Intervention in Libya is an anomaly in President Barack Obama's foreign policy during his eight years in the office. This thesis aims to analyze the decision-making process leading to this unprecedented step. Using Graham Allison's Bureaucratic Politics Model, the purpose of this analysis is to investigate the influence of some presidential advisors and allies on his final decision. Data for this study were collected using President Obama's public statements, biographies of several members of the administration, and secondary academic sources. After some general context, the thesis closely examines the selected period from the first protests in Libya on February 15 to the beginning of the Operation United Protector on March 31. This timeframe of forty-five days is further divided into the week-by-week process tracing analyses. The development on the ground in Libya is merged with changes of attitude in the American administration and changing alliances among the members of the advisory team of the President. The Bureaucratic Politics Model is used to analyze specific tactics used by American officials to impose their preferred scenario. The study also tests the applicability of several new methodological approaches within the Bureaucratic Politics Model like the palace politics perspective,...

This thesis generally focuses on the president's role in the formation of the first government of Andrej Babiš after the 2017 parliamentary elections. As this government ruled for several months without the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies, the key part of the thesis further concerns the issue of the investiture vote. In the context of the post-election period, the thesis examines specific steps taken by the president in the government formation process in order to evaluate whether the manifestations of the president's influence are in line with the basic preconditions for the functioning of the executive power. The issue of confidence is assessed with respect to whether it is necessary for the government to rely on the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies, both in terms of relations between the executive and the legislature, but also regarding the government performance. Emphasis is therefore placed on the complex problematization of the investiture vote and the issue of confidence is then analysed primarily at the level of government's accountability to the Chamber of Deputies. Furthermore, the thesis confronts the first cabinet of Andrej Babiš with the basic prerequisites for effective government and aims to prove whether its appointment created a cabinet with the potential to govern...

The diploma thesis deals with the political strategy of the former Bolivian President Evo Morales (2006-2019). After successfully running in the 2005 presidential election, he became the first Bolivian president of Indian descent. Many authors believe that during the three election periods that Morales served in the country, there was a reversal in his political strategy, after he deviated from his original agenda of indigenous nature and began to pursue a tough extractivist policy focused on the development model of the state. The paper explores key concepts such as Indigenism, Indianism, and Katarismo and their development and influence in Bolivia. The work also tries to define the term developmentalism (development theory), which is of fundamental importance in the study of this issue. Closer attention is also paid to the personality of Evo Morales and his political activity. Based on both primary and secondary sources, we tried to define and explain the political turnaround that was to take place. The work deals with four key areas of Morales policy, the role of gas extraction, the president's relationship with exports, building infrastructure, and the autonomy of Native American movements. Based on the analysis of these areas, we examine whether there has been a political turnaround, which...

The current French president has more possibilities to strengthen his position within the political system of the Fifth republic than his predecessors before the year 2000. This is the conclusion of this paper. At the turn of the millennium, French citizens have approved in a referendum the reduction of presidential term from seven to five years. In addition french prime minister initiated the change of the electoral calendar. Thanks to these reforms the probability that the system freezes in the period of cohabitation decreased significantly. In that context, this paper examines in what extend the role of the president became more important and how the last three french heads of state (Chirac, Sarkozy and Hollande) managed to behave within this new constitutional settlement. According to the results of this study, the president got wider possibilities especially in the field of practical execution of his mandate. It is because he can be more certain that the parliamentary majority will support him during his whole five year term. This means that the constitutional reform in 2000 (and next revisions in 2007 and 2008) made the political system clearer and it also stabilized the electoral calendar. Additionally, if an ambitious politician with the will of concentrating big amount of power only in his own...

The master thesis called Security of the Russian Federation: (de)securitization of the U.S. by Russian representatives deals with the security of Russia from the top representatives points of view. The analyzed time is determined by the presidential term of Dmitry Medvedev (2008 - April 2012). The aim of the thesis is to find out, why the U.S. was (de)securitized during the Medvedev's presidential term and confirm or disprove the predefined hypothesis. President, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs create the foreign politics of Russian federation. Their speeches and interviews are the main source of the data. The basic security terms and the theories (de)securitization are discussed in the first part of the thesis. The Russian point of view of security is defined in the following part. There are analyzed oficial documents focusing on definition of the national security, foreign policy and military field. There are also discussed the Russian media discourse since 90s of the 20 century and Russian- American relations. The last empirical part analyzes the interviews and speeches of the president Medvedev, of the prime minister Putin and of the minister of foreign affairs Lavrov in terms of their attitudes to the U.S.

The subject of this diploma thesis is the usage of elements of political marketing in the Czech presidential campaign 2012/2013. The theoretical part of the thesis is focused on the general development of political communication and election campaigns, the principles considering the performing of political marketing, the basic formulas of voters' decision-making and models of coordinated behavior of the electorate and political representatives depending on the strategic effects of electoral systems. In a subsequent analysis of the election campaigns of selected presidential candidates - Miloš Zeman, Karel Schwarzenberg, Jan Fischer and Jiří Dienstbier - is monitored, how and under what circumstances the advancement of political marketing is applied, whether the candidates and their election team incorporate the assumed strategic effects of the election system into the planning process and implementation of election campaigns, hence if and how the campaign considers the voters' experienced ideas about the head of the state.

The diploma thesis focuses on women in politics, specifically on the cases when a woman is running for a president. For a purpose of the thesis 3 candidates were chosen, Radičová, Tymoshenko and Grybauskaite, i. e. one successful and two unsuccessfull ones. These case were chosen intentionally among countries of postcommunism space, where we can expect role of gender stereotypes, especially when running for the position of head of state. This thesis's object is to compare all the women candidates and explore possible causes of their success/ unsuccess based on the conditions and stereotypes dominating in a country. Thesis focuses on election campaign, party affiliation or support of each candidate and their effect on voters.

