This diploma thesis presents a model of minority governments. In the theoretical part is the analysis of the political parties in parliament. Then there is a comparation of selected European countries in terms of how the governments are formated. The main part is given to the countries in which the minority governments are very frequent. In conclusion is mentioned the experience with minority governments in the Czech Republic.

Contemporary electoral system of Czech Republic is not optimal. It is really difficult to find favorable and also acceptable system. After the velvet revolution and the political and economic transformation was hard to find operational governments. The winning party is not able to create a majority government. There are just minority governments or governments with support of some opposite M.P.s. Is it the change of electoral system the possible way to solution of problematic situation after elections? The thesis takes into account historical context and present discussion about possible changes of electoral systems.

The study, focuses on shadow cabinet organization, the practice; of appointing members to shadow the activities of cabinet ministers by Opposition parties. This practice is analyzed in Canada between 1963 and 1978, a period of continual Progressive Conservative Opposition. The underlying question is whether shadow cabinet organization has become more or less institutionalized during the period. In the introduction Samuel Huntington's four tests of institutionalization are outlined. They were used in assessing Canadian shadow cabinet institutionalization. To operationalize the tests for this study it proved useful to analyze the institution of the Canadian cabinet system along these dimensions. A comparative study of the British and Australian parliamentary systems in which the appointment of shadow cabinets is an accepted convention also helped isolate the variables to study in the Canadian context. Although the analysis centers on the period from 1963 to 1978, a brief history of Opposition organization is included. It provides the background for the period and an understanding of the roots of the present organization. The results of the study reveal that a shadow cabinet organization existed in Canada throughout the period 1963-78. For most of the 15 years its structure and practices were constantly changing. The change was in the direction of increased institutionalization on at least three of Huntington's four dimensions. On the basis of this study, therefore it is argued that shadow cabinet organization has become an established practice of at least Progressive Conservative Opposition in Canada. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

The Master Thesis Engagement of Obama's Administration in the Syrian Civil War is dealing with the role of the United States in the conflict. This work studies the approach of Obama's administration toward the situation in country from the beginning of the revolution until the end of president's second tenure. It analyzes the development of this approach and key events that influenced its shape. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first is dealing with the background of the crisis, historical development of relations between the US and Syria and the broader context of Obama's Middle East policy. The second part analyzes specific period of time between the start of the revolution until 2014. It follows key events that had profound effect on the inner dynamics of the conflict and phenomenon that were shaping the situation in Syria, like the rising influence of the radicals among the opposition. It also analyzes in detail the chemical attack in Ghouta from 2013, which almost led Washington to direct intervention and is regarded as one of the most important events in Obama's foreign policy. The third part is dealing with the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and American-led intervention against this terrorist organization. The thesis was written with the help of different sources such as...

This diploma thesis is devoted to the comparative analysis of presidential elections in Ukraine in relation to the theory of hybrid regimes. First, the thesis illuminates the events that happened in the beginning of the Ukrainian independence which affected the distribution of power between executive and legislative branches. The comparative analysis is applied to the particular elections in the years 1999, 2004 and 2010 with emphasis on the pre-electoral campaigns, legislative changes, election process, respect to rules, election results and the fundamental events which influenced the elections. Next, the thesis analyses elections mentioned above on the ground of the elected theories of hybrid regimes with the goal to assess to their democratic character.

(in English) The author tries to describe the transformation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in relation to itself and the surrounding environment, especially in the period from 17th November to 21st December 1989. He will use primarily the articles from Rudé právo and a stenographic record of the unscheduled session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on 24th and 26th November 1989 which was published under the name Poslední hurá. He considers it appropriate to put into context the events of November and December 1989, with political development in Czechoslovakia in January, at the turn of June and July, and in October 1989. This analysis attempt will be based on the principles of general linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The combination of hegemonic analysis and deconstruction will be used as a method of workflow. When analyzing the transformation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the author attempts to rely primarily on three principles deriving from discourse theory. The identity is not a fixed essence but it is created in the political struggles of the content of specific concepts. There have been attempts to fully fixate the identity of individuals, groups, society. But the identity is...

Studies of American Indian protest rhetoric often define American Indian opposition either by its resistance or its conformity to non-Native institutional discursive norms, suggesting that only one of the two can be considered authentic to American Indian cultures and identities. Addressing this debate, this thesis examines an instance of Native opposition which successfully blends the two approaches: Russell Means' 1989 statement to the United States Senate. Means employs the mode of story to effectively shift discursive authority from the Senate committee members to pan-Indigenous peoples. I call this shift rhetorical occupation, or the appropriation of rhetorical space. Through rhetorical occupation, Means displaces the dominant narrative of governmental power with his own story, drawing on Lakota storytelling practices and both complying with and resisting white Euro-American forms of persuasion. This analysis suggests that rather than defining a broad category of culturally authentic American Indian opposition rhetoric, scholars should consider how Native opposition rhetorics reflect distinct tribal rhetorical traditions and take unique approaches to navigating non-Native discursive norms.

