Engagement and proactivity of the general public in democratic process is essential for a stable and functional democracy. Participation of citizens in the political environment can be expressed by either elections or by other forms of political involvement. Current research shows that political participation requires skills, motivation to get involved and support of a group of public actors. Million Moments for Democracy is a civic organisation who support and cultivate political culture in Czechia. This work examines the supporters of the civic movement. The results show that the supporters is a group that has higher individual resources, higher political interest and distrust of the government. The supporters of the civic organisation more politically participate, especially in the activities that the organization emphasizes. The model of belonging to the association showed that the fact that the organisation was originally a protest movement cannot be ignored. Keywords political participation, electoral and non-electoral participation, civic movement, active citizens, demonstrations, petition, politics Title Participation of supporters of the civic association Million Moments in the democratic process

Diploma thesis focuses on one of the most important variables of proportional electoral systems - electoral districts. This problematic is researched in the context of municipal elections to the Prague City Assembly. In the Czech municipal electoral system this variable can be changed very flexibly and in Prague we can find three variations of electoral districts. The aim of thesis is to explore these variants of electoral districts from the point of proportionality and efficiency of governance. The topic is researched in three cases of municipal elections in Prague in 2010, 2014 and 2018. In the introduction of diploma thesis two research questions are defined. The first part is theoretical, and it is focused on the municipal electoral system in the Czech Republic, electoral district in the theory of electoral systems, variants of electoral districts in Prague and academic debate about proportionality and efficiency. Results of three researched elections are analysed as well. The analytical part of thesis is focused on models of seats distribution in accordance with electoral districts. In the conclusion results are evaluated and compared. Research questions are answered in this part as well.

The international community has long sent democracy aid, and technical election assistance (TEA) has become increasingly popular in the last three decades. Despite these investments, little is known about the effects of TEA. This master thesis focuses on how TEA affects violence during elections and asks if and how does technical election assistance prevent electoral violence in some contexts and not in others? I argue the TEA that is provided to both state and non-state actors in combination can reduce electoral violence. I argue that this can make elections credible and that credible elections are less probable to turn violent. By conducting case studies on Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe using Structured Focused Comparison, this thesis finds that the hypothesis when a state receives comprehensive technical election assistance, it will experience a reduction in electoral violence gets limited support. The findings show that TEA can help reduce violence since violence was reduced in all three cases, but only two of them received comprehensive TEA.

The thesis "Electoral Geography of Postcommunist Countries in Central and Eastern Europe" deals with the topic of electoral geography, which is a part of the political geography. The basic hypothesis of the paper is based on opinion that the postcommunist countries experienced the twenty years of development in the postcommunist period which made their electoral geography very similar to one in Western Europe. This hypothesis is proved by three different areas of electoral geography. The first part is composed by the analysis of the electoral geography of the founding elections in the 17 postcommunist countries (including the GDR). In the paper is proposed after the research of all 17 countries the categorization of founding elections on the basis of electoral geography. The second part examines the electoral geography of capitals. The research is focused on the size of the lectorate in the capital compare to the whole country, on the diverhgence of electoral results in the capital and in the whole state and on strength of the party families in capitals. Folowing these three areas is proposed the catehorisation of the postcommunist capitals into the five groups. The third part deals with variability of the electoral results inside the state.

The subject of this diploma thesis is the usage of elements of political marketing in the Czech presidential campaign 2012/2013. The theoretical part of the thesis is focused on the general development of political communication and election campaigns, the principles considering the performing of political marketing, the basic formulas of voters' decision-making and models of coordinated behavior of the electorate and political representatives depending on the strategic effects of electoral systems. In a subsequent analysis of the election campaigns of selected presidential candidates - Miloš Zeman, Karel Schwarzenberg, Jan Fischer and Jiří Dienstbier - is monitored, how and under what circumstances the advancement of political marketing is applied, whether the candidates and their election team incorporate the assumed strategic effects of the election system into the planning process and implementation of election campaigns, hence if and how the campaign considers the voters' experienced ideas about the head of the state.

