The diploma thesis deals with the presidency of the Czech Republic in the European Union which was in progress during the first half of 2009. Two main goals of the thesis were, first, to describe the presidency in context of congress tourism and, second, to analyze the impacts of the presidency on tourism in the Czech Republic. In the thesis there is described the mechanism of the organization of the presidency in detail, i.e. how were organized the conferences and congresses of the EU taking place in the Czech Republic during the presidency. Then, there is an analysis of both short-run and long-run impacts of the presidency on tourism and congress tourism in the Czech Republic. The thesis is theoretically based on characteristics of tourism, congress tourism, Council of the EU and the presidency in the Council.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Giorgio Romano Schutte / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Humanas e Sociais, São Bernardo do Campo, 2018. / A partir da crise financeira do final da década de 1990, surgiram propostas econômicas "pósneoliberais" no Brasil e na América Latina que colocaram no centro do discurso econômico a retomada do papel do Estado como indutor do crescimento econômico e da distribuição de renda. Foi nesse contexto que esta pesquisa analisou os debates sobre a caracterização do perfil econômico dos governos Lula (2003-2010) e o desempenho e atuação das frações de classe dominantes. Foram abordados temas como desenvolvimento econômico, financeirização, dívida pública, vulnerabilidade externa, política monetária e fiscal de modo a evidenciar de que forma a hegemonia do setor financeiro e a incapacidade política do governo Lula de quebrar esse poder se transformaram em um limite para avançar com políticas de desenvolvimento. Para tanto, foram apresentados dados de desempenho econômico e taxas de rentabilidade e analisadas as frações de classe existentes no bloco no poder. Sob elevadas taxas de juros reais, impediu-se que a dívida pública fosse um instrumento de financiamento do investimento público para tornar-se espaço de alocação de recursos com elevada rentabilidade e baixo risco, desestimulando as atividades produtivas e drenando a riqueza nacional por intermédio de um sistema tributário regressivo. Por meio dos elevados ganhos de rentabilidade e de elementos determinantes da política econômica, identificamos o protagonismo exercido pela fração bancário-financeira no interior do bloco no poder e a consolidação da hegemonia financeira como um decisivo limite estrutural para o desenvolvimento, expansão e aprofundamento da distribuição de renda. / After 1990¿s financial crisis, "post-neoliberal" economic proposals appeared in Brazil and Latin American and focused on the recovery of the role of the State as inductor of economic growth and income distribution. In this context, the present study has analyzed the debates about the characterization of the economic profile of Lula¿s terms (2003-2010) and the performance and operation of dominant classes. Themes such as economic development, financialization, government debt, external vulnerability, monetary and tax policy were discussed to evidence how the hegemony of the financial sector and the political inability of Lula¿s government to break this power have become a limitation to the advance of development policies. For this purpose, we have presented economic performance data and rates of return and analyzed class sectors existing in the ruling block. Under high real interest rates, government debt did not become a tool for financing public investment. Instead it became a target of resource allocation with high profit and low risk, discouraging productive areas and draining national wealth through a regressive tax system. By means of high profitability and determining elements of the economic policy we have identified the protagonism of the banking-financial sector inside the ruling power and the consolidation of the financial hegemony as a defining structural limit to development, expansion and deepening of income distribution.

The main goal of diploma thesis "European Waltz under the Austrian Baton? - Analysis of the Austrian EU-Presidency in the Years 1998 and 2006" is an evaluation of two Austrian presidencies in the European Union in the years 1998 and 2006. In connection with the Austrian foreign policy and its position in Central Europe, stigmatized by political sanctions from the side of the "EU-14" in 2000, its delayed access into the European integration structures in 1995 and with its neutrality status, it will be interesting to find out how Austria managed to rule the European Union. Austria held the EU-presidency for the first time as an unexperienced newcomer after only three and half years of membership in the EU. Eight years later, Vienna governed the EU for the second time, but this time as a skilled member after a decade of its active membership in the European Union. In spite of the difference of the two distinct times, the author will attempt to compare both presidencies. Will Vienna achieve as the chief of the EU the goals stated by its working program for the presidency and will it be able to face the greatest challenge of its European policy? As often happens with presidencies, the agenda could be heavily influenced by unexpected events that cannot be controlled. In order to judge the quality of the...

Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’utilisation par le 43ème président des États-Unis, George W. Bush, des déclarations de promulgation, ces documents écrits qui permettent au président américain de donner son opinion sur une loi qu’il vient de promulguer et dans lesquels il peut faire part de sa réticence à faire appliquer certaines des dispositions de la loi en question car il les juge potentiellement inconstitutionnelles, et ce quand bien même il a accepté de promulguer la loi en question. Une telle pratique peut sembler contraire à l’esprit même de la Constitution américaine, qui contraint le président à « veiller à la fidèle exécution des lois » qu’il promulgue sans lui laisser la possibilité de sélectionner au sein desdites lois les disposions qu’il souhaite ou ne souhaite pas voir appliquées.A travers un travail de comparaison des déclarations de promulgation de George W. Bush à celles de ses prédécesseurs à la Maison-Blanche et une analyse de la capacité théorique et pratique de cet outil présidentiel à influer sur le processus d’exécution des lois, on se proposera de démontrer que les déclarations de promulgation sont davantage l’outil rhétorique d’une affirmation des pouvoirs de la présidence visant à renforcer cette dernière sur le long terme qu’un levier d’action immédiate permettant à la présidence de mettre la main sur l’exécution des lois. / This thesis focuses on the use of presidential signing statements by the Bush 43 Administration. Presidential signing statements are written documents that allow the President to give his opinion of a bill he signed into law and to say that even though he willingly signed the law, he does not necessarily plan on executing all of its provisions as he believes some of them to be potentially unconstitutional. Such a behavior may seem problematic constitutionally speaking as the American Constitution forces the President to « faithfully execute the laws » without affording him the opportunity to pick and choose the provisions he wants to execute.Through a comparison with the signing statements of previous presidents as well as an analysis of both the theoretical and practical capacity of presidential signing statements to allow the President to control the execution of the laws, this thesis will describe signing statements as tools of the rhetorical presidency that allow the executive to assert and defend its constitutional prerogatives in order to strengthen them in the long run, rather than weapons of the administrative presidency with an immediate effect on the execution of the laws.

This paper reads Larry Beinhart’s novel The Librarian (2004) and its nonfiction companion Fog Facts (2005) as a double attempt at writing that is politically invested in representing reality but that nevertheless is openly aware of the postmodern crisis of representation. In this sense, I read both books as indicative of a broad cultural search for forms of writing that engage their readers’ reality without simply attempting to return to a less complicated moment before postmodernism. The paper situates both books within crucial textual contexts: a broad ‘epistemic panic’ about the facts and reality at the time, a surge of political nonfiction published in response to George W. Bush’s Presidency, and a longer tradition of political fiction. Tracing how the novel struggles with its nonfiction aspects and how the nonfiction book relies on fiction to make its point, I then look at how the two books evoke political affect to have a realist appeal of sorts despite their insistence on the precarious nature of all realist representation. Reading both books as distinctly popular, mass-market products and thus bringing together the debate around post-postmodernism from literary studies with an interest in reading pleasures informed by popular culture studies, I argue that the two books constitute decidedly popular attempts at a new, meta-aware yet politically engaged textuality.

The diploma thesis "Předsednictví Rady EU a energetická bezpečnost" (The presidency and the energy security) deals with factors relevant for the presidency of the EU. The current debate is highly focused on the size of the presiding country, which leaves very little space for an alternative explanation. The main task of this thesis is therefore to enrich the debate. The main method is comparing the two presidencies on the basis of the concept of energy security. The energy security was a relevant topic due to the context of the presidencies given by the interruptions in gas supply from Russia. Both countries differed in three relevant factors: the foreign orientation (relationship to Russia), the presidency style and the type of coordination mechanism. This diploma thesis tests the relevance of these factors on the presidency.

