Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The European Union is often criticized for having a democratic deficit, and most often cited are the shortcomings in citizen inputs. The complex institutional structure, in particular the dual channel of representation (supranational and intergovernmental), contributes to these concerns. This thesis thus examines what impacts the linkage between citizens and their elected representatives in the direct channel of representation. I refer to this linkage as the "electoral connection" and outline three related input criteria: Competent Citizens: Citizens can competently assign policy responsibility and hold their representatives to account; Meaningful Choices: Citizens have meaningful choices at election time; and Substantive Representation: Elected officials are representative of their constituents. The theoretical framework of the electoral connection is based in substantive representation, and focuses on the mandate conception of representation but also includes a discussion of accountability. I utilize European Election Studies (EES) voter, media, and candidate studies from 2009, EES voter and candidate studies from 1994, and a novel expert survey on EU responsibility (2010). The analyses of responsibility attributions and vote choice are conducted using multilevel modelling to assess individual- and contextual-level determinants. I test the effect that information and political attitudes, specifically extreme attitudes have on the first two criteria of the direct electoral connection. The role of information is tested at the individual level through political sophistication, and at the contextual level through the politicization of the EU issue. The first criterion is tested by comparing citizen and expert attributions of responsibility. For the second criterion, two chapters which examine perceived party positions and issue-cross pressure assess how this impacts the electoral connection. The final empirical chapter is a descriptive analysis of congruence on policy priorities and preference for governmental responsibility to assess substantive representation. If there is some understanding of responsibility, and citizens have selected parties that align with their preferred policy positions, then we should expect government to be representative of its constituents. One contribution is defining an expanded definition of the electoral connection. In addition I show that political sophistication and issue politicization have a positive impact on the electoral connection, while attitude extremity generally has a negative impact. Furthermore, the European Parliament is quite representative of its constituents. Concerns about democratic deficit and lack of representation in the European Union are overstated.

IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE The diploma thesis describes the beginning of the Czech education system in a former district Německé Jablonné. The first part gives details about the district formation, territorial-administrative development and its decline in 1948. The second part focuses on the development of the Czech education system. Due to huge amount of data I have selected the most important moments, information and documents which happened between 1869 and 1945. This part also contains a chapter about the development of the education system from the border area followed by a short chapter about school chronicles. The third part lists all the schools which were opened between the First and the Second World War in Německé Jablonné district. The aim of the thesis is to describe the district itself as well as the development of the Czech education system during the time of its existence, focusing on the border area. The main aim was to find out what kind of schools were there, the number of students, school equipment, public events, trips, festivals and celebrations. The information was found in the school chronicles and other school documents, from the interviews with the local people and the teachers who have still been teaching at one of those schools. Moreover, the e-mails sent by local registrars,...

This thesis presents a spatial analysis of electoral results of the ANO (Alliance of Dissatisfied Citizens) political platform in the 2013 parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic. The study aims to identify spatial patterns of their electoral support and to uncover underlying factors which steered voters towards supporting this party. Furthermore, the thesis attempts to determine whether ANO is a new right-wing party poised to displace previously established right-wing parties (especially ODS); whether its support reached highest levels of support in areas where traditional right-wing parties lost the most votes, and whether significant regional differences exist in voter support for ANO.As explanatory variables, the study uses socio- demographic and economic characteristics reflecting the population structure and the nature of local contexts. Furthermore, the thesis further intends to analyse possible ways through which the pattern of ANO voter support may have been influenced by the activities of the Agrofertagricultural company owned by the platform's leader Andrej Babis. Methodically, the study is grounded in an analysis of aggregate data on electoral results in municipalities, as well as an analysis of sociological surveys of individual voter behaviour. The thesis processed the data via...

System of proportional representation in the Czech Republic and its critique Abstract The diploma thesis "System of proportional representation in the Czech Republic and its critique" deals with the proportional representation in the Czech Republic, particularly its most criticized aspects. The purpose of this paper is to analyse this system, its characteristics, forms and reforms under the Czech conditions. The first chapter defines proportional representation and describes its constituent elements - a legal threshold, electoral formulas (quotas and divisors), electoral districts and tiers and preference votes. Chapter Two is concerned with four specific forms of this system applied in the Czech Republic. It describes elections to the Chamber of Deputies, local elections, elections to the regional assemblies and European elections. The third chapter outlines the problems of Czech electoral reforms - specifically the big reform of elections to the Chamber of Deputies from 2000 and the case of Prague elections in 2010 which both had to be brought to the Constitutional Court. Chapter Four offers a critical look on proportional representation in the Czech Republic. It consists of five parts. The first part focuses on the confusing system of local elections. Part two deals with the legal threshold. The third...

