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The Lisbon Treaty has made significant changes to the institutional functioning of the whole system of the European Union. Most notably, it has constituted a non-rotating long-term Presidency for the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council. Before the Lisbon Treaty, the Member State of the European Union presided over all Council constellations, including the European Council, for a six-month term. These changes certainly contributed to the solution of some issues (for instance continuity issues), on the other hand these changes affected in some ways the performance of the rotating Presidency. I focus on these changes to the institutional form of the Presidency and on the effects these changes had on the Presidency's performance in its functions, namely the negotiation and external representation. I draw on the experience of the first two post-Lisbon Presidencies, Spanish and Belgian one. My aim is to examine the changing role of the Presidency in these functions. I explore the role of the Presidency before and during negotiations of the founding Treaties of the European Union and its role after the reforms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. Mainly, I focus on examining the relationship between the rotating Presidency and newly-established permanent Presidency of the European Council and High...

Using the academic and journalistic coverage of Richard Nixon’s religious life as a case study, this thesis argues that social scientists and commentators pay insufficient attention to religion, even when it is an important factor. In a sample of biographies of Nixon and specialist studies of Nixon’s life and career, nearly all the authors minimized the influence of Nixon’s religious upbringing on his political life, regardless of the author’s own views on Nixon. In stark contrast to this body of work, this paper finds that Nixon’s birth into the Religious Society of Friends (or “Quakers”) shaped his political career. Nixon’s evangelical brand of Quakerism allowed him to make contacts among powerful Quakers like Herbert Hoover and well-placed non-Quaker Protestants like Billy Graham. Quakerism also served Nixon as an emotional support in times of political crisis—a necessity for Nixon, who reacted poorly to stress—and when he suffered a crisis of faith in 1962, his political tactics became noticeably more amoral and vindictive. On a policy level, the Quaker tradition of altruism influenced Nixon’s racial policies for the better. Despite his own racist views and those of his political allies, Nixon was a relatively strong advocate of civil rights at home and abroad. Although this paper acknowledges alternative explanations for this discrepancy, such as political biases and the unavailability of primary sources, these explanations were found to be insufficient. This conclusion raises troubling questions about academic impartiality. Do academics intentionally avoid discussing religion? If so, is this due to anti-Christian or anti-religious feeling, as some studies suggest? And if not, what drives academic avoidance of religion?

Polarization, defined as the ideological distance between the Democrat and Republican parties in Congress, has increased dramatically in Congress since the 1970s. Research on polarization in the U.S. Congress primarily focuses on the sources of this increase. Relatively little work has been done on the consequences of polarization for Congress? relationship with the president and the passage of legislation. This dissertation corrects this omission by examining the influence of polarization on several key aspects of the legislative process. It examines the impact of polarization on the interaction between Congress and the president, including the president?s strategy in supporting or opposing legislation and the success the president has on bills when he takes a position. It also examines the effect polarization has on the overall passage of legislation. An empirical examination was undertaken using significant bills in Congress over a sixty year time period (1947-2006). The results indicate that the effects of polarization on the legislative process are contingent upon the presence of divided government, defined as times when the president and a majority of members of Congress are from different parties, and the chamber of Congress under examination. As polarization increases, the president is more likely to support legislation and be successful when his party controls Congress, but he opposes more legislation and is less successful as polarization increases under divided government. Legislative gridlock, the inability of Congress to pass important or innovative legislation, tends to decrease in both the House and Senate as polarization increases under unified government. However, as polarization increases under divided government the overall passage of bills into law decreases. The dissertation also offers an improved method for modeling the impact of divided government on gridlock. Prior studies model divided government without regard for whether the president takes a position on a given bill. This study shows that when the president takes a position on a bill under divided government the probability it passes decreases, but the probability of passage increases when the president does not take a position. This finding implies that previous research may underestimate the true effects of divided government on gridlock.

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Often mischaracterized as a sedate, muddled, and issueless personality contest, the U.S. presidential election of 1824 actually proved an important transitional contest between the First and Second American Party Systems. The five very active candidates involved in the contest created dynamic organizations, sponsored energetic newspaper networks, staged congressional legislative battles, and spread vicious personal attacks against each other, presaging the tactics of the more-celebrated succeeding 1828 election. Four key developments determined the outcome of the 1824 contest. One, the decline of the opposition Federalists encouraged the Republican Party to fracture into five competing candidacies. Two, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun's vicious political attacks fatally undermined the campaign of frontrunner Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford. Three, political outsider General Andrew Jackson successfully equated the practice of politics with corruption, capturing a plurality of the popular vote by running against Washington politicians. Four, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams' superb insider deal-making ability undergirded his successful effort to win the required House election once no candidate received a majority of electoral votes from the popular election. While adversely affecting the political careers of all the participants except Jackson, the election of 1824 accelerated the ongoing trend toward democratized presidential elections and helped give birth to the Second American Party System. / History

Czech Republic presides over the European Union in the first half of 2009. The aim of thesis is characteristic of the Institute and its implications for the Czech Republic. This work provides a comprehensive material on the history and importance of the Presidency. It answers to the questions what it yields, how it is carried out due to his preparation for the organization and content, analyzes and evaluates the course of the Czech Presidency in the first three months of the mandate.

The thesis deals with preparation, process, results and evaluation of the first Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis analyzes the gender narrative surrounding the vice-presidency and the 2016 election. It reviews the traditional feminine gender roles assigned to the vice-presidency and as evidenced in Governor Mike Pence’s participation in a 60 Minutes interview, nomination speech at the 2016 national convention, and vice-presidential debate. Furthers the work of Bostdorff, who argued that the vice presidency has a traditional feminine role where vice-presidential figures and potential aspirants use strategies of celebration, confrontation, vindication, and submission to fulfill a gendered role in service to a highly masculine presidency. Suggests that the realities of the 2016 election allowed for these strategies, although in a different form given the nature of the campaign and a Trump candidacy.

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