This study explores the range and variance of interest group activity in constituency campaigns in the 1988 federal election as reported in the Constituency Party Association dataset created in 1991 for the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing. SPSSPC+ was used to analyze the relationships between variables in four main areas: political party affiliation, geographic variables, constituency association characteristics, and the specific issues the interest groups were promoting or opposing. The most significant finding was that interest groups were actively involved in half of the riding association election campaigns, either supporting or opposing local candidates. The cursory treatment of electoral involvement in the interest group literature provides an inadequate explanation for this widespread phenomena. This study provides an initial profile of interest group involvement in constituency campaigns. The exploration of the data revealed that interest groups were more likely to be involved in the local campaigns of candidates associated with the governing party. They were less likely to be involved in Quebec constituency campaigns, and more likely in wealthy competitive riding campaigns. The most frequently mentioned issues that motivated interest groups locally were abortion, followed by free trade. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

The subject of the thesis is the Czech Republic parliamentary debate about a national referendum spanning from 1989 to 2014. It is mapping the evolution of the debates on the base of stenographic protocols from the proceedings concerning national referendum bill, as discussed by Chamber of deputies of the Czech Republic. The theoretical part of the thesis is based on current debates about direct democracy. The metodological part of the thesis is using concepts and terminology of the discoursive approach of R. Wodak. Based on this approach, the analysis of the debates is focusing on the main discoursive elements, those are, context framing, inter - discoursive relations, the main issues of the debates, reasoning and identification of the participants. The second level analysis is putting the debates about national referendum into the the context with contemporary debates about direct democracy. In the last part of the thesis the results of the analysis are discussed.

The diploma thesis focuses on the examination of political elites with the field of focus being the members of the government of the Czech Republic, the leadership of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. And selected political groups with selected members. The people in question are the chairman of the political groups. The oldest and youngest men and the oldest and youngest women. This is applied to three selected periods, which are being the years of 1995, 2005 and 2015. First of all, every period will be examined separately, then the periods will be compared. The comparisons will be as follows: 1995-2005, 2005-2015 and 1995-2015. The diploma thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter focuses on the theory of elites, where are described chosen theories. From the second up to the fourth chapter, the diploma thesis is devoted to the descriptions of the members of the Czech government, leaders of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech parliament and selected political groups with selected members in the years of 1995, 2005 and 2015. The last fifth chapter is focused on the mutual comparisons of the years of 1995-2005, 2005-2015 and 1995-2015. The diploma thesis purpose is to record the changes of the political elites in the government of the Czech Republic...

Thesis title: Contemporary populism in Europe This thesis maps the development of populism across Europe and investigates its manifestations and core elements in its complexity, which is the groundwork for analysis of populist party, movement or individual. Populism is not considered solely as the relieving strategy meant to maximize the voter's votes by comprehensible, straightforward and hardly feasible promises. Without this attitude in mind, we would hardly be able to put some reason behind the populist boom, which we had chance to witness during the last decade. Therefore this thesis considers populism as the ideological construct, the way politicians present themselves, the rhetorics, the mastered political style or the structure, which provides the foundations of programme documents of political movements and parties. It would be a mistake to a priori consider it as some kind of purely negative phenomenon, but more of as the reflection of various and continuously changing demands of European electorates. Desperation, which mainstream parties evoke in their voters, is toxic and continues to spread across all society classes. This creates a space for various populists to dominate. Thus while tracking their activities, specific kind of critical thinking is necessary, because populists...

Representation is the foundation of modern democracy. In Sweden the representatives in the parliament are elected through their parties. However there is still a possibility for members of the parliament to leave or become excluded from their parties and still remain in duty - thus becoming an independent member of parliament, or so-called ‘political maverick’. The considerably rare feature in the party-focused parliament seems to grow into a more common phenomenon, yet there is a lack of research on the subject. The aim of this study is therefore to examine the conditions of Swedish independent members to fulfill their mandate and represent the people. With basis in the theoretical framework, the method applied is semi-structured interviews with four current or former independent members of parliament. The results show that while the effect on resources of becoming independent depends on the person’s individual situation, there is evidence that parliament conditions are affected. A pattern of two kinds of independent members is recognized: the classic maverick and the independent party-friend. The conclusion that parliament conditions can be destabilized by independence has implications for the functioning of Swedish democracy. Hence, there is a need for further studies concerning independent members, the resources in parliament and the conflict between party discipline and member autonomy.

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Abstract The struggle for Swedish foreign policy – How Swedish foreign policy was defined and established between the years 1867–1905 as a result of prevailing political power-sharing   AIMS – The aim of this master thesis is to problematize how the Swedish foreign policy was defined politically in the context of the existing constitutional power-sharing model between the bicameral parliament and the ruling monarch. The period 1867–1905 is considered an earlier phase in the political process towards modern parliamentarianism in Sweden. DESIGN – An overall theoretical perspective of a correlation between domestic- and foreign policy is applied, and complemented with a theoretical position of which actor has the priority to define Swedish foreign policy. The thesis uses a methodology of extensive argumentation analysis, with a thematic division between the internal political arena on one side, and on the other side the parliamentary arena. The first arena is analyzed by combining political programs with the monarchs’ autobiographies and memoir. The second arena uses parliamentary debate protocols, parliamentary bills. In this way the thesis generates a selection and a greater understanding of various political issues which is of concern to the actual foreign policy definition in the annual official political throne speeches of the Swedish monarch. RESULTS – A variety of political issues are regarded as of foreign political importance within the internal political arena and is distinguished by a degree of correlations with ideological, ideal and political domestic issues. Such issues are then reflected in the parliamentary arena, through debates in both first and second chambers. The range of issues addressed is not only of constitutional importance, regarding the monarch’s executive power over the different foreign policy areas, but also concerning which political approach should be applied to define the main principle of Swedish foreign policy. Together, the parliamentary debates reveals which arguments influence the definition of foreign policy and which actors who claim the priority to define Swedish foreign policy – all within the existing frame of the power-sharing system. CONCLUSIONS – The thesis concludes that the actors of various parliamentary committees, and especially the constitutional committee, not only had the crucial argument which determined the outcome of the numerous parliamentary debates. Same actors also had the priority to define the main arguments on which the foundations of the monarch’s foreign policy political guidelines where dictated.

