Esta dissertação tem o objetivo de estudar os órgãos técnicos e consultivos da sociedade anônima, em sua configuração mais contemporânea, segundo a qual são mais conhecidos como os comitês da sociedade anônima. Para isso, serão avaliados os movimentos internacionais que têm exercido influência na criação desses órgãos nas companhias brasileiras. Esses movimentos estão intrinsecamente ligados às forças de convergência dos padrões internacionais de governança corporativa, tema que também é apreciado no decurso do trabalho. Após, a dissertação cuidará de avaliar as medidas externadas em âmbito nacional, que demonstram a tendência à adaptação dos referidos padrões internacionais de governança corporativa, com recomendações, e também algumas determinações, para que as companhias criem os comitês nas suas estruturas. Ao final, serão avaliadas algumas consequências jurídicas da implantação dos comitês no Brasil, conforme a concepção moderna que se tem para esses órgãos. / This master\'s degree dissertation aims to discuss the technical and advisory bodies of corporations, contemporarily known as corporate committees. In order to achieve its goals, the study will take into consideration the international trends that have influenced the creation of these bodies in Brazilian companies. These trends are closely linked to an international effort towards the convergence of corporate governance standards, which will also be analyzed in this dissertation. Furthermore, this dissertation will explore the measures taken to substantiate and adapt these international standards of corporate governance to a domestic setting. Such measures include both recommendations and mandatory provisions to create corporate committees. Finally, this dissertation will analyze certain legal consequences of the deployment committees in Brazil, taking into consideration the modern understanding of these bodies.

While much attention has been given to the ways local communities may be impacted by climate change, this dissertation focuses ethnographically on the local agencies decision-making processes, a less-studied aspect of this topic. The primary purpose of this dissertation research is to understand how government agencies in southern Florida integrate climate change into their decision-making processes while dealing with political resistance. This research expands our understanding on the cultural politics of a new kind of environmental change, where national and international climate-change politics is brought into local water politics to illuminate how new and not so new visions about life in the contemporary metropolis collide and collude. Using multiple research methods including ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document research, I analyze the activities of the Miami-Dade County Climate Change Advisory Task Force Committee (MDC-CCATF) as well as the water management practices of the regional water management agency, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). My findings include the following: (1) the Task Force activities have spearheaded Miami’s institutional adaptation to climate change; (2) historic legacies have expanded and complicated decision-making processes at the District; (3) a focus on the certainties of climate-change science allows climate change to persist in politically contentious planning contexts. My dissertation concluded that while planning for potential climate-change impacts can be difficult due to multiple institutional constraints that resource agencies like the District have, scientists and policy-makers have crafted an innovative culture that is particularly visible at sites where science and decision making intersect.

Advisory Bodies and Expertise in the Czech Politics - Epistemic Communities and the Influence on the Reforms of Higher Education and Pension System Master thesis Bc. Kateřina Merklová The Master thesis Advisory Bodies and Expertise in the Czech Politics - Epistemic Communities and the Influence on the Reforms of Higher Education and Pension System concerns with the relation between politics and expertise. So-called epistemic community represents the knowledge interpreter that we consider an independent actor in the political process. In the theoretical part of the text, we have explained the original definition of the concept as well as its critics and case studies that cover various contexts. Following most of the authors, we have applied a looser definition of the concept and deconstructed its rigid criteria. The empirical part of the thesis presents a case study (N=4) based on comparative methods that analyzes variable influence of four particular epistemic communities (the authors of the White Paper on Tertiary Education, Bezdek's Committee, Bezdek's Committee II, and the National Economic Council) on policy-making process and its sources. Regarding our intention and research questions, we have chosen two qualitative methods - in-depth interviews and content analysis of relevant texts. We have...