The study was carried out to assess the extent to which the intervention of traditional leaders is effective in mobilising support for community development projects and to examine the perceptions that communities have about the role of the traditional leaders in development projects. The study has been guided by the critique of neoliberalism which exposes the negative effects of implementing the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) in Third World countries. The literature that has been reviewed has looked at the historical and political background of the role of chiefs and other traditional leaders in order to assess the nature of participation that is promoted through their involvement in development projects. An overview of the neo-liberal prescription and its critique has been made in order to expose the effects of the oil embargo of 1973 and the debt crisis of the 1980s on the economies of Third World countries in general and Malawi in particular. On the basis of evidence which has been gathered through a survey and focus group discussion, the study has found that the intervention of traditional leaders is very effective in mobilising communities for development projects. It has further been established that communities have high regard for their traditional leaders and that they perceive them as crucial role players in the conception and implementation of development projects. The study has however established that traditional leaders use unorthodox means such as threats of punishment to solicit the cooperation of the community members which in essence is counterproductive to the participatory approach to development.

The following essay can be described as an election pledge research where the presidential pledges are compared to the politics they implement when in power. The purpose is to see if they are genuine with their promises or just seeking the votes of the public. The study will focus on three election campaigns, 2008, 2012 and 2016. This essay will implement two theories: Rational choice theory and the Mandate Model. To answer this two questions will be dealt with. They are as follows: How likely is it that the promises made during a presidential campaign are kept? What category of pledges are kept to the most extent and in what way does this influence the voter?  To deal with those questions this essay will apply a case study design that implement the methods of a theory consuming- and qualitative text analysis.  The result of the study showed that for the three studied elections a minority of the pledges were fulfilled. But as previous studies also have done is adding fulfilled pledges and compromises. In that case 71,18% of the election pledges were at least partly fulfilled. The pledges that were kept to the greatest extent was economic aid and financial support. The influence on the voter depends if they are satisfied by compromises or just want pledges to be kept.

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The opportunity theory for crime is composed of three partial concepts. The first concept is the routine activity theory that works with a potential offender, a suitable target and a capable guardian. The opportunity for crime occurs in the moment when the offender faces the target while guardians are absent. The second concept, the rational choice perspective, is based on the idea that the offender considers benefit and risk stemming from the crime. The third concept is the crime pattern theory that focuses on the importance of time and space. This master thesis focuses on the usability of the opportunity theory for crime in the context of our current society. Although the opportunity theory for crime is nearly forty years old, this work shows that it is also applicable on cybercrime since some of the "classical" crimes moved from physical space to cyberspace. The potential offender and suitable target exist and behave similarly in cyberspace and in physical space. The difference between the two worlds is notable for the capable guardian, who does not occur randomly in the cyberspace but is embodied in the form of ever-present protection. The opportunity theory also claims that the opportunities are highly specific, they play role in causing all crime, they are influenced by technological...

This thesis concerns the support for the AfD in the federal states Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt, and Baden-Württemberg. In particular, the goal is to explain the support for the AfD among the eligible voters of Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt, and Baden-Württemberg at the most recently elections held in Bremen on 10 May 2015 and in Baden-Württemberg and Saxony-Anhalt on 13 March 2016. This is a disciplined, interpretive case study, which uses the existing models of voting behaviour to explain the voting for the AfD in Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt, and Baden- Württemberg. It employs a sociological model of voting behaviour and a model of rational choice. The goal is to determine whether the support for the AfD in the three selected federal states can be explained using these models of voting behaviour, and if so, which model of voting behaviour best explains the support for the AfD. First, the thesis presents the models of voting behaviour that are used in the study for analysis of the support for the AfD. The next portion of the thesis deals with the party Alternative for Germany. The section of the thesis that follows is devoted to the actual analysis of support for the AfD, first in Baden- Württemberg and then in the federal states Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen. The answers to the research question are presented at the...

Recent results from cognitive psychology suggest that human behavior can be, in some situations, better described by laws known from physical quantum theory. This work responds to this development and seeks to answer the question of how quantum models of cognition and decision-making can contribute to our understanding of the social world. We introduce the approaches to the application of quantum theory in social sciences - quantum consciousness, quantum reasoning and quantum metaphor and further develop the second, in the context of strategic interaction in game theory. We show that the quantum model corresponds to both the psychological intuition and many empirically known anomalies such as the order effect, disjunction effect, or context effect. In this work, we derive a specific model of strategic interaction between two players, and we test it in the experimental Prisoner's Dilemma game. The model is based on the rational choice theory, which is nevertheless re-defined when it is shown how the strategic choice is changed if the quantum probability (C*-algebra) is used as the underlying theory instead of classical probability (σ-algebra). The results obtained support the quantum model and showed a different representation of the game among various groups of players. The quantum model of...

