This particular work deals with the process of expansion by the North Atlantic Alliance in view of the theory of balance of power and the relationship between Russia and NATO. The author of the work draws on assumption that NATO's expansions, that have followed the end of the cold war, strengthen NATO's might, to which Russia must react to counter the growing power of the potential adversary. This work is divided into two main thematic parts. The first part regards the three waves of the expansion which followed the breakup of the Soviet Union (1999, 2004, and 2009); therein, the author analyzes NATO's strengthening on the military, political and geopolitical levels. The second part of the work is devoted to unveiling of Russia's potential counterbalancing steps. The Russian attempt to counterbalance the NATO's moves, of course, has also been analyzed within three frames - military, political and geopolitical. The analysis of the counterbalancing by Russia, as well as the strengthening of NATO is presented within the frame defined by five year periods. To facilitate the theoretical view, the power counterbalancing analyses has been divided into, so called, "Hard balancing" and "Soft balancing". Because the end of the bipolar conflict contributed to substantial changes in international political...

The realm of trust has of late become the subject of a new agenda of research. Withal, as this paper demonstrates, trust has always implicitly been at the core of international relations theory. The object of the research is the transatlantic relationship and the role that trust plays on the field of security, using NATO as the platform. In this connection, at first, the author considers the category of trust in international relations as a whole. A detailed analysis of the phenomenon of trust, its principles and distinctive signs will be conducted. For the further application of the theoretical findings to the case of transatlantic relations, special methodology as exploratory research is elaborated. It develops a multiframework strategy for recognizing signals of trust in a relationship, emphasizing the role of the security dilemma, hedging strategies and reassurance in this manner. The selected research methods are determined by the theoretical basis and the available data for the research. Taking stock of the history of transatlantic relations on the basis of researching literature and using the research findings of the case study, the author estimates the level of trust between the United States and European NATO members during periods of turmoil. The aim is to reveal the causes of such state of...

The European Union have continued to grow since its inception with more and more nations becoming member states. In 2016 that changed, when, for the first time, a member state decided to leave, and the EU might explore its enlargement strategy to fill the void left by the United Kingdom. Turkey is a potential addition to the EU, one that could provide a valuable ally from both a monetary and a security perspective. However, there are some doubts regarding democracy in the country, which is one of the cornerstones of the EU. This paper is a qualitative case study that examines Turkish democracy in the period of 2011-2021, and its alignment with the EU accession criteria. Robert Dahl’s famous definition of democracy will be used as the theoretical framework of the study, and the European Commission’s own reports on Turkey’s progress on the EU accession criteria will be the material used for the analysis. The main conclusion of the study is that Turkish democracy is in sharp decline, and fundamental freedoms are regressing in the country. The negotiations have stalled in the wake of the coup attempt in 2016, and restrictive and anti-democratic measures introduced by the government has brought Turkey further away from having a realistic chance of becoming a member state. Future research could focus on other aspects of the Turkey-EU accession talks, for example the economic criteria.

The czech-german and the czech-austrian relations are influenced by reminiscent elements and controversy in the interpretation of our shared history so far. The theme of the postwar transfer of the sudetengerman minority from the Czechoslowakia figures among the czech-german and czech- austrian "roadblocks" on the front. The postwar Beneš-decrees has influenced the processus of the czech EU-integration eminently. This text follows the EU -integration of the Czech republic and its nuances how are they presented in Sudetendeutsche Zeitung and Sudetenpost. It aims to describe the emphasized aspects of the integration and analyzes the context, in which is this problematics in the years 1997 - 2004 reflected. The analysis of the media agenda of the oficial paper of Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft and Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft in Österreich unveils the czech EU-entry from the sudetengerman point of view and tries to contribute the understanding of the "sudetengerman problem". The essay apllies two metodic approaches. The quantitative content analysis examines the frequence of the selected media contents, idientifies their context, neutrality or eventually opinion affection and makes this way the articles in Sudetendeustche Zeitung more transparent. The qualitative analysis takes notice of the main opinion...

After the Eastern enlargement in the year 2004 and 2007 the European Union is on the threshold of another expansion. Turkey and Croatia are the first countries that received the official candidate status. Turkey is the longest waiting contender for the adoption into the European Union structures; Croatia is the most anticipated candidate to receive the membership. The thesis "Comparison of preparedness of economies of Turkey and Croatia to join the European Union. " aims to compare the economic preparedness of these two countries for European Union full membership and also detects the cons and pros of possible integration. The goal of this thesis is to answer the question whether it is the theory of neo-realism or the theory of neo-functionalism that explains the current accession process of Turkey and Croatia to the European Union. In the past the European integration has overcome many obstacles, has achieved many substantial results and due to its effectiveness has managed to extend the territory of peace, stability and prosperity across the continent. The coming sixth wave of enlargement has a difficult goal but it is also a great challenge that can change again the map of European Union and extend its operation and influence into Asia Minor and the western Balkans.

This thesis deals with European policy of the SPD, the oldest and biggest German left-wing political party. The main focus is on time period from 1998 to 2005, when Gerhard Schröder's government was in power. The aim of this thesis is to describe the social democratic change in approach to European policy. The study also examines three SPD internal debates about "Neue Mitte", European finality and first eastern enlargement of the European Union. The European policy of the German Social Democrats has undergone a significant change since 1998. The party became more assertive, pragmatic and realistic.