- Elections to Municipal Councils in the Czech Republic The topic of my Master'degree thesis are the elections to municipal councils in the Czech Republic. I chose this topic mainly because these elections receive considerably less attention of professional literature and the media than other kinds of elections, particularly the elections to the Chamber of Deputies. It is so, although the decisions made by the municipal councils often have the biggest impact on the lives of ordinary people. Also this year, there were some interesting cases related to the elections to municipal councils that the Constitutional Court had to decide and that only made my interest greater. The aim of this thesis is to give a complex description of the legislation concerning the elections to municipal councils, to try to give some evaluation of this legislation and to suggest some possible changes to this legislation. This thesis consists of introduction, eight chapters and conclusion and its structure is essentially based on the structure of the Act No. 491/2001 Sb., on Elections to Representative Bodies of Municipalities and on Amendments to Certain Other Laws as amended. The introduction pursues the reasons why the elections to municipal councils receive such relatively small attention and the problems which the...

This diploma thesis deals with the political-geographical analysis of the Czech extreme rights, its voters and electoral support in the period after 1990. The paper aims to evaluate the development of the Czech extreme rights in the period 1990-2010 in terms of its importance in the Czech political system, and especially from the perspective of regional differentiation of its electoral support, and to identify possible influencing factors that conduce the voters to support this political stream. The objective is to answer the question whether there are significant regional differences in the support of right-wing extremist parties and, if so, whether these differences are stable over time. Just monitoring of a longer period (1990-2010) will specify whether the regions with above-average support of far-right parties are stable, or whether the extraordinary support of these parties during the reported period varies regionally and some shifts occur for example, due to the social-economic changes in the transformation period. The thesis also examines the factors that could explain the regional differences in electoral support of the far rights. The aim here is to use the social- demographic and economic characteristics expressing the structure of the population as well as the influence of the local...

The aim of this master thesis is to compare electoral systems of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany. Firstly, basic terms regarding substance and types of elections, suffrage and primary classification of electoral systems are briefly characterized with the help of literature. Secondly, electoral system of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, its form in the context of the political system of the Czech Republic as a whole, its development over time and its impact on the results of elections in the last twenty years is described in detail. Furthermore, the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany is analysed in the same way, too. At the end of this thesis, advantages and disadvantages of both electoral systems are compared and their possible changes are outlined. Keywords: elections, electoral system, Parliament, Bundestag, Chamber of Deputies, comparison

De acordo com a teoria tradicional, governantes eleitos adotam políticas conforme as preferências do eleitor mediano. No entanto, a presença de abstenção nas eleições pode levar a uma diferença entre a preferência dos eleitores efetivos e da população com um todo. O Brasil se destaca por ser um dos países com voto obrigatório com maior percentual de eleitores faltosos nas eleições. O recadastramento biométrico representa uma oportunidade para se estudar os mecanismos de incentivo para participação política, permitindo verificar seu impacto sobre as políticas públicas, em particular as despesas públicas municipais. Por meio de uma metodologia que combina variáveis instrumentais e um modelo de diferenças em diferenças, encontram-se evidências de que o recadastramento biométrico aumentou, em média, oito pontos percentuais a taxa de participação eleitoral nos municípios que passaram pela política. Por sua vez, esta elevação da participação reduziu as despesas em saúde e assistência social. Além do uso do recadastramento biométrico ser inédito na literatura brasileira na área de Economia Política, o mesmo fornece um mecanismo para se verificar como a ampliação da votação entre indivíduos com maior educação influencia as despesas públicas, uma abordagem pouco comum na literatura já existente, cujo foco é a ampliação da partipação eleitoral de camadas menos privilegiadas da sociedade / According to mainstream theory, elected governments adopt policies in order to address the preferences of the median voter. However, low turnout rates can lead to a difference between the preference of voters and the preference of the population as a whole. Despite compulsory voting, Brazil stands out among other countries as it computed high rates of abstention during recent elections. Biometric registration represents an opportunity for the study of the mechanisms behind the decision of voting, which ultimately impacts public policies. By means a methodology that combines instrumental variables and differences in differences, we find evidence that the biometric registration increased, on average, eight percentage points the turnout rate in the cities that have already been completed the registration. This increase of turnout, in turn, decreased health and social assistance expenditures. In addition, the study of the biometric registration has no precedent in the Brazilian Political Economy literature, as it provides a mechanism to verify how the enfranchisement of individuals with higher education affects public expenditure, and unusual fact in the traditional literature, which focuses on the enfranchisement of less educated voters

Why do people run for elective office? Indeed, it is a central topic in political science that arguably is controversial to reveal, but always appealing since public authority remains in office. This study provides an explorative analysis to investigate local elites’ motives running for local parliament and village offices respectively in Kebumen, Indonesia. In examining individual’s motives, experiences and meanings of candidates are analysed using thematic analysis methods to capture emerging ideas of initial motives, enabling and constraining factors that affect the motives, and how both motives alter. The empirical findings of this study show that “people demand” and “community service” are both socially driven motives which act as a catalyst for the initial motives in candidacy process. In contrast, “monetary incentives” and “personal satisfaction” are both individually driven motives, which in turn replace the initial motives in response to high-cost political competition, that is so-called money politics. This study also captures the emergence of religious motive in the shifting process of the socially driven to the individually driven motives. Eventually, the study affirms that both motives, in combination, constitute a political motive as a desire of power to hold an elective office.