Keywords: democracy, humanity, violence, absolutism, discussion, decision Thomas G. Masaryk was a supporter of humanism and humanist democracy. Carl Schmitt criticized such conceptions. In this thesis I would like to show that their different attitudes are an effect of different foundational concepts in their political thought. Masaryk believed that political philosophy wasn't nothing else than zoology, if it hadn't morality in her foundations. Schmitt saw the starting point of every true political theory in violent characteristic of human being. For Masaryk the democracy is in the end a moral ideal, the humanity, by which human beings abandon all the violence and they resolve all their potential conflicts by the discussion. I will show in this thesis, that moral equality of human beings cannot be proper foundation of democracy and that Masaryk demands too much to make possible to realize his democratic vision. The democracy in Schmitt's view is an authoritative violent regime where the individuality should be totally suppressed and a political relevance of the morality too.

The transformation of the role of the judiciary in the 20th and 21st centuries Abstract This work is about the fundamental questions of law, judges, society, and liberal democracy from theoretical social perspective. This study is mainly from the fields of state science and political philosophy. Due to the complexity of the topic, I decided to devote the first chapter to the philosophical starting points. The second and third chapters deal with the role of the courts as political actors. To a large extent, I deal with the criticism of this phenomenon. Important sections are those on the essence of democracy, policies and the role of experts in the process of governance. Equally important is the critical view of human rights inflation in modern societies. In the last chapter, I focus on the various forms of doctrine of judicial restraint, which I see as a realistic solution to the outlined problems. Frequently, the argumentation for criticizing the Judicial Restraint is the creation of a cartoons and its subsequent majestic defeat. I think that this approach is not fair, because in my opinion the judicial restraint can be debated objectively without prejudices and without a priori rejection. Meaningful division of roles in the state is as important as the division of power. The division of power is...

Conflicts of Legitimacies within the European Union - abstract In the beginning of first part, the thesis focuses on the very concept of legitimacy. The point of reference is rather a sociological conception of legitimacy. Then, the critical overview of theoretical contributions to the topic of EU's legitimacy deficit is provided. On this analytical background it is held that the democratic legitimacy is indispensable for the Union and that there is a necessity of its creating even on union-wide (transnational) level. Subsequently, in the second part dealing with particular modalities of legitimacy within the EU, the thesis makes use of the conteporary democratic theory focusing on the concept and functioning of democratic representation. The framework for the second part is a spatio-mechanical metaphor of four modalities ("vectors") of legitimacy (legitimation) formulated previously in the literature. It consists of indirect legitimacy, parliamentary legitimacy, technocratic legitimacy and procedural legitimacy. Changes in their balance after the Lisbon Treaty are discussed. The chapter on indirect legitimacy focuses on theoretical questions and then looks into the institutional and legislative development. It also provides an analysis of the relevant case-law of the Federal Constitutional Court of the...

Democracy and state governed by law: harmony or conflict? Abstract The aim of this thesis is to define the concept of the state governed by law and the concept of democracy and to describe the relationship between them. The author of the thesis first reviewed literature defining the state governed by law and democracy and then compared different authors' concepts. These concepts are fundamentally different, therefore they cannot be included in a single definition. With regard to it, both concepts, democracy and the state governed by law, are divided into several subcategories: procedural and substantive democracy, legalistic, formal and material state governed by law. Conccurently, the author of this thesis considers the material state governed by law to be so distinctive that it is inappropriate to call it state governed by law. He chose the term constitutional liberalism for it. The relationship between democracy and the state governed by law is determined by concepts of democracy and concepts of the state governed by law, therefore this part of the thesis is also divided into chapters dealing with the relationship between the state governed by law and democracy, depending on how they are understood. The method is similar as in the first part of the thesis, so the author first researched literature and...