Includes bibliography. / South Africa's negotiated parliamentary system is a hybrid of political institutions based upon different models of democracy. Theoretically, there are two broad models from which South Africa's system draws its characteristics: consociational democracy, and majoritarian democracy. Both models of democracy bestow certain characteristics on the South African system which affect how opposition politics operate within the system. Concern has been raised about the ability of opposition politics to function in, and contribute to, the operation of the South African Parliament. The many consociational characteristics of the South African system may have created opposition structures which are emaciated of their duties, rights and responsibilities. This concern prompted an investigation into the operation of the opposition structures of the South African Parliament. The basis of the neo-Institutional analysis is the premise that the behaviour of actors within a system (in this case, Members of Parliament within Parliament) is shaped by the rules and structure of that system. As such, the opposition behaviour of parties and individuals in the South African Parliament is shaped by the rules and structure of Parliament. This paper first presents the theoretical considerations of a neo-Institutionalist examination. The theory is explored by examining the literature of rational choice theorists as well as Historical Institutionalists. Secondly, an examination is conducted of the different models of democracy-and the attributes which each contribute to the South African system. Within this section, the concept of opposition is developed. The analysis of the South African Parliamentary institutions of opposition is conducted by examining the two basic documents which proscribe the rules of procedure for the institutions of Parliament: the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and the Standing Rules of the National Assembly. The theoretical expectations of behaviour are checked against the empirical reality of Parliamentary behaviour. This study examines data collected from the Debates of the National Assembly (Hansard) regarding individual and party participation in debate, questions and interpellations, committees, and Cabinet. The data support the contention of the analysis that whether it is by virtue of the consociational nature of Cabinet, or the over-representation of smaller parties in National Assembly debate, opposition politics are an important part of the Parliamentary process in South Africa.

In this dissertation I explore the dynamics of how the definition of the human is established and subsequently challenged in both H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and R.L. Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Late nineteenth-century Europe was a time and place where an exploration of the definition of what it means to be human was particularly uncomfortable. The structures that upheld the then accepted conceptions of the human were under assault by new scientific discourses such as Darwinist theories of evolution, criminal anthropology and degenerationism. I show how the anxieties that these discourses inspired are reflected in the texts, and also examine how the communities in the texts act to reinforce the collapsing definition of what it means to be human. Victorian efforts to resolve this crisis of identity were mainly rooted in attempts to classify the natural world and to find or create some form of stable categorical distinction between the ‘human’ and the Other, or the not-human. The nature of the Other varied widely but manifested in terms of species, race, gender and class, to name but a few categories. The mechanisms through which humans, both as individuals and as communities, created and maintained their ‘humanity’ is examined through the use of theories of the liminal, from Anton van Gennep ([1909] 1960) to Homi Bhabha (1994). The reasons for the fear of the liminal characters are explored through Julia Kristeva’s (1982) notion of the abject – a phenomenon which arises in a confusion of the boundaries and distinctions between the subject and the object, the Self and the Other. Using Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s (1996) ‘Monster Theory’, I examine what the texts reveal about the society in which the authors were writing and what the appeal or horror of each monster’s particular type of liminality might have been for contemporary readers. In my conclusion I show that the fears and anxieties in Wells’s and Stevenson’s texts are still extant today. The monsters in the texts reflect changing conceptions of what it means to be human. By examining the nature of the fear that these monsters inspire, one can better understand both the readers of the time and the origins of the modern understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to be Other, and the realisation that, ultimately, perhaps we all exist somewhere betwixt and between. / Dissertation (MA--University of Pretoria, 2017. / English / MA (English) / Unrestricted

Varje omvälvande händelse i Rysslands historia har fört med sig en språklig brytpunkt som inletts med en momentan tillkomst av tidstypiska ord och yttryck. Denna uppsats undersöker om den ”militära specialoperationen” som inleddes den 24 februari 2022 är början på en sådan omvälvande händelse även i ett språkligt hänseende. Syftet med denna studie är undersöka ryska ord och yttryck under kriget i Ukraina genom att ta avstamp i begreppet nyspråk (rys. novojaz; eng. Newspeak) i George Orwells roman ”1984” och i den ryska språkforskningen. Studien undersöker detta genom att identifiera och analysera några frekventa ryska ord och uttryck som kommit att bli karakteristiska för diskursen i rysk media i Ryssland, i rysk media i exil, i ukrainsk media i Ukraina samt i det som kanske kan benämnas som oppositionell ukrainsk media. Undersökningen har använt sig av kvalitativa och kvantitativa lingvistiska metoder, som utgår från ordets och begreppets definition vid detaljanalysen av urvalet. Ett försök att bedöma förekomsterna har gjorts från ett urval av relevanta tidningsartiklar och Telegramkanaler från de ovannämnda mediala grupperingarna. Insamling av material har fortlöpt sen den 24 februari 2022 och varit föremål för omprövning då bland annat en övervägande del av de oberoende ryska medierna gått i exil och den tvåspråkiga ukrainsk-ryska publiceringen i Ukraina minskat. Vidare har avlyssnade ryska soldaters telefonsamtal hem till familjen analyserats för förekomster av karakteristiska ord och uttryck. Studien ger indikationer på att nya ord och uttryck som används i en medial top-down-kaskad inte nödvändigtvis påverkar det produktiva ordvalet hos befolkningen i stort, detta trots en ibland massiv förekomst i allehanda kommunikativa kanaler. / <p>Opponent: Josephine Wennerström</p>