the years 1991 to 2015. To examine the purpose of this essay five interactive arenas are analyzed in order to describe to which extent Colombia is affected by the various arenas. Three questions are being discussed and answered; to which extent have the political society and civil society affected the consolidation of a liberal democracy, to which extent have rule of law and the state bureaucracy affected the consolidation of a liberal democracy and, to which extent have the economic society affected the consolidation of a liberal democracy.The theoretical framework is based upon theories regarding different types of democracy and democratic consolidation. The essay is a theory consuming case study, with descriptive questions and explanatory approach. The framework is used to qualitatively illuminate empirical material to the study research questions. The conclusions of this essay shows that Colombia has not consolidated into a liberal democracy because of large illegal activities, physical attacks from non-state groups, widespread distrust of the political system and absence of conflict resolution through a democratic process.

When the Soviet union collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, a democratization began to develop. During the Jeltsin years, democracy in Russia was developing steadily, but since Putin became president at the turn of the century it has started to move back towards authoritarian rule. The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons for why the democracy in Russia never became consolidated and to understand why the country again has moved towards an authoritarian rule, like the one during the Soviet union. In order to fulfill the aim of this study, two theories were used. These were Linz and Stepan's consolidation theory, about the five arenas that have to be developed, and Samuel P. Huntington's theory about authoritarian nostalgia. In order to answer the questions that this study puts forward, these theories were used against empirical material about Russia. The results of the study show that Russia does not live up to the requirements in any of the five arenas and therefore could not possibly develop a consolidated democracy. It also seems as if the return to authoritarianism in Russia can be blamed on a combination of nostalgia for the Soviet union, which developed during the economic crisis of the 1990s, and an increasing nationalism amongst the population.

Univ., Dipl.-Arb. u.d.T.: Wolfsteiner, Christian Josef: Unternehmensfortführung und Gründung durch Standortsicherung des Linzer Südbahnhofmarktes--Linz, 2007. / Zsfassung in tschech. und engl. Sprache.

The aim of this paper is to examine the Republic of Poland and to what extent the country meets Linz and Stepan´s five arenas of a consolidated democracy which are as follows; Civil society, Political society, Rule of law, State apparatus and Economic society. The application of these five arenas on Poland are due to the political changes that have occurred since the year 2015 when PiS and Andrzej Duda formed a government. By applying the following arenas through a case study, it´s possible to see how these are manifesting in the Republic of Poland. The results of the paper show that all arenas indicate deficiencies with the arena of rule of law being the most vulnerable.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the level of democracy in Tunisia. I will research the challenges to consolidation that the country is facing. I will study between the period of 2001 and 2019. This is to examine how democracy has developed over the years. especially after the Arab Spring. This essay is based on Linz and Stepan's five consolidation arenas. This essay will examine civil society, political society, rule of law, state bureaucracy and an economic society in Tunisia. Zine el. Abadine Ben Ali had been in power since 1987. He was forced to move into exile after about 24 years in power. The governing party RCD controlled the political system in the country since independence in 1956. On 17 December 2010, theso-called Arab Spring began, which meant that Tunisians, for the first time in several decades, experienced a democratic leader based on free and fair elections. Based on the analysis of the thesis, it can be argued that Tunisia is on the way to a fully consolidated democracy, but that there are a number of important aspects in a number of arenas that must be met first before Tunisia can be described as a fully democratic country.

This essay aims to explore and analyze Ukraine’s democratic development over time. This will be done within two time periods from 2007 to 2014 and 2014 to 2019 to enable drawing reasonable conclusions regarding what challenges prevent further democratic development and what similarities and differences can be seen between the periods. Democracy is often described as a complex concept that can vary between being defined minimalistic and maximalistic. This essay will study the maximalistic perception through the theory of Linz and Stepans four arenas of democratic consolidation, political society, civil society, the rule of law and state bureaucracy and be doing so as a qualitative theory consuming diachronical comparative study. The arenas will in turn be broken down into statements to make them easier to measure. This essay concludes that both periods have had democratic problems regarding all arenas. The widespread corruption remains as a main problem through both periods as do the low institutional trust, although in the second period the Crimea-conflict becomes the bigger political priority which affects the ongoing democratic process. Despite this civil society has remained strong and forced forward change when needed. To conclude there has been improvements but Ukraine still faces large democratic challenges.

Georgia is one of the few post-Soviet states that has shown ambitions to become a democratic country and a closer ally to the west. Since their peaceful revolution, the country has had issues with consolidating democracy. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the faltering consolidation factors behind Georgia's democratization. The research questions in this study were the following: Why hasn't Georgia succeeded to consolidate its democracy 2013 and 2018 based on Linz & Stepan's five consolidated arenas? The second research question was, have there been significant changes between the five arenas the years 2013 and 2018? In order to do so, this study has used Linz & Stepan's five consolidating arenas as theory. Their theory says that a country must fulfil each of these arenas to become a consolidated democracy. The arenas are the political society, civil society, rule of law, constitutional state, and economic society. This study is based on a theory-consuming qualitative case study. The results of this study showed that there were numerous factors behind Georgia`s faltering consolidation process. Such as polarised media, weak civic society, polarised political society, corruption, nepotism, and lack of meritocracy. Also, there has not been any significant differences between the years 2013 and 2018 that were studied except for the economic society.

This essay aims to investigate and analyse the extent to which there are conditions in Guatemala and Honduras to introduce liberal democracy, how the countries conditions differ and to draw conclusions about which country  that has the most conditions and thus is the most likely to introduce liberal democracy. The theoretical framework that this essay is based on is Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan's four arenas; civil society, political society, the rule of law and the state bureaucracy. In order to reach the purpose, a comparative case study was done. The  conclusions  of  this  essay shows that both countries have, to some extent, conditions to introduce liberal democracy, however they also lack conditions within other areas.

This thesis investigates the reasons behind democratic backsliding by looking at the past 15 years of democratic development in Poland and Hungary, two backsliding countries, and comparing it with Czech Republic, a country that has not faced severe democratic backsliding. Previous research has pointed to many different possible reasons for backsliding but there is no agreement on theoretical explanations, especially not for backsliding in countries that were previously perceived as having consolidated democracy. This study uses Linz and Stepans five arenas of consolidated democracy and compares Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic through a most similar systems design in order to identify the arenas that can explain the democratic backsliding. In the second part of the analysis, these identified arenas -  civil society and rule of law - are more closely investigated over the 15-year time span in order to find what happened in Poland and Hungary and how it differs from what happened in Czech Republic. The study concludes that it is the combination of structurally insufficient democratic institutions and agents willing to abuse these structural deficits that lead to democratic backsliding. Further research is encouraged to identify other important arenas and include more countries in the comparison in order to strengthen any findings.