instituciones cuya función principal es resolver conflictos en materia electoral. Estos jurados han sido parte del Jurado Nacional de Elecciones desde 1931, en los que han sido, y son hoy en día, órganos jurisdiccionales de primera instancia en sede electoral. Estos órganos solo funcionan durante cada periodo electoral, por lo que una de sus características es su temporalidad. A la fecha, no existen estudios sobre los Jurados Electorales Especiales. Esto ha creado la necesidad de investigaciones dirigidas a saber cuáles son sus principales características, de dónde provienen, cómo se crean y se clausuran, cómo influyen en ellos los procesos electorales y qué problemas están vinculados a su temporalidad. De esta manera, el objetivo del presente trabajo es responder a cada una de las interrogantes anteriores. Así, esta tesis se enfoca en describir la estructura y funciones de los Jurados Electorales Especiales, en realizar un breve estudio histórico sobre su origen, en realizar una descripción de su proceso de creación y disolución, en realizar una breve descripción de la influencia que tiene en ellos los procesos electorales y, finalmente, en analizar y proponer soluciones a uno de los principales problemas originados por su carácter temporal: El problema de la doble instancia en sede electoral para periodo no electoral.

This thesis is about how elected politicians stay in power and about some of its economic and social consequences, fundamental political economy questions. It takes advantage of the decentralized political structure in the Philippines to test models of voter and politician behavior. In doing so, it contributes to the literature on clientelism and retrospective voting. In Chapter One, I assess the impacts of targeted government transfers on a local incumbent's electoral performance. I use the randomized roll-out of a CCT program in the Philippines where a number of municipalities are tightly controlled by political dynasties. In a competitive political environment, incumbent vote share is 26 percentage-points higher in municipalities where the program was implemented in all villages than in municipalities where the program was implemented in half of them. The program had no impact in municipalities with low levels of political competition. In Chapter Two, I test for the presence of political business cycles in Philippine municipalities over the period 2003-2009, a context where according to the literature such cycles are likely to be observed. I find robust evidence for the presence of political business. This effect is only present when I use quarterly data and vanishes when I aggregate the data at the yearly-level. The difference is not merely driven by a decline in statistical power due to aggregation: point estimates for the overall effects are 7 times larger when I use quarterly data than when I use yearly data. This discrepancy can be explained by a drop in employment post-election that dilutes the yearly effects. In Chapter Three, we estimate the impacts of being connected to local politicians, either currently in office or in opposition, on occupational choice. We use a large administrative dataset collected between 2008 and 2010 on all individuals in 700 Philippine municipalities along with information on all candidates in the 2007 and 2010 municipal elections. We rely on local naming conventions to assess blood and marriage links between households. Using individuals connected to successful candidates in the 2010 elections that did not run in 2007 as a control group, we find that connections to current office-holders increase the likelihood of being employed in better paying occupations. Individuals connected to candidates that were close to being elected in 2007 are less likely to be employed in better paying occupations.

The aim of this thesis was to explore the efficacy of the rational choice model in the electoral decision making of young people. The initial view was that this was too narrow a concept to apply to a real world situation. Therefore, consumer behaviour theory was reviewed in order to find out how marketers understand consumer decision making and explore if this could add anything to electoral decision making. Using an ideographic approach, this research revealed a number of different groups that did not conform to the rational choice model. Moreover, it was interesting to discover that many voter and non-voter groups exhibit what can be described as irrational behaviour. Using education as a key variable and the Elaboration Likelihood Model as an analytical framework, it was possible to identify the different ways in which the groups built up their political knowledge and what effect this had upon the extent of their engagement with the electoral process. Two models were developed that described the various groups and their electoral behaviour. The thesis concludes by suggesting that engagement is limited to a small number of groups and the level of engagement is determined by a complex mix of education, life stage and the notion of risk.

"This report concludes that the evidence from the analyses seems to support the following propositions in regard to Texas electoral behavior. (1) The 1956 election year was a critical election year in Texas. (2) A pattern indicative of an underlying economic liberalism-conservatism was present in Texas voting patterns from 1944 through 1956, but not after. (3) The Mexican-American and German counties experienced political realignment in 1956 which continued through 1972. (4) The counties affording the most support to the liberal faction shift continuously. (5) The Texas electorate had been in a state of flux since 1956. To date no pattern other than the ethnic group realignment has stabilized. (6) Party-competition in gubernatorial elections has been increasing since 1962. (7) Ralph Yarborough has been the only liberal candidate for a major statewide office to draw support in a high and uniform degree across the state. (8) Ralph Yarborough's base of support has completely shifted since 1952. (9) The Farenthold vote was most closely aligned with that of Donald Yarborough. (10) Socio-economic factors have stronger relationship to Republican, liberal Democratic candidates, and major third party candidates than to conservative Democratic candidates. (11) All evidence form these analyses points to personalism and candidate appeal as the most important independent variables operating in Texas elections. " --leaf [3-4].

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