Diploma thesis "Interest Groups, lobbying and it's regulation in the Czech Republic" deals with the phenomenon of lobbying and it's role in democratic political processes. First part of this thesis is aimed at political theories of interest groups, various definitions of lobbying and methods of regulating lobbyists. The second part containes a comparison of lobbying regulations in various western states. The third part containes an analysis of the present state of lobbying regulation in the Czech Republic. In the final fourth part, certain methods of lobbying regulation are proposed to take place in the Czech Republic and scrutinized for compliance with the oppinion of Czech political elites and professional lobbyists.

En analysant le processus d’appropriation des normes de bonne gouvernance (participation citoyenne, transparence, redevabilité et lutte contre la corruption) par les fonctionnaires au Rwanda et au Burundi, cette thèse cherche à comprendre l’impact réel des politiques de développement, dans le domaine de la gouvernance. La recherche met en exergue l’influence importante des bailleurs sur la structure formelle des Etats, mais sans modifier les rapports de force sous-jacents, au sein de la structure étatique. Au contraire, la recherche prouve qu’un faible niveau de considération des relations informelles de pouvoir et de la perception cognitive des acteurs durant le transfert de technologie peut porter à un détournement et une instrumentalisation de la technologie transférée, renforçant les dynamiques de pouvoir préexistantes. / By analyzing the appropriation process of good governance norms (civil participation, transparency, accountability and the fight against corruption) by civil servants in Rwanda and Burundi, this thesis try to assess the real impact of development policies, within the governance framework. The research emphasizes the influence of bilateral and multilateral donors on state formal structure, but without modifying underlying power relationships, within the state structure. At the contrary, the research shows that a lack of consideration for informal power relations and actors’ cognitive perception during technology transfer may reinforce pre-existing power relationships, as well as the misappropriation and the instrumentalization of the transferred technology.

De senaste decennierna har Sverige gått från en stat med starka inslag av korporativism till ett styrelseskick med pluralistisk prägel. Utvecklingen har inneburit en arena för nya påverkansformer och med den en ny yrkeskategori. Samtidigt som arbetet med att påverka statsmakten utifrån har ökat, finns det fortfarande begränsad kunskap om hur det arbetet bedrivs.  I denna studie används Hugh Heclos begrepp ‘policyprofessionella’ för förstå denna nya arena och dess aktörer. 2015 uppskattades antalet verksamma policyprofessionella till mellan 2000 och 2500 personer. Denna studie undersöker och analyserar en avgränsad del av denna grupp genom deras egen syn på sin roll i det nutida demokratiska systemet. Utgångspunkter i frågeställningen är makt, demokrati och legitimitet. Studien genomförs genom sex semistrukturerade intervjuer baserade på ett målinriktat urval av policyprofessionella konsulter.  Med hjälp av Steven Lukes tre maktdimensioner som teoretiskt ramverk framkommer tre primära slutsatser. Den första är den rörande oklarheterna kring de policyprofessionella konsulternas arbete och identitet. Varken den statsvetenskapliga forskningen eller konsulterna själva verkar veta vad de ska kalla sig. Den andra är den om konsulternas uppdragsgivare och vad deras arbete utgörs av. Studien visar på en viktig distinktion mellan att arbeta mot politiker och för dem. Detta aktualiserar vidare frågor om partipolitikens representativitet. Den tredje slutsatsen rör svårigheten av ansvarsutkrävande från gruppen.

