This thesis analyzes Russia’s geopolitical objectives in Southeast Europe by focusing on natural gas pipelines and energy security. Natural gas is a crucial soft power asset that Russia utilizes to maintain its sphere of influence in the region. When defining Southeast Europe, this thesis focuses on the following countries of the region: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, and Serbia. The empirically driven research explores Russia’s role as the main natural gas supplier in Southeast Europe and the geostrategic implications of the region’s potential to become a vital entry point into Europe for Russian natural gas. This thesis applies the theory of defensive realism to the study of gas-infrastructure developments and to the impact of new pipelines on Russia’s dominant energy role within the region. Further on, Russia faces various challenges to its control of the regional gas market, including European Union’s energy policies, LNG from the United States, natural gas from Azerbaijan, and other complex factors that play into the regional geopolitical and energy arena.   With the analysis of the empirical data, this thesis assesses how each of the Southeast European countries respond to new gas-infrastructure projects and to Russia’s effort to leverage its gas assets. These developments, including Russia’s gas projects, could provide opportunities for positive, regional cooperation, while creating commercial value by transforming this region into an important natural gas hub.

Goal of this master thesis is to show that the myth of the Great Patriotic War is a source of Russian soft power in Belarus. After the methodology chapter, the thesis continues with connecting the concept of soft power authored by Joseph Nye with the concept of myth which is here defined on the basis of theories of Eliade and Malinowski. The next part discusses Russian soft power in the Post-Soviet area in general and in Belarus in particular. It demonstrates that Russian soft power rests largely on common history shared by Russians and other Post-Soviet nations. As a consequence, the main sources of Russian soft power rest on identities and narratives, including myths. The myth of the Great Patriotic War was at the center of Soviet mythology and it has preserved its dominant position also in the Post-Soviet period, what holds true particularly for Belarus. The following part retraces the evolution of the myth of the Great Patriotic War from its emergence during the Second World War until today. It shows that the essence of this myth is a feeling of togetherness and of community that unites the former Soviet nations. The last part presents an interpretative analysis of five qualitative interviews with Belarusians. The analysis of individual cases to a large extent confirmed that the myth of the...

The master thesis called US-India Strategic Partnership as a Balance for China's Increasing Power examines development of relationship between USA and India in the years 2000-2011. American foreign policy toward India has been transformed in this period; it has evolved from open hostility during Cold War and mistrust in the nineties to the position when it is helping India to gain status of global importance. Improvement of US-India ties are explained by the need of the United States to contain increasing Chinese power. Main arguments of the analysis are based on the realistic balance of power theory, which is further enhanced by the by Joseph Nye's three dimensional concept of power. The thesis therefore distinguishes three different sources of threat to American dominant position caused by China. These sources are following: expanding China's sphere of influence into Indian Ocean and South China Sea; US-China bilateral trade deficit and high amount of American bonds owned by China, challenge to the legitimacy of American power by soft power of China. American efforts to establish cooperation with India in order to balance Chinese influence can be founded in all of these issues. The thesis concludes that motivation of the United States to enter into a strategic partnership with India can be...

In current era of globalization when cultural diplomacy became one of the inherent tools of "soft power" of a foreign policy, it is relevant to research on the place of cultural diplomacy in foreign policy portfolio of nation-states. The focus of this thesis is to evaluate the attitudes of the Canadian government towards cultural diplomacy from 1990s until today. In 1995, Canadian values and culture became one of the three pillars of Canadian foreign policy. The author therefore attempted to map whether cultural diplomacy became a coherent and strategic tool of the Canadian foreign policy during this era. By analyzing the tools of the Canadian cultural diplomacy of the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien, Paul Martin and the present Conservative government of Stephen Harper, the author seeks to answer whether we are witnessing a gradual eclipse of cultural diplomacy as a means of soft power under the Harper administration. The research of government documents and cultural diplomacy programs along with the analysis of interviews with important government officials suggest that the cultural diplomacy was not practiced as a strategic tool in foreign policy management until the third election term of Jean Chretien in the year of 2000. Since then we can track fulfilling the Third Pillar as an...

Teze disertační práce Pracoviště: Institut politologických studií FSV UK Praha Jméno studenta: Hrishabh Sandilya Název disertační práce: The Geopolitical Determinants of India's Central Asia Strategy Školitel: prof. PhDr. Bořivoj Hnízdo, Ph.D. Oponenti: prof. RNDr. Vladimír Baar, CSc.; Mgr. Martin Riegl, Ph.D. Termín a místo obhajoby: FSV UK, 11/2015 Osnova tezí: 1. Abstract 2. Introduction 3. Research Method & Design 4. Contributions to Literature 5. Organization of Chapters 6. Conclusions 7. Selected Bibliography 8. Interviewees 1. Abstract This dissertation aims to identify the drivers and determinants of Indian strategy and policy with regard to the five post-Soviet, Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan within a geopolitical framework. Contemporary scholarship recognizes three determinants (drivers) of Indian strategy in the region - security and strategic necessity, energy diversification given Central Asia's abundant natural resources, and, economic engagement and connectivity. Using this identification as a stepping-stone, the dissertation seeks to rest the validity of these assumptions, and explore these determinants in detail. In addition, it attempts to identify other determinants of Indian strategy, and offers a conceptual framework through which...