This study looks at the evolution of the management of the biofuel energy in the transport sector in the European Union. This sector represents a big challenge for environmentally friendly and sustainable production and consumption of energy. In the past ten years biofuels have emerged as a burgeoning solution but have also received criticism from some quarters. The study analysis the European Commission's functions in the management of the biofuel market in Czech Republic through a single case study. The research is based on the Principal-Agent theory elaborated by the broader theory of rational-choice institutionalism. It argues that Czech Republic biofuel market may be driven by the European Commission if functions that enhance credible commitment, higher efficiency and information were delegated to it by the member states. Through the congruence method the study compares the expectations of the Principal- Agent theory with the real case situation. Under the European legislation, between the Directive 2009/28/EC and the Directive (EU) 2018/2001, the study finds that the European Commission has some significant function in the management of the sustainability of biofuels in the Czech Republic but has very limited power to directly influence the evolution of Czech biofuel production. The European...

Superficial information of the civil wars in Aceh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka creates the idea that both conflicts were in similar situations when they were hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. It thus seems surprising that in the wake of the tsunami, the Free Aceh Movement and the Government of Indonesia signed a peace agreement, while the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Government of Sri Lanka returned to war. This thesis aims to explore what factors related to the tsunami contributed to this difference and whether rational choice theory can serve as an explanation for this difference. In order to find out, I conducted a qualitative comparative case study though the analysis of secondary documents. The results suggest that the factors that contributed to the difference can be divided into four broad themes: (1) the timing of the tsunami and thus the pre-disaster context; (2) the geographical situation and with that, the military impact; (3) the types of guerilla groups, including their abilities to rule, their access to financial capital and their strategic; (4) the role of the international community, which can be further divided into firstly, the geopolitical relevance of these countries, and secondly, internationalization, community engagement and separating the tsunami and conflict. I believe that rational choice theory explains the difference in outcome between the two conflicts very well. This theory assumes that people, given the circumstances, and in view of all the possible options, will act in line with the option that is expected to satisfy them most and minimize their losses. Applying this theory to the case studies of Aceh and Sri Lanka following the tsunami, it was appealing for the Free Aceh Movement to settle, but this was not the case for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. As a result, the former chose to sign a peace agreement with the Government of Indonesia, whereas the latter chose to continue its fight against the Government of Sri Lanka.

The aim of this thesis is to answer how and why France intervenes in Sub-Saharan Africa in the new millennium. This region represented the pivotal part of French colonial empire and France maintained close mutual relationship even after decolonization, partly due to the numerous military interventions. Security and defence policy towards Sub-Saharan Africa underwent gradual changes since the 1990s', France started to participate in multilateral peace operations and outside its traditional sphere of influence. Since 2003, when the European Union launched the first operation on the African continent, the vast majority of French interventions took place within the Common Security and Defence Policy of the EU. There were twelve new operations in the examined period 2003-2012, from which four military missions were selected for the purpose of this research: Operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003, EUFOR DR Congo ibidem in 2006, EUFOR Chad/CAR in Chad and Central African Republic from 2008 to 2009 and naval operation EU NAVFOR Atalanta launched by the coast of Somalia in 2008. The thesis compares these cases in order to analyse motives which lead France to intervene in Sub-Saharan Africa and to prefere multilateral type of operation. The motives are assessed in the context of the...

203 12 Dissertation Summary Dissertation title: Democracy in the Lack of Interest: the Effects of Remote Internet Voting Implementation in the Electoral Process of Selected Countries Name and Surname: Karel Sál Field of Study: Political Science Place of Work: Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague Dissertation Supervisor: PhDr. Petr Jüptner, Ph.D. No. of Pages: 203 No. of Appendixes: 30 Year of Defense: 2016 Keywords: internet voting; remote internet voting; electoral turnout; crisis of democracy; theory of participation; rational choice theory; Estonia; Switzerland; France; Norway; Spain. Abstract: The dissertation thesis named Democracy in the Lack of Interest: the Effects of Remote Internet Voting Implementation in the Electoral Process of Selected States reflects the phenomenon of the last decade - incorporation of new media into the political process. Internet voting is one of the discussed and suggested solutions of the so-called crisis of democracy, which could possibly stop the negative trend of diminishing voter turnout in advanced western democracies. The entire academic debate can be summarized into one question: It is possible, that the way of ballot casting can affect the voter turnout in that scale, that we can recognize a significant-positive...