Sustainability is a complex system of interaction between a hospital, individual, community, and environmental factors that is required to work in harmony to keep a patient healthy. With the complexities that exist within healthcare, the nurse leader is required to ensure that the care environment, processes and the safety behaviours required from nurses to provide safe healthcare is in place and sustained to contribute to the enhancement of patient safety, whilst in the care of the diverse nursing workforce. The aim of the study is to develop an action plan to sustain best safety culture practices for improved patient outcomes in hospitals with a culturally diverse nursing workforce. Methodology: A multiple method design was utilised to study the safety culture and positive work environment (hospital climate) that exists among culturally diverse nurses and how it is managed by the nurse managers in order to identify and describe actions that can be included in an action plan to sustain best safety culture practices for improved patient outcomes. Purposeful and convenience sampling methods were used in the study. Two hospitals, with a very diverse nursing workforce were purposefully selected to participate in the study. Pretesting of the questionnaire and e-Delphi embedded assessment validation instrument were done by participants not part of sample groups. Phase 1: The Hospitals outcomes data for nursing admission assessment within 24-hours, falls and hospital acquired pressure ulcer incidences and hand hygiene rates were collected on a checklist. Phase 2: Two questionnaires (1) nurses capturing: biographical data and culture, patient safety (nursing admission assessment within 24-hours, falls and HAPU and hand hygiene), and safety culture and positive work environment (hospital climate); (2) nurse managers capturing: biographical data and culture, patient safety (nursing admission assessment within 24- hours, falls and HAPU and hand hygiene), safety culture and Positive Work Environment (hospital climate) and just culture practices. Phase 3: the Draft e-Delphi action plan with embedded assessment validation instrument was developed. Phase 4: The panel experts selected to validate the e-Delphi draft action plan with embedded assessment validation instrument in pre-determined rounds. Data analysis: Phase 1: The outcomes data was displayed in bar graphs and illustrated that (1) the nursing admission assessment within 24 hour period not been sustained over time for the medical, surgical, paediatric and critical care areas; (2) a hundred and sixty two fall incidence; (3) ninety six HAPU incidences and (4) hand hygiene rate of between 80-94% being reported. Phase 2: A participation rate of 46.33% by nurses and 73.91% by nurse managers were achieved. The data for the 2 questionnaires indicated the need to include 54 action statement to address the culture, patient safety, hospital climate (PWE), safety culture and just culture gaps identified. Phase 3: the e-Delphi draft action plan developed based on literature review and data from phase 1 and phase 2. Phase 4: 100% participation rate was achieved. Consensus was reached within two rounds that the 54 action statements are essential and important for patient safety and identified the responsible persons required enacting on action statement and timeframe required to complete action. Recommendation: The Action Plan to enhance a sustainable Culture of Safety to improve patient outcomes were decided by panel experts. Plan to disseminate the plan among the CNO for implementation. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)

A test of combining retrogressive analysis of historic maps of the Sigtuna area villages Billby, Bärmö, Eneby, Til and Venngarn from the seventeenth century with archaeobotanical results pertaining to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth century. The study examines meadow distribution and character while aiming to determine to what extent retrogressive and archaeobotanical methods can compliment each other. Through the combination of methods, landscape change is discussed.  I explore how these meadows changed from the eleventh century to the seventeenth, which meadows could reasonably be presumed to have originated in prehistoric or early historic times and whether the hypothetical habitats produced by a previous archaeobotanical study of Sigtuna macrofossils could be tied to the meadows. The study shows that the grassland was generally wetter in the eleventh century, and that thirteen out of twenty meadows may have originated already in prehistoric time and been more or less continually mowed until at least late seventeenth century. Wet meadows, calcareous wet meadows, water meadows and potentially calcareous fens could be detected in the investigated area. The study shows that the multi-disciplinary approach as well as source pluralism indeed results in a beneficial analysis synergy and that the meadows in question are possible points of origin for the macrofossils from some of Sigtuna’s oldest strata.

Uppsatsen undersöker Statens informationsstyrelses fyra sammanställningar av folkberedskapens orts- och länsombuds årliga rapporter 1941-1944. Syftet är att ta reda på mer om vilken roll icke-statliga organisationer hade för roll i det kulturella folkberedskapsarbetet på lokal nivå runt omkring i Sverige under beredskapstiden. Genom kvalitativ textanalys lyfter studien fram vilka kopplingar Folkberedskapen (SIS) hade till icke-statliga organisationer och vilken verksamhet av folkberedskapskaraktär dessa organisationer bedrev. Resultatet visar att de redan etablerade icke-statliga organisationerna hade en mycket omfattande och tämligen autonom roll i arbetet.

