The subject of this thesis is The Conservative Party and its use of political marketing. The text analyzes how the Party responded to three subsequent election defeats in 1997, 2001 and 2005 and to what extent are the Conservatives utilizing political marketing methods and techniques in reaction to the pressure from their more market oriented competitor, the Labour Party. Since the rebranding of the Labour Party under Tony Blair, the Conservatives were struggling to adapt to the new reality. Instead of utilizing political marketing and being more responsive to the wishes of the electorate they diverged their polities more to the right. However, their incumbent leader, David Cameron, is transforming the Party and making it more market oriented. These efforts are critically analyzed.

Tony Blair’s extraordinary decision to ask for Parliament’s approval for British military deployment in the Iraq War prompted lingering questions about who decides on matters of war and peace in modern Britain. His successors’ use, and thereby confirmation, of the new parliamentary prerogative suggested a fundamental reorganization of war powers in British politics, giving Parliament a significantly stronger position in the realm of foreign affairs. This paper argues that a number of factors, like a Prime Minister’s leadership style, the role Cabinet and the civil service, and Parliament’s governing disadvantages that makes it difficult for Members of Parliament to assert themselves proactively rather than reactively, make the prospect of a “War Powers Act” enshrining Parliament’s constitutional role in authorizing war highly unlikely.

The aim of master's thesis "Attitudes to the UK membership in the European Union (1993- 2016)" is to analyse the individual theoretical and political attitudes towards the UK membership in the European Union. In particular, the thesis focuses on the period after the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, during the governments of Conservative Prime Minister John Major (1990-1997), Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997-2005) and Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron (2010-2016), who called a referendum on "Brexit" in 2016. Since the beginning of its membership in the EU, the United Kingdom has been more inclined towards an intergovernmental approach and worried about the delegation of power to supranational authorities as well as federalist tendencies. Due to the large number of approaches and theories related to the European integration, the thesis will focus in detail on federalism theory, to which the United Kingdom has always strongly defined itself, contrary to the model of multilevel governance that characterizes the current political system in Britain. In the past, the British political system was based on the so-called Westminster model, however, since the 1980s it has gradually transformed into a model of multilevel governance. The core of the thesis is to classify the relations...

The aim of the master thesis is to deal with the specific bond between the USA and the Great Britain - by Winston Churchill defined as a special relationship - which connects the both countries based on their common history, language and culture or on their common threat. The special bond then further leads and helps to close cooperation and support in between the USA and the Great Britain. The era the thesis is concerned with begins at the very end of the Cold War when the common enemy was defeated and it was claimed that the special relationship is supposed to vanish as well. It then ends with the term of David Cameron who was later succeeded by Theresa May. The work further focuses on the three significant British premiers - John Major, Tony Blair and David Cameron and the description of their attitude to the relationship with European Union and more importantly to the USA, as the references about the special relationship appear further in their speeches. The subject of my analysis are the speeches of individual statesmen and the fact how exactly they perceive the Great Britain in the international system. Whether the Great Britain should accept its role in the European Union or rather deepen its bond with the USA on the contrary.

The intention of this project is to examine whether or not; Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair, experienced any belief changes or learning, during the period he was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (UK), a period which lasted 10 years commencing 1997 until 2007. Our analysis will cover a timeline beginning from 1999 a point in time when the UK participated in NATO’s Operation Allied Force during the Kosovo War until 2006 when Britain took on the reins of the EU presidency for a six-month period. An exploration, of the beliefs behind a leader’s decision making logic, should always be considered a prudent undertaking especially when it comes to foreign policy studies. This is because, it is only through such activity scholars can comprehend the distinction between decisions and actions. Thus, understanding when and how; an individual leaders’ belief system changes, is of central importance in furthering our ability in explaining not only state behaviour, but, also the relationship between ‘self’ and ‘other’. The main purpose of an operational code analysis is to enable political scientists and policy makers alike, to deduce from a particular leader’s verbal content, what that actor's beliefs are and the premises they take in relation to their decision-making process. The first of our two part hypotheses seeks to determine whether Tony Blair exhibited changes in his beliefs at various stages of his premiership. These stages were signified by events which were also crucial in defining his political legacy. The events are divided into three categories, Post Kosovo – Pre Iraq, Pre 9/11 – Post 9/11 and Pre EU – Post EU. On completion of our VICS and SPSS analysis on Tony Blair’s operational code belief we discovered that there were no statistically significant changes in any of his operational indices. So, due to the lack of statistically significant changes in Blair’s Philosophical and Instrumental indices we could not classify the events selected for this analysis as having produced any influence on his belief system. Thus we rejected our null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis.