This thesis has dealt with the thought of the German legal and political theorist Carl Schmitt and with the reception of his work by the intellectual Left. The main goals of the thesis were to find out which aspects of Schmitt's work are the most popular among left-wing authors and to search for the causes of this inspiration. Thus, it was necessary to reconstruct the historical context in which such a conservative thinker becomes a frequently quoted author within various branches of leftist thought. In Carl Schmitt's case, because of his shift towards Nazism in the 1930s, there is also a methodological problem of the possible separation of his work from his career and personality, the separation of a particular theoretical approach from the motives which led to this approach. Therefore, the attempt to use Schmitt's thought for progressive left-wing goals is not easily compatible with strictly contextual reading of his work. Schmitt's work itself is described and analyzed especially in the first half of this thesis. The first chapter describes, in the historical context, some basic concepts which Schmitt deals with. The chapter is structured according to main targets of his critique: legal positivism; liberal democracy; quantitative total state, which is able to intervene in every part of society,...

European Citizens' Initiative The main core of the thesis is the problematics of the European Citizens' Initiative, a tool relatively new that was put in place by the Lisbon Treaty and allows one million citizens from at least seven EU Member States to ask the European Commission to propose legislation in areas that fall within its competence. This thesis provides a detailed description of this instrument of participatory democracy, its historical foundations, its development and also the recent proposal for a regulation on the European citizens' initiative that aims to fill the gaps discovered during the period of its existence. It describes the formal and procedural requirements required for the successful submission of the initiative to the European Commission, particularly for registration, and thus the official launch of the initiative. It focuses on the forms of statements of support and the complication that it brought. The thesis also introduces some of the initiatives that have been organised since 2012, both successful and unsuccessful, including those that the Commission has refused to register. There is also an evaluation of the initiatives, the experiences and challenges that the organizers have met and especially the impact of the successful ones. The thesis points out particular...

The object of this work is the denominationally neutral country. Work it occurs through "proper understanding" secularization, an understanding of the phe-nomenon of secularization as secularism world in its social structure and social relationships. In the first part follows the concept of the state as intended Swiss reformer John Calvin, while largely draws on the work of the American legal historian John Witte and the background of the Lutheran and Calvinist Refor-mation, mainly explores especially Calvin's understanding of the polity. The second part deals with the Czech environment and through the first Czechoslo-vak president and influential thinker and statesman of the 19th and 20th centu-ries, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk tries to map the transition from theocracy to democracy, or from an absolute to a democratic conception of the state. Secula-rization itself and denominationally neutral state this thesis deals in its third part, dedicated to the life and work mainly largest Czech Protestant philosopher Bozena Komárková when over her eye on civil society gets to the separation of church and state. In conclusion, offers possible solutions, how should the re-lationship of the state to the Church and the Church to the state look like and what should be their role. The target of this work gives to recognize...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [317]-327).

The thesis is focused on the research and analysis of the development of the local party system, particularly in Říčany, from 1994 to 2014. The aim of the thesis is to verify the applicability of theoretical foundations that operate at parliamentary level party systems. At the same time, the thesis analyses the election results, the characteristics of the political entities and identifying factors that party system operates. The theoretical part deals with the bases of public administration, with detailed characteristic of municipalities, political parties and party systems, including distribution to the local level and civic participation. The analytical part consists of characteristics selected municipality, socio-economic and demographic indicators, describing the political entities, analysis of election results for the reporting period and the approach of political participation of citizen in Říčany. In conclusion, an evaluation of the election period and the determination of the party system in conjunction with a comparison of theoretical knowledge.

The thesis is conceived as a case study. The main goal is to verify the applicability of the theory of voting behaviour in a specific sample of municipality voters in the Czech Republic. The object of the research is to determine which factors influenced the decision of voters in the municipal elections for the Town Council of Kopidlno in 2010 and 2014. The theoretical part deals with a description of the basic concepts primarily related to democracy, with a specific emphasis on the local character. The theoretical perspective further concerns with the issues of elections including characteristics of different kinds of electoral systems and accessible theories of voting behaviour. The practical part primarily characterizes the town of Kopidlno in historical, demographic and political perspective. Further, the study focuses on the local political entities. The following chapters summarize and analyze the results of the municipal elections in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014. The final part summarizes the results obtained in an independent questionnaire survey used as a research tool to analyse voting behaviour of the residents of Kopidlno.