The South African author C Louis Leipoldt is known as an Afrikaans poet and as one of the ‘Driemanskap’ with Celliers and Totius. Together with Eugene Marais, they wrote the first serious Afrikaans literary poetry in the early decades of the Twentieth Century. The ‘Driemanskap’, grouped together for its clear national(ist) thrust, is well-known as part of the Tweede Afrikaanse Taalbeweging not only for celebrating the universal effects of nature but also for extolling the virtues of forgiveness after the South African War. Apart from his extensive canon of Afrikaans literature and a sizable discourse in the culinary field, not much is known about The Valley, Leipoldt’s so-called ‘English’ novels written in the late 1920s and early 1930s in English, a language he was equally at home in. The titles of these novels making up The Valley trilogy are Gallows Gecko, Stormwrack and The Mask. Despite several efforts to have the novels published with leading publishing houses in both Britain and the United States of America, both during and after his lifetime, the three ‘English’ novels of C Louis Leipoldt remained unpublished for 69 years. It was in 2001 that for the first time they appeared unedited in a compendium volume. Prior to 2001, two of the novels were published −in 1980, the year of the centenary of Leipoldt’s birth, an abridged edition of Stormwrack appeared, edited by Stephen Gray and published by David Philip, Cape Town. It was re-published by Human&Rousseau in 2000. An abridged edition of Gallows Gecko appeared in 2001, under the title Chameleon on the Gallows which the editor Stephen Gray explains he changed for stylistic reasons. Leipoldt uses the form of historical fiction in his trilogy as a way of conveying historical meaning by relating the chronicle (1820 – 1930) of the place he calls the Valley, recognizable as Clanwilliam. Initially, the Valley is at peace and is sketched in its idyllic state. After the Jameson Raid of 1895, the prospects of the South African War become a reality for the inhabitants of the Cederberg as they are torn apart by their emotions, feelings and loyalties. The course of events drastically changes when war finally comes to the District. Discontinuity and change is a strong theme in the novels. Eventually the inhabitants ofthe Valley find that the former, respectful relations, based on tradition and tolerance, have given way to sectarian interests. This changes the social fibre of the once idyllic environment. The Valley is a lamentation of lost opportunities for a culturally unified South Africa. Its voice is one of moderateness and is inclusive for all South Africans, addressing race relations as a theme as well as decrying sectionalism. In the light of this, it is argued that Leipoldt is revealed as a political liberal and cultural pluralist. This can be heard through the voices of the characters in The Valley and seen by the way Leipoldt meant the events in his fiction to serve as an allegory for the way he saw South Africa emerging at the time. He was writing against the Nationalists, particularly against the narrative of Gustav S Preller, who spent his working life constructing a volksgeskiedenis that resulted in a significant public history that dominated Afrikaner historical thinking from circa 1905 to 1938. In this sense, it is argued, The Valley is an alternative history to the dominating Preller historiography, and because it is in the form of narrative/historical fiction, it can also be seen as an alternative form of history, to be read against certain theoretical texts, without in any way detracting from the voices of criticism against deconstructivist history. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Historical and Heritage Studies / unrestricted

When the filmed version of The Last Temptation of Christ was released in the United States, it met with significant protests from conservative Christians who felt it was blasphemous. Using the controversy surrounding the film and its reception in Austin, Texas, this is a case study in censorship as a social process and in the cultural conflict it signifies. Certain societal factors must converge to create an art controversy. Through an examination of the film, the groups involved in the protest, and the social and political climate at the time, some of these factors are described. Imbedded in this controversy are the underlying tensions that permeate many modern cultural debates: shifting ideas of the sacred and the profane and definitions of moral authority.

The aim of this essay was to study the extent to which president Nayib Bukele applies the ideologies of the party Nuevas Ideas in accordance with the wishes of the Salvadoran people. Nueva Ideas party ideology consists of democratic, decentralized, plural, and inclusive political definitions. Using populism as a theoretical framework, the essay provided various explanations that describe the extent to which Nayib Bukele starts from populism to understand the connection between the president and defined concepts in populism: identity politics, anti-pluralism, and anti-elitism. The essay has created a greater understanding of the president's political procedure. The research problem has been studied with the help of the theory that fulfills an important function as it is at the center of the study's question. The chosen method for this research is a qualitative case study. The results show that the president is portrayed as the populist leader in El Salvador, but Bukele's political procedure can not be defined as populist because the president does not act fully in accordance with the ideas he advocated.

This thesis explores if and how states can regain control over large social media platforms like Facebook, and by doing so ensuring that individuals on those platforms can de facto enjoy their human rights, as enshrined in international treaties. Today, the platforms are crucial facilitators of human rights but at the same time facilitators of threats towards the enjoyment of the same rights. Behind this duality hides three gaps, namely between individuals’ de jure enshrined human rights and their de facto possibilities to enjoy them on social media, states extensive de jure obligations to ensure those rights on social media and their limited de facto possibilities to actually do so, and lastly between the platforms limited de jure responsibilities to respect human rights and their extensive de facto influence over human rights. The reason that these gaps have arisen is essentially that public international law – mainly its strict horizontal character and its definition of jurisdiction as something exclusively tied to a delimited physical territory – is inadequate to tackle the virtual, cross-border, and non-state activity that the platforms are pursuing. To find what could be done to lessen these gaps, this thesis turns to theories in analytical jurisprudence and public international law: the identity of systems, legal pluralism and international legal subjectivity. The first suggests that this issue cannot be solved due to different legal systems having different identities and thus cannot be bridged. The second also suggests that the issue cannot be solved not because of differing identities of systems but because the platforms should be regarded as autonomous legal systems, not subordinate to state law. Finally, the third alternative suggests an actual solution: making the platforms subject directly to international law and universal jurisdiction. Even though this is a legally sound solution it is, however, not as simple a solution as it might appear.