Information influence in its most manipulative form can be equated with an attack that threatens democratic values. In order to be able to identify, respond to, and counteract such an attack, it can be argued that it is fundamental to increase the understanding of information influence as a phenomenon. The Chinese President Xi Jinping has formulated an aim to make China democratic by2049. Despite this ambition, actions taken by Xi indicate the opposite direction. This thesis is motivated by the above paradox and attempts to provide insight to the matter by, based on the theoretical framework of strategic narratives, analyzing, by combining textual and narrative analysis, what patterns can be discerned in how democracy is portrayed in Chinese English-language state media. This study uses Global Times as empirical base. From the identified narrative patterns one can distinguish three strategic narratives; 1) The narrative where Western democracy is described as dysfunctional, 2) The narrative where democracy is described as a tool in the pursuit of more power, 3) The narrative whereChina's definition of democracy is described as superior and one Neutral, non-strategic, narrative. The analysis further demonstrates how these strategic narratives can be understood as information influence, produced to create mistrust between actors with the purpose to shape the receiver's perception about democracy. The thesis concludes that Global Times uses certain strategic narratives in combination to exert information influence. The overall strategy, as previous research already identified, is that China shapes its own definition of democracy by discrediting the Western and the generally accepted variant of the concept of democracy, while emphasizing its own. This study has sought not just to contribute with empirical evidence that they are doing this but to also describe how the systematic of the procedure appears – which the identified narrative patterns describe.

The European Union - EU - came into being in the early 1950s with the aim of avoiding the rival clashes that had previously taken place in Europe. The starting point was a collaboration around the coal and steel industry, but the collaboration has spread to other areas. Likewise, the number of member countries has also increased, from initially consisting of 6 member countries to today consisting of 27. EU membership is preceded by various requirements that must be met for membership to be current. The accession criteria for EU membership, also known as the Copenhagen criteria, contain several requirements, of which the requirement of the fight against corruption is found among these. The criteria are a form of power exercised by the EU and this form of power, known as soft power, is widely used. Through the exercise of soft power, more countries are attracted to want to take part in the community that the EU constitutes, which leads to Europeanization and the enlargement of the EU. The well-known neo-functionalist theory of spillover states that integration leads to changes in the integrated countries. By carrying out a qualitative theory-testing case study regarding the spillover effects on the case of Croatia, the theory's validity is revealed. Does the EU-membership lead to changes in the integrated countries, and specifically regarding the fight against corruption? The research problem is important from a political science perspective and thus relevant to the research, and this work has therefore investigated this. The result shows that Croatia has made clear progress in their work in the fight against corruption, but one can also see difficulties in adopting EU policies. This is aconstant ongoing process that the country has to deal with.

В дипломной работе рассматривается культурная дипломатия Италии в рамках концепции «мягкой силы» и способы её реализации в настоящее время. Обосновывается значимость культурной деятельности Италии на международной арене, отмечается важность её вклада в развитие мировой культуры. Анализируются итальянские институты культуры и организации, выделяются основные приоритеты и цели культурной дипломатии страны и отмечаются наиболее эффективные инструменты её реализации, направленные на распространение итальянской культуры и языка и на укрепление позитивного восприятия страны иностранными государствами. На основе проведённого исследования делаются выводы о том, что Италия успешно реализовывает цели культурной дипломатии и способствует созданию позитивного образа за рубежом. / The focus of the research is the cultural diplomacy of Italy within the concept of the soft power and ways of its realization nowadays. The importance of Italy's cultural activity is examined, and the importance of its contribution to the development of world culture is noted. Italian institutions of culture and organization are analyzed, the main priorities and objectives of the cultural diplomacy of Italy are underlined and the most effective instruments are marked for its implementation aimed at disseminating Italian culture, language and reinforcement of the positive perception of Italy by foreign states. On the basis of the conducted research, the conclusions are made that Italy successfully realizes the objectives of cultural diplomacy and promotes the creation of a positive image abroad.

The United States has always been a very prominent user of hard power and has in most of its existence wielded a great amount of it, seen by their long military history. Another power the United States has a vast amount of is soft power, begging the question how this power has been utilized in the past, to for example create public support for military intervention. As soft powers impact on global security is immense, seen by the Ukraine-Russia war, recognizing how it has been used to justify military intervention in the past, and how it is used now. The importance of this effect and study is tremendous as it displays how a country can justify wars and influence public opinion and could possibly be used to identify a country in the process of trying to replicate the effect. The thesis proposes that there exist 2 effects known as culturally moulding and culturally swaying, which when used properly can affect the public opinion to a certain extent, which likely has been used to influence public opinion in the U.S on the 2 military interventions discussed. This subject falls in the line of security and power studies, wherein the main concept will be Joseph S. Nye’s concept of hard, soft and smart power, and it will be a qualitative study. The study will examine public opinion on military interventions and view them from a soft power perspective and consider why specifically these interventions were seen as justified. The delimitations to this study will be to keep the study to America, though there are plenty of other examples, and keep the case study to 2 military interventions, Afghanistan and Taiwan.

The IRGC, or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Iran have utilized soft power to increase their influence within the Middle East. By using military superiority; ideological influence; and trade, both the Iran and the IRGC established dependency between themselves and patron states. Of these patron states, the research focuses on Iraq; Syria; and Yemen, and how Iran and the IRGC affect them through soft power. This research suggests that Iran and the IRGC is using the disability of the aforementioned states to increase their own influence by making them dependent on Iranian military supplies; cultural indoctrination to align with Iranian ideology; and economic dependent on Iran. As Iran's influence grows within these states, its power in the Middle East grows and becomes a security risk for Saudi Arabia; Israel; and any other regime that does not have its interests align with the Iranian regime.