This thesis focuses on the Celestine monks of France, a largely neglected and distinctive reformed Benedictine congregation, at their apex of growth (c.1350-1450). Based largely within the kingdom of France, but also including key houses in the contiguous territories of Lorraine and the Comtat, they expanded significantly in this period, from four monasteries to seventeen within a hundred years. They also gained independence from the mother congregation in Italy with the coming of the Great Western Schism (1376-1418). The study aims view the French Celestines against the backdrop of a vibrant culture of 'reform' within both the monastic estate (the Observants) and the Church as a whole, as well as the political instability and war in France. It will reveal a congregation alive with the passions of their times and relevant within them. Following an introductory section, chapter 1 will discuss the previously unstudied Vita of the leading French Celestine Jean Bassand (d.1445) in depth and introduce the key themes of the subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 will examine their Constitutions, in the process providing perspective on their hyper-scrupulous understanding of sin and the relation of their statutes to the Christian idea of 'reform'. Chapter 3 will look to anecdotal evidence concerning the quality of their observance in practice, as well the spiritual and moral writings of Pierre Pocquet (d.1408), another important Celestine leader. Chapter 4 will begin to establish how and why the order grew, examining records of benefaction (contemporary martyrologies and charters) as well as taking view of the financial (and in the end, moral) difficulties brought by war through the documents concerning the reductions of founded masses at the Paris and Sens houses. Chapter 5 will look at monumental and anecdotal/literary evidence, as well as the works of Jean Gerson, a friend of the order, to further define the cultural impact of the monks.

This diploma thesis, Osvobozený Našinec from 1945 to 1948, aims to analyze the aforementioned daily newspaper in the selected period. Osvobozený Našinec was a regional catholic daily newspaper published in Olomouc with a tradition of over 80 years. Despite the fact that this newspaper had in its lifetime many unpleasant influences, the communist takeover in February 1948 meant the definitive end of this newspaper. Osvobozený Našinec served mostly as a source of local information about life in Olomouc and until now hasn't been a subject of any deeper analysis. Firstly, the work deals with the development of newspaper from its establishment up until 1941 when publishing was stopped during the war. Osvobozený Našinec was published under the Czechoslovakian Popular Party after the Second World War and that is why part of the second chapter is devoted to this party and its development. The following chapter describes the situation in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War and the changes it brought in all aspects of life with regard to the press, the Olomouc region and the Czechoslovakian Popular Party. The fourth chapter deals with Osvobozený Našinec itself. Alongside general characteristics of the newspaper there is a focus on the influence of Czechoslovakian Popular Party on the newspaper, on its...

ANNOTATION: This thesis deals with institutional upbringing and education of children up to three years in the Czech and German environment. It introduces the current situation of early childhood education with regard to historical context, legislative arrangement and initial models of both countries. The practical part compares examples from the following institutions: Children's nursery Jihlava, Czech-German kindergarten KIDS Company Prague and Kindertagestätte Entdeckerkiste Dresden. The paper provides analysis of their educational documents, describes the conditions of upbringing and education and examines thein impal on the children in these institutions. Assessment of the strengths and weaknesses is reflected in the proposal of optimal educational plan for early childhood.

This diploma thesis deals with the development of the institutional safeguarding of environmental protection in the Czech Republic during the last 30 years, mainly protection of environmental media. The beginning of the diploma thesis is dedicated to the development of the environmental policy of the state. I focused mainly on targets of environmental policy, which deals with institutional assurance. Next chapter describes the development of the constitutional framework of environmental protection. Moreover describes the basic features of environmental law. Following chapter deals with the development of the system of public authorities which participates in environmental protection. Chapter is divided into three subchapters by time period: 80's, years 1990- 1992 and after 1993. Subchapter is divided from national public authorities to regional and local public authorities and public guards. The final chapter describes the development in the field of environmental media's protection, including institutional assurance of the offence liability. Moreover describes the development in waste management. Chapter focuses mainly on the development of the public administration in environmental protection. Each subchapter is dedicated to one environmental medium and divided by time period: 80's, 90's and...

The left-wing terrorism in Italy in the 1970s and the Red brigades as its most significant symptom resulted in the long-term view from the fight between the partisans and the fascists in the Second World War and from the short-term view from the students' and labourers' protests in the end of 1960s. The Red brigades were founded in 1970 and were composed mainly by students from Trento (Curcio, Cagol), communists from Reggio Emilia (Franceschini, Gallinari) and labourers from Milano (Moretti). They began in the first years of their functioning with agitation in the factories, burning the cars of the high managers and kidnapping. The thesis follows gradual radicalisation of the group and the change of their aims - from this moment on mostly politicians, judges, state magistrates. The transformation of the Red brigades related to the personal changes in the leadership - after Curcio and Franceschini were arrested and Cagol killed, radical Moretti became very influential. The organisation under his leadership started to kill intentionally its victims and the wave of brutal attacks culminated in the spring 1978 in kidnapping and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. The Red brigades however became strongly socially isolated and several ideological differences among the members of the administration...