The royal supremacy established by Henry VIII was never fully defined or resolved. Was it an imperial kingship or a mixed polity - the king-in-parliament? Professor G.R Elton's theory of parliamentary supremacy has been accepted for many years, but more recently this theory has come under attack from Professors Peter Lake, John Guy, and Patrick Collinson. They have shown that it was not strictly the case that either the royal supremacy or the ecclesiastical polity of the Tudors was a settled issue; there was a tension and an uncertainty that underlay both the Henrician break with Rome in 1534 and the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, yet this tension was not brought to surface of Tudor political debate until the latter part of Elizabeth I's reign. What brought the issue to the fore was the controversy between the puritans who opposed Archbishop John Whitgift's subscription campaign and the 'conformists' who sided with Whitgift's demand for order and congruity in the young Church of England. Part of this controversy was carried out in a literary battle between one of Whitgift's proteges, civil lawyer and high commissioner Richard Cosin, and puritan common lawyer James Morice. The debate focused on the legality of the High Commission's use of the ex officio oath and eventually came to hinge on the question of Elizabeth's authority to empower that commission to exact the oath by virtue of her letters patent. If the ex officio oath was strictly against the statutes and common laws of the realm, was the queen authorised to direct the commission to exact the oath anyway - over and above the law? To answer yes, as Cosin did, was to declare that the queen's royal supremacy was imperial and that her ecclesiastical polity was essentially theocratic. To answer no, as did Morice, was to assert that there were certain things that the queen could not do - namely that she was not empowered to direct the High Commission to contravene statute law, even in the name of ordering and reforming the church. Cosin's legal arguments for the imperial supremacy of the monarch were powerful, but his writings were steeped in a form of political rhetoric that was quickly coming into fashion in the late sixteenth century: the 'language of state'. The language of state was essentially an abandonment of the classical-humanist vocabulary of 'counseling the prince' for the sake of 'virtuous government' in pursuit of a 'happy republic'. This new political language used by Cosin and other conformists justified itself on the premise that the state was so thoroughly endangered by sedition and instability that an urgent corrective was needed: not wise or virtuous counsel but strict obedience to the laws that preserved civil and religious authority. With the threat of presbyterianism at the doorstep of the English Church, Cosin - protected and encouraged by the powerful Whitgift - was free to employ both his legal and his rhetorical skills in an effort to reinvigorate the English clergy by enhancing their jurisdictional status over the laity. By the time James VI and I began his systematic revitalisation of the clerical estate in 1604, the vocabulary that would justify it had already been created. The influence of Cosin demonstrably permeated the early years of the Stuart Church suggesting that Cosin might provide a link between the vague uncertainties of the Elizabethan Settlement and the stark realities of the Caroline Church.

The Scottish Parliament which (re)convened in 1999 was designed to engender a new style of political practice. This ‘new politics’ was intended to address perceived failures within the ‘Westminster approach’ to policy‐making and the ‘democratic deficit’ believed to have emerged during the 1980s in Scotland. Key to achieving this were four principles around which the Parliament’s operations were designed: power‐sharing; accountability; accessibility and participation; and equal opportunities. Citing accessibility and participation as the ‘cornerstone’ of their work, the Parliament’s institutional architects (the Consultative Steering Group) argued that devolution should deliver a participatory democracy, with proactive efforts to be made by the Parliament to involve groups traditionally excluded from the policy process. Due to the increasing prominence in recent years of discourse relating to young people’s disillusionment with organised politics and the CSG’s recommendation that every effort should be made to include them in the new Parliament’s work, this research examines the degree to which greater accessibility to and participation in the Parliament’s work has been delivered for children and young people during the Parliament’s first two terms (1999‐2007). Findings are based upon a mixed‐methodological case‐study approach, involving an audit of the Parliament's activity and qualitative input from MSPs, Parliament staff, representatives of youth charities / organisations / advocacy groups, and young people themselves. The thesis argues that progress has been more pronounced in relation to accessibility than participation for younger people. The neoinstitutionalist theoretical framework suggests that insufficient rule specification in relation to the value of public participation and younger people has resulted in the emergence of hybridised logics of appropriate behaviour, particularly among parliamentarians. The result is the persistence of attitudes and practices which appear to reinforce aspects of Westminster practice and an adultist approach to young people’s role in politics. Drawing upon recent developments in neoinstitutionalist theories of reliable reproduction, institutional breakdown and gradual change, the thesis examines the institutional logic behind the failure to consolidate the Parliament’s founding vision.

The understanding of Swedish lobbyism is so far insufficient and misguided. In order to understand Swedish lobbyism better this thesis calls for a shift to theory testing case studies of actors that are capable to lobby in an organized and recurring way. To do this it offers a theoretical framework developed from three established theories of lobbying strategy adjusted for a Swedish context. The purpose of this framework is to chart strategies for how Swedish lobbyists lobby against Members of Parliament (MPs) and if and how these strategies influence MPs’ attitudes towards a policy. The case is the lobbying campaign for a reduced restaurant sales tax from 2000 to 2014 ending with a reduction from 25% to 12%. The study concludes that Swedish lobbyism is built from alliances, trust, perceived seriousity, and public interest, more than actual expertize of a specific topic.