This thesis deals with the development of the media image of Miloš Zeman in the two terms in which he held the most significant political functions, namely the prime minister and the president. The aim is to find out whether the media image of Miloš Zeman at a time when he served as prime minister differs from the current media image that he now has as president. The theoretical part is defined by the role of the media in society and politics. Furthermore, the approaches of objectivity in media are described and finally the basic theories that are applied in the construction of the media image are presented. The methodological part of the research covers the method of quantitative content analysis and how this research was conducted. The necessary data was obtained through the Anopress database, selecting relevant articles of the two national newspapers (Mladá fronta Dnes, Právo) and the two most-watched national television networks (Nova, Česká televize). The conclusion of this thesis is analytical and presents the results.

The thesis deals with the concept of politicization of the European Commission. It stems from the assumption that the new election procedure of the President of the Commission which is connected to the nomination of so-called Spitzenkandidaten, i.e. the lead candidates of the political parties before the elections to the European Parliament, led to the strengthening of the Parliament and subsequent politicization of the Commission. The new President of the Commission thus comes from the strongest political party which ran the elections with his candidature. The thesis formulates four hypotheses while focusing on three main areas which might be influenced by politicization: public opinion awareness, strengthening of the political affiliation of the commissioners as well as of the whole College of commissioners, and change of its inner composition - the political experience should become more prominent when choosing the suitable candidates for the commissioners. The analysis shows that it is possible to trace a positive trend in public opinion awareness from the side of the European Commission. Furthermore, it indicates the political assignment of individual portfolios among commissioners. On the other hand, the strengthening of the political affiliation of the Commissions and the change of the inner...

Comment se constitue un pouvoir politique réputé "absolu" là où dans la séquence historique immédiatement antérieure le chef de l’Etat ne jouissait pas d’une position prééminente ? Norbert Elias avait placé cette énigme au cœur de ses réflexions dans La société de cour. L’ambition de cette thèse est de la reprendre à partir d’un tout autre contexte socio-historique et sur une temporalité plus courte : en s’inspirant de la démarche éliasienne mais aussi de la sociologie pragmatique et de certains apports de l’ethnométhodologie, il s’agit de comprendre, d’une manière sociologique, comment, en l’espace d’à peine deux décennies, un rapport de domination politique particulièrement marqué a pu s’instaurer en Russie entre le chef de l’Etat et les magnats de l’économie. Pour répondre à cette question, la thèse se centre sur une forme particulière de cérémonial où la déférence à l’égard du chef de l’Etat peut être observée publiquement - les interviews télévisées avec des membres des élites économiques - et développe trois arguments. Fondé sur l’analyse d’un corpus d’émissions diffusées sur la chaîne de télévision publique Rossiya 24 et sur celle, « indépendante », Dozhd, aussi bien que sur les entretiens « exégétiques » avec les intervieweurs de deux chaînes, l’enquête démontre que la domination du chef de l’Etat repose pour une part essentielle sur la croyance collective, partagée au sein des élites, en un ensemble de règles – le pacte – qui prescrivent de quelle façon il convient de traiter la personne du Président dans l’espace public. La thèse montre ensuite la place centrale qu’occupent les médias dans la reproduction de l’ordre politique aujourd’hui en Russie. Ceux-ci se présentent comme le théâtre où se constitue la croyance des élites dans le pouvoir « absolu » du président. Afin de le montrer la thèse étudie, à l’aide d’entretiens réalisés avec les journalistes et les responsables des deux chaînes de télévision concernées, le dispositif matériel et organisationnel de ces chaînes. Finalement, à travers l’analyse d’un corpus de données de presse et de documents audiovisuels, la thèse montre que l’effort de soumission au chef de l’Etat, que les membres des élites économiques russes manifestent de plus en plus nettement dans certaines situations publiques à partir des années 2010 s’explique par la transformation de la sensibilité et de l’habitus psychique propre au groupe social des oligarques – transformation elle-même liée à l’évolution de la « balance des pouvoirs » au sein des élites au cours de la décennie 2000. / How a political power deemed “absolute” is established where during the previous historical period the chief of the state could not not enjoy such a pre-eminent position? Norbert Elias had placed this question at the heart of his reflections in The court society. The idea of this thesis is to apply the Eliasian question to a different socio-historical context. Drawing inspiration from the Eliasian approach, but also from pragmatic sociology and ethnomethodology, this thesis aims to understand how a system of the relations of domination between the head of the state and the tycoons could form in Russia in less than twenty years. To answer this question, the thesis focuses on a particular form of publicly observable ceremonial of deference towards the head of the state - television interviews with members of the economic elites. The thesis develops three arguments. Based on the analysis of a corpus of programs broadcasted on the public television channel Rossiya 24 and on the "independent" channel Dozhd, as well as on the "exegetical" interviews with interviewers of two channels, the thesis demonstrates that the domination of the head of the state is based on the collective belief, shared among the members of elites, in a set of rules which prescribe how the person of the president should be treated in the public space. Secondly, the thesis shows the central role played by the media in the reproduction of the political order in Russia. The media can be seen as the theater where the belief in the "absolute" power of the president is formed. In order to show this, the thesis studies the organization of the two television channels through interviews with journalists and officials of these channels. Finally, through the analysis of a corpus of press and audio-visual documents, the thesis shows that the effort of submission to the head of the State, that the members of the Russian economic elites manifest more and more clearly in certain public situations in recent years, can be explained by the transformation of their psychic habitus and sensibility. This transformation is related to the evolution of the "balance of powers" within the elites during this decade.