The subject of this thesis is the problematics of the military camps of Christian armies in the Central Europe between 1550-1650. We focus on the camps of the Habsburg Monarchy and German lands, yet some space is given to the situation in Poland and Hungary. The introductory chapters consist of a characterization of the source material and an overview of the present state of research. Furthermore, excursuses into several topics related to the military camps of the early modern period are made. Thus, characterizations of the crucial war conflicts of the period, contemporary strategies and tactics, principals, composition and equipment of the armies, of the ranks, and of the life of soldiers are provided. The core of this work is an interpretation and comparison of treatises written by military theorists, who dealt with the problematics of camps, namely of the works by Jan Tarnowski, Guillaume du Bellay, Leonhardt Fronsperger, Lazarus von Schwendi, Giorgio Basta, Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen, and Raimondo Montecuccoli. Additionally, an analysis of the military orders of the Roman emperor Maximilian II and of the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf is supplied, followed by memoirs and diaries of soldiers of that era, and contemporary literary fiction. Although the thesis includes brief characterizations of...

This study investigated teachers' perceptions of African- American principals' leadership and the extent to which those perceptions varied according to their race, gender, years of teaching experience, and years working with the principal. The results of this exploratory study are intended to enhance the empirical data reflecting the leadership characteristics of the African-American principal and to contribute to the research on leadership in general. The participants in this study consisted of 32 African-American principals and 164 teachers in schools representing 12 states during the 2004-2005 school year. Each teacher participant completed either an electronic or paper version of the Leadership and Management of Schools Survey Instrument (LMSS) which addressed the leadership and management traits of the principal and the demographic data on the teachers. The findings indicated that African-American principals are perceived as using high levels of transformational and transactional leadership. Additionally, results indicated that race influences the leadership credibility of the African-American principal. There did not appear to be a significant relationship between teachers' perceptions and gender of a teacher, gender of the principal, or both, and no relationship was found between the years of teachers' experience and their perceptions of the African- American principals. However, teachers' perceptions of African- American principals' leadership and management qualities increased positively with the number of years of experience working with the principal. Indications from these findings can be useful to universities, colleges, and school districts in making informed decisions concerning the training, recruitment, and placement of African-American principals.

Political Finance Reform and Public Procurement:  Evidence from Lithuania. Can political donations buy influence? This paper studies whether firms trade political contributions for public procurement contracts. To answer this question, I focus on the Lithuanian political economy. Combining data on a large number of government tenders, the universe of corporate donors and firm characteristics, I examine how a ban on corporate donations affects the awarding of procurement contracts to companies that donated in the past. Consistent with political favoritism, contributing firms’ probability of winning goes down by five percentage points as compared to that of non-donor firms after the ban. Among different mechanisms, the hypothesis that corporate donors get confidential information on competing bids prevails. The empirical results are in line with predictions from a first-price sealed-bid auction model with one informed bidder. Evidence on firm bidding and victory margins suggests that contributing firms adjust their bids in order to secure contracts at a maximum revenue. I assess that tax payers save almost one percent of GDP thanks to the reform. Gender Quotas and the Quality of Politicians. We analyze the effects of the introduction of gender quotas in candidate lists on the quality of elected politicians, as measured by the average number of years of education. We consider an Italian law which introduced gender quotas in local elections in 1993, and was abolished in 1995. As not all municipalities went through elections during this period, we identify two groups of municipalities and use a difference-in-differences estimation. We find that gender quotas are associated with an increase in the quality of elected politicians, with the effect ranging from 0.12 to 0.24 years of education. This effect is due not only to the higher number of elected women, who are on average more educated than men, but also to the lower number of low-educated elected men. The positive effect on quality is confirmed when we measure the latter with alternative indicators, it persists in the long run and it is robust to controlling for political ideology and political competition. Affirmative Action and the Power of the Elderly. There is evidence that age matters in politics. In this article we study whether implementation of affirmative action policies on gender can generate additional effects on an alternative dimension of representation, namely, the age of politicians. We consider an Italian law which introduced gender quotas in candidate lists for local elections in 1993, and was abolished in 1995. As not all municipalities went through elections during this period, we can identify two groups of municipalities and use a difference-in-differences estimation to analyze the effect of gender quotas on the age of elected politicians. We find that gender quotas are associated with election of politicians that are younger by more than one year. The effect occurs mainly due to the reduction in age of elected male politicians and is consistent with the optimizing behavior of parties or of voters. Let the Voters Choose Women. Female under-representation in politics can be the result of parties' selection of candidates and/or of voters’ electoral preferences. To assess the impact of these two channels, we exploit the introduction of Italian Law 215/2013, which prescribes both gender quotas on candidate lists and double preference voting conditioned on gender. Using a regression discontinuity design, we estimate that the law increases the share of elected female politicians by 22 percentage points. The result is driven by the increase in preference votes cast for female candidates, suggesting a salient role of double preference voting in promoting female empowerment in politics.

The thesis addresses the questions of so called Two-year plan of the restoration in Czechoslovakia between the years 1947 and 1948. The materials from Prague national archive, historical sources and the latest contemporary literature have been used. The thesis follows the preparation, implementation and results of this "two-year plan". The work emphasizes industry and agriculture, especially textile industry. At the end the transition of the two-year plan to the long-term five-year plan is dealt with.

The main focus of this thesis are the economic-theoretical concepts, which in varying degrees contributed to the creation of an official government program of economic reforms in the sixties of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia. The work will mainly analyze the causes of success Šikova reform movement among economists and the Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership. The first part of the study will address the reorientation of foreign trade and economy of Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, as well as the importance of CSR for the functioning of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in the fifties. Briefly mentioned is the first attempt at economic reform led by Kurt Rozsypal issues and other proposals for changes in central planning. The crucial part of this work will be devoted to the theoretical designs and directions, which created the preconditions for the implementation of specific economic reforms in the sixties. The treatment of the topic study should answer the questions: What were the other economic programs and their leaders? These protagonists could significantly affect the program or not?