The target of this research is to reveal causal factors that influence the way policy goals and instruments of international organizations in the domain of human trafficking are designed. By tracking evolutions of anti-trafficking policies undergone by the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the thesis demonstrates impact of specific factors on changes in the functioning of international organizations. To unravel mechanism explaining the internal workings of a policy formation within an IO, the thesis considers and tests theoretical assumptions of three rivalling theories on institutions; the realism, historical institutionalism and neoliberal institutionalism. Premises of respective theories, which offer contrasting perspectives on the functioning of international organizations, will help to formulate corresponding independent variables. The dependant variable being the changing design of institutions, the detailed cross-case analysis spanning a period of one decade uncovers causal relations between independent dependent variables. Thus, by means of time series data collection, patterns revealing which of independent variables can be designed as responsible for observed changes becomes visible. In this way, the study is able to answer to what extent...

The aim of the master thesis "The role of the European Council in the pre-legislative phase of the European legislative process" is to analyse position and influence of the European Council before proposing an official legislative proposal by the European Commission in the EU's legislative process. This pre-legislative phase of a designing of a European legislation is important, though informal. The aim of this master thesis it to find out how strong is the European Council in an agenda setting when it comes to a European legislation and to what extent the Commission is inspired or follows the European Council's conclusions when proposing a legislation. According to many authors who this thesis referring to and their research that this thesis follows, an importance and influence of the European Council has been growing a lot, recently. In their view, it has been happening primarily during serious political or economic crisis. The Commission's position as the only official proposer of a European legislation weakens in that moments while influence of the EU summits grows. The question is if it is true and how much we can really argue that during European crisis the EU's executive power is so weakened that it does not - without ex ante "permission" and ex ante "consultation" with the summits - allow...

(abstract) The main aim of this diploma thesis is to describe projects of selected Czech media institutions that arised from the beginning 2008 until the end of May 2019 and aimed to develop and support media literacy of the public. It will be primarily about researching of programs of the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting, the Czech Television and the Czech Radio. We also pay certain attention to projects of other media institutions. For individual projects, the work focuses primarily on the period of origin, format, type and its thematic content. The obtained data will be summarized in a well arranged way at the end. Based on the results and with regard to the current state of media literacy in the Czech Republic, at the end of the thesis, will be proposed other formats for individual institutions that could help the development and support of media literacy. In addition to this systematic research, at the beginning the work will deal with the history of implementation of media education, that means systematic education, to achieve various levels of media literacy in the world and Czech society. In describing the history of media education, particular account will be taken of the role played by the media and media institutions in the process. The thesis will also mention some...

My thesis studies the role of trade unions as representatives of workers in Czech Republic and Germany. The aim of this thesis is presentation of representation of collective and individual interests of workers on various levels - from national to corporate level. My thesis presents position of trade unions towards state and employers too. In the last chapter the thesis deals with social issues and challenges, that trade unions deal with as well. In conclusion the thesis offers a comparison of the role of trade unions at mentioned levels of representation in Czech Republic and Germany.

The presented thesis is analyzing the regional cooperation in the Western Balkans (WB) focusing on interactions of local actors. Theoretical background is based on the new regionalism, a theoretical approach to regional interactions. Contemporary studies on New Regionalism (NR) actually do not consider the Western Balkans to be part of this process and as a result we lack sufficient information about the basic characteristics of this region. The author proves that the WB is engaged in the process of the new regionalism and in fact by focusing on the institutional structure he demonstrates that several parallel processes are ongoing in the region as for example regional cooperation, integration or cooperation with another region. For the purpose of this research two projects of regional cooperation were chosen, South Eastern European Cooperation Process (SEECP) and the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) which are regarded as the main pillars of the political cooperation in the WB. By examining their structure we may understand the relevance of the region as an independent actor and the general aims of the regional cooperation.