The recent usage of presidential directives by President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump initiated debates around limits of presidential power. Research on the presidential power has shown lack of focus on the presidential directives, misinterpretation and wrong terminology which resulted in false accusations of presidential overreach and abuse of power. This thesis argues that the political gridlock and increasing passivity of Congress have contributed to a shift between the executive and legislative power of government. This thesis will trace the extent to which Congress has become resistant to pass two of the key priorities of President Obama's political agenda - immigration reform and gun regulation, after which the President had to act on the issues unilaterally. The main aim of the thesis is to show that presidential directives of President Obama were not issued in a vacuum and that there were debates, persuasion and negotiations preceding the executive actions in an attempt to advance President's agenda in a form of bipartisan legislation rather than unilateral presidential directive.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A 2004 New York Times’ article regarding the role of potential First Ladies at political conventions wrote, “The public will someday accept a fully independent first lady, Ms. Gibbons predicted, 'I don't see how we can go backwards.’'' (Purnick, 2004) That isn’t to say, however, we have continued moving forward. Perpetuating the trend that began two decades ago, in 2012 both Ann Romney and Michelle Obama delivered speeches at the Republic National Convention (RNC) and Democratic National Convention (DNC) respectively. Prompting a continued study of the first lady include not only Michelle Obama’s self-titled “Mom-in-Chief” speech or the ever present role of fashion and the First Lady, but also her permanent role as the candidate’s feminine counterpart and its close management demand examination. To be sure, this thesis comes at a time of significant importance, with Hillary Clinton vying for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination. I agree with past scholars that presidential spouses, as part of the presidential institution, have ushered in a level of public power not previously possible for women (Anderson, Campbell, Jamieson, Sheeler, et al). However, the power of the first lady is constrained by feminine expectations that prevent the emergence of a fully independent first lady. We should question the limitations of the spousal role and challenge the discourses that create those limitations, as they hinder the realization of a fully independent first lady. Since 1992, nearly every spouse has given a public address at the presidential nominating convention, with all candidate wives from 2000-2012 taking part. The emergence of this campaign trend has prompted communication scholars to call for the expansion of research surrounding these speeches (Brown, 2012). Scholars have previously noted that first lady campaign discourse provides a sandbox in which our country experiments with various levels of first lady independence (Parry-Giles, 1996, Campbell, 1998, Anderson, 2002). That is to say, how the wives consistently talk about themselves, their husbands and the country, as well as how the media reports on the potential first lady during coverage of convention oratory, sheds light on the national tone of feminine ideologies. Therefore, I contend that a genre exists governing first lady convention speeches which, along with the mediated discourses surrounding these speeches, constructs and reinforces the ideal femininity of the First Lady. As a result, the hegemonic masculinity of the presidency is further reified with important consequences for our ability to accept an independent first lady which makes it more difficult to accept a woman president. This thesis examines the dual role of the feminine ideal of US first ladies and the masculinity of the presidency. Examining the generic constraints of 20 years of presidential candidate wives convention speeches and the associated media coverage will uncover dominant themes that aim to vilify certain wives—for their speech style and content—and celebrate others. By assessing what points of struggle we witness in these discourses, we note opportunities where first ladies and potential first ladies challenge these generic constraints and have the potential to reveal shifts and expansions in the discourses. The result may lead to a new understanding of gender in relation to the presidency.

Since the issuance of the Manifesto by President Wilford Woodruff on September 25, 1890, discontinuing the practice of plural marriage by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, intensive efforts have been made by dissenters to show that authority to practice polygamy has secretly continued to the present day. Claiming that the Church departed from its original teachings when it discontinued the practice of plural marriage and that the Manifesto was adopted merely as an act of appeasement, "fundamentalists" have attempted to show that the doctrine of plural marriage was revealed to the Latter-day Saints as an irrevocable decree, essential to the highest exaltation in the world to come. They further claim that since the time of Joseph Smith a special "higher priesthood" organization has secretly functioned independent of the Latter-day Saint Church through which authority to solemnize plural marriages has continued to the present day. Asserting that the practice of plural marriage is still a "vital part of the religion of the Latter-day Saints," and that men are commanded to obey God's laws "in total disregard of the laws of man which might conflict therewith." "Fundamentalists" conclude that it is not within the power of the Latter-day Saint Church or the Federal or State Government to prohibit plural marriages.A consideration of this position indicates that only after a unique interpretation of certain carefully selected excerpts from Latter-day Saint Church history and in some instances a complete fabrication of events, can evidence be found for the contention that the practice of plural marriage is still a "vital part of the religion of the Latter-day Saints."On the other hand, a review of the history and doctrine of the Church indicates, that no provisions were made for a succession of authority from Joseph Smith independent of the present Latter-day Saint Church leadership; that the practice of plural marriage was not dogmatically regarded as an irrevocable decree or an essential to the highest exaltation regardless of circumstances; and that the suspension of the practice of plural marriage was accomplished by the same authority by which the practice was introduced.

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