The 'special relationship' between the United States and the United Kingdom has existed since the beginning of the 1940s. During the Second World War, a strong alliance emerged that was based on a defense policy against a common enemy and a shared value principle. Throughout the Cold War, the special relationship evolved from a weakening of mutual relations in 1960s and 1970s to a renewed rapprochement in 1980s, mainly because of the shared opinions of the U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. After the geopolitical changes in 1989 a debate developed over the future of their special relationship. The question was whether (or in what form) the transatlantic alliance will continue to remain. The 9/11 terrorist attacks upon the United States gave the answer to this question and provided the impetus for renewed mutual British-American relations. Immediately after the attacks, the United Kingdom expressed its full support for the US-led fight against terrorism and followed the United States first into Afghanistan and later into Iraq. However, both President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were strongly criticized that their war engagement, particularly in relation to the war in Iraq, had been unlawful and was based on false evidence supporting the...

By using a qualitative content analysis and cognitive mapping, the purpose of the thesis is to investigate the decision-making of political leaders in extraordinary situations. The thesis focuses on the case of Tony Blair and his decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The cognitive map of political elites by Robert Axelrod is used to form a cognitive map to illustrate and represent the beliefs of Blair. The research question is what formed Blair’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003? Three time periods are analyzed: before, during and after the war. The results show that intervention should be accepted and no intervention should be rejected. This is with regard to the British utility. The motives for the intervention was Blair’s belief in spreading democratic values and rights. Something which would generate stability and progress for Britain, as well as, for other countries. To end human suffering, WMD trade and terrorism were also among the motives for the intervention. To strengthen the strategic relationship with Russia through intervention was important and the relationship with the U.S. even more. No intervention would increase the ineffective containment and strengthen the regime of Hussein. No intervention would also increase WMD (trade, development and use), terrorism, destruction and people suffering and dying on a mass-scale. Altogether this would negatively impact the British utility.

Britain's attitude towards the European integration has been an uneasy one since its' inception and it thus represents one of the spheres of British politics that has attracted the most attention and that has been one of the most divisive issues of the domestic politics. The British attitude has however responded to the dynamical development of the political integration in Europe. The aim of the thesis is to assess Britain's attitude towards the political integration in Europe and to prove that, despite its dynamical development, the elements of Euroscepticism prevail over the elements of Europeanization. With respect to the aim, the thesis is divided into three chapters. The first one explains the political integration and charts its development and defines the modern concept of Euroscepticism and Europeanization. The second chapter deals with Britain's attitude towards the European integration, its historical background and its development immediately after the Second World War. Substantial part of the chapter is devoted to the analysis of the British attitude towards the milestones of the political integration. The final chapter looks at the stance of the governments of Tony Blair and the current Conservative-led coalition on the political integration and compares them so as to study its development.

Dans cette étude doctorale, nous analysons l'évolution des approches stratégiques de Tony Blair sur le processus de paix entre Israël et les Palestiniens à la suite de la mutation institutionnelle du Premier ministre en Représentant du Quartet. Nous examinons les postulats des théories de socialisation selon lesquels la socialisation dans les institutions internationales peut produire des changements dans la perception du problème et les identités des agents. Afin d'évaluer s'il y avait des changements dans les approches de Tony Blair en qualité de médiateur du Quartet, nous avons étudié sa vision du problème durant les années où il fut Premier ministre britannique. Pour cette raison, notre travail doctoral représente une étude de deux cas qui correspondent aux deux contextes institutionnels. Le premier cas est divisé en deux parties inégales : a) du 11 septembre, 2001 à janvier 2006; b) de janvier 2006 à juin 2007. Cette division est justifiée par notre choix des événements de début 2006 qui auraient pu potentiellement changer la conception de Tony Blair (la victoire de Hamas dans les élections nationales). Le corps empirique de premier cas constitué par les données qualitatives (principalement, 48 discours de Tony Blair, ses mémoires "A Journey") nous révèle une certaine stabilité dans son approche sur le processus ("de haut en bas"). De l'autre côté, les données empiriques relatives aux activités de Tony Blair en qualité de médiateur à partir de juin 2007 nous démontrent un changement stratégique dans son approche ("de bas en haut" accompagné par "de haut en bas"). Nous avons examiné ces changements dans sa position à la lumière de deux distinctions analytiques justifiées soit par l'adaptation au nouvel environnement stratégique (l'approche néoréaliste), soit par la reconsidération de son ancienne expérience et les changements idéationnels (l'approche constructiviste). Cette étude est une contribution sur l'un des conflits les plus complexes de l'histoire de la géopolitique contemporaine. Son objectif est d'analyser l'effet de la socialisation du médiateur dans une structure internationale - à savoir le Quartet - sur sa vision conceptuelle du problème qui a conservé sa stabilité dans le contexte institutionnel précédent.

Diploma thesis 'Special relationship' between the United Kingdom and the United States and renascence of their relationship after September 11, 2001, deals with the special Anglo-American relationship in past and present. Both countries share common history, common language and threads of cultural heritage. The United States maintains close economic and military relationship with the UK. US military and intelligence cooperation in its current form dates back to the World War II and it was rooted in the doctrine of anti-Soviet Containment. US-UK 'special relationship' was widely seen as likely to expire with the end of the Cold War, but was revived following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States. Particular emphasis in explaining the renascence of the 'special relationship' in the world changed by terror is placed on the role of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his relationship to President George W. Bush.