Author of the thesis focuses on the Jewish associations and organizations in Slovakia, particularly Bratislava, in the period 1919 to 1939. Jewish associations existed already in Austria-Hungary. In 1867, resulting from the approval of the Austrian constitution in February 1861, a federal law was adopted that developed and clarified some of the general constitutional principles. In Hungary, after the Austria - Hungarian Settlement, Law of 2 May 1875 No 1508/1875 was in force - with minor adjustments - until the end of 1951. Activities of Jewish societies further developed during the first Czechoslovak Republic. The majority of societies existed in Prague, Brno and Bratislava. Being university cities, their activities attracted number of students, particularly lawyers and medics. The volume of voluntary activities multiplied during 1920's. Bratislava had registered 676 organization and societies in 1931, which was nearly tenfold compared to 1900. In years 1919 - 1939 there were about 30 to 40 Jewish associations in the city. With regard to their activities the Jewish organizations were divided as follows: religious organizations, charitable societies, mutual help and burial assistance societies, student and community based organizations, gymnastics and sporting clubs, professional associations and...

This thesis is embedded in the theoretical approach of multilevel governance and presumption of the rational behaviour of actors. Using the method of process tracing it aims to uncover the legislative process in the European Union. It is a single case study and as a case was chosen the negotiation of the regulation of the citizens' initiative. Various actors were involved in the negotiations, this thesis focuses on the main one - European Commission, European Parliament, the Council, interest organisations and national parliaments. The thesis presumed, that all actors will try to push through their interests based on their rational choice. This presumption was verified, although the success rate of the players varied a lot. As the most successful should be considered the European Parliament, who defended the interests of the individuals and the Council, which apparently represented the interests of the governments of the member states (especially in the issues of lowering the bureaucratic burden). The interest organisations showed their positions clearly, however the Commission did not take their positions much into account while preparing the draft regulation. The position of the national parliaments was different then presumed. Although the thesis expected them to be directly involved in the...

Even though nuclear energy was one the first areas in which European countries started integrating their policies through the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), the question of nuclear installations safety was only addressed by the EU in the context of the impending enlargement of the Union in 2004. In 2003, the European Commission submitted the first-ever proposal for a European directive on nuclear safety. However, the Council rejected it the following year, opening a five-year-long debate leading to the drafting of a new directive proposal, which was subsequently adopted in 2009. Only two years later, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, amending this directive became necessary. Discussions resulted in adopting the amended legislation in the summer of 2014. This master's thesis analyses the main factors influencing the Council's decision-making on either rejecting or adopting the proposed directives in 2004, 2009 and 2014. The analysis is based on the following five scope conditions supposed to lead to integration acceptance by EU member states, as defined by authors Manuele Citi and Martin Rhodes: policy failure and availability of a successful alternative, external influence emanating from foreign countries hardly manageable by the individual states, functional interdependence...

This thesis deals with the topic of individual parliamentary scrutiny of European affairs in Slovakia. The aim of this thesis is to determine which factors influenced the formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny in the Slovak National Assembly. 6 factors will be analyzed - Late accession to the EU, parliamentary strength, bargaining strength in the Council of EU, public euroscepticism, euroscepticism of political parties and the frequency of coalition and minority governments. The strength of parliamentary scrutiny can also be influenced by informal aspects. The informal aspects in this thesis will be mainly concerned with the efforts of the members of the European Affairs Committee to acquire additional information about legislative proposals of the EU in an informal way and also their efforts for a better cooperation in parliamentary scrutiny among various political parties. The empirical analysis found, that the factor of late accession to the EU and euroscepticism of political parties had the biggest effect on the formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny in Slovakia. A partial effect can be also attributed to the factors of public euroscepticism and the frequency of coalition and minority governments. Even though a formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny does exist in...

This thesis deals with the life of Františka Plamínková (1875-1942) paying special attention to her role as a women's rights activist, politician and journalist. The study maps out Plamínková's journey to becoming one of the principal characters of the Czech women's movement before and after the First World War and her merits regarding the women's suffrage in Czechoslovakia in the appropriate historical context. Furthermore, it describes her politics in the Czechoslovak Senate as well as her other public activities, such as being the chairwoman of the Czech National Women's Council. It highlights Plamínková's fate during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, which ultimately led to her execution. The chapter dedicated to Plamínková's journalistic work analyses her texts published between 1906-1940 primarily in women's magazines, where Plamínková reflected on the period narrative concerning women and aimed to change their limited options within both their public and private lives. The premise of this thesis is that Plamínková projected her own experience and opinions into her journalistic body of work. The study is based in archival materials and sources, texts in period magazines and other studies related to the topic at hand. Enclosed are several period photographs and archival documents.