The European Union - EU - came into being in the early 1950s with the aim of avoiding the rival clashes that had previously taken place in Europe. The starting point was a collaboration around the coal and steel industry, but the collaboration has spread to other areas. Likewise, the number of member countries has also increased, from initially consisting of 6 member countries to today consisting of 27. EU membership is preceded by various requirements that must be met for membership to be current. The accession criteria for EU membership, also known as the Copenhagen criteria, contain several requirements, of which the requirement of the fight against corruption is found among these. The criteria are a form of power exercised by the EU and this form of power, known as soft power, is widely used. Through the exercise of soft power, more countries are attracted to want to take part in the community that the EU constitutes, which leads to Europeanization and the enlargement of the EU. The well-known neo-functionalist theory of spillover states that integration leads to changes in the integrated countries. By carrying out a qualitative theory-testing case study regarding the spillover effects on the case of Croatia, the theory's validity is revealed. Does the EU-membership lead to changes in the integrated countries, and specifically regarding the fight against corruption? The research problem is important from a political science perspective and thus relevant to the research, and this work has therefore investigated this. The result shows that Croatia has made clear progress in their work in the fight against corruption, but one can also see difficulties in adopting EU policies. This is aconstant ongoing process that the country has to deal with.

This dissertation argues that European Union membership conditionality operates as a modality of political-economic governance directed at securing the conditions of possibility for a harmoniously functioning political economy of Europe. I argue that conditionality can best be understood not as a series of requirements for EU membership, a set of incentives for rule adoption, or a vehicle for the transmission of European norms to candidate states, but as an ensemble of discursive and material practices – fragile, dispersed circuits of governmental activity directed at a particular strategic ambition. I argue that existing accounts of EU membership conditionality are informed by predominantly rationalist understandings of political economy which work to conceal various cultural, social, and subjective sources of disharmony in political-economic life. Thinking about the political economy of conditionality through rationalist lenses privileges the study of bargaining and negotiation and institutional reform and overlooks the ways that conditionality targets the transformation of problematic socio-cultural and subjective elements of political economy – among them particular habits of culture, patterns of sociality, and subjective qualities and capacities of the person deemed essential to securing order and abundance. Re-reading canonical works in classical and critical traditions of political economy by James Steuart, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx makes clear that political economy as a field of knowledge and practice has long been concerned with understanding the political, legislative-legal, institutional, socio-cultural, and subjective conditions of possibility for securing order and abundance and has long reflected on the potential and limits of governance to secure these conditions in a world of shifting circumstance. I argue that a political economy of EU membership conditionality concerned with disharmony should investigate the ways that particular socio-cultural and subjective features of political-economic life are problematized in the discourse of conditionality and subsequently targeted for transformation through the work of instruments and agents of conditionality operating in a variety of institutional contexts. On this basis, I analyze conditionality as practice – tracing the emergence of instruments of conditionality currently at work in the Republic of Macedonia through official documents produced by the EU and the Republic of Macedonia from 2001-2011. I then examine the ambitions and limits of the Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013 (OP-HRD) – a program tasked with translating the aims of conditionality on paper into concrete activities for implementation in the fields of employment, education and training, and social inclusion. I outline some limits to the program derived from personal interviews with officials of the EU and the Republic of Macedonia who work to implement the OP-HRD "on the ground." In reflecting on these limitations, I return to the political economy of disharmony, concluding that constraints on the operation of conditionality in practice are not merely the product of technical and political impediments but are also derived from inherent limits to the old dream of political-economic harmony to which the ambitions of conditionality are ultimately directed. / Ph. D.

歐體當初被設計成為一個具有彈性及動力的組織，它只是一個開端，而並非為終極目標，所以從一九五七年至今，會員國由原創始的六個國家，擴增至今日之十五國，其創造之經濟及政治成就，不僅使歐洲從戰後的頹敗，變為今日之繁榮、先進，且由於歐洲國家之結合，而使其在國際舞台上之份量愈形吃重。而此等成就亦吸引同為歐洲國家，只是在過去五十年來一直實行共產主義的中、東歐國家希望加入。 在一九九○年代之前，有關於歐體成員國擴增的討論，僅僅止於有關於南歐或北歐國家加入的問題。但隨著以蘇聯為首的中、東歐共產集團的瓦解，一些有關歐盟未來發展的型式、範圍、整合速度以及歐盟現有成員國對於廣化之可欲性等，在近年來一一浮上檯面。本論文之主要研究目的即是在藉由對歐體歷次廣化經驗之研究及解析，瞭解歐體在每次擴大的過程中所遭遇之各項難題，並且瞭解歐體各成員國對於廣化所持之態度，以評估未來中、東歐國家加入歐盟的可行性，同時，亦瞭解歐盟在未來廣化成功之後，整個歐盟在機構及政策上，所將要面臨的改變與調整。 第一章、 緒論 第一節、 研究動機及研究目的 第二節、 研究方法 第三節、 名詞界定 第二章、 歐體的三次擴大經驗 第一節、 第一次擴大經驗：英國、丹麥、愛爾蘭 第二節、 第二次擴大經驗：希臘、西班牙、葡萄牙 第三節、 第三次擴大經驗：奧地利、瑞典、芬蘭 第三章、 歐體三次廣化經驗之啟發 第一節、 申請加入歐體之條件與程序及相關要素 第二節、 各國於加入歐體後之反應 第四章、 中東歐國家加入歐盟的背景 第一節、 中東歐國家申請加入歐盟的進程 第二節、 中東歐國家申請加入歐盟的經貿背景 第五章、 對中東歐國家加入歐盟的評估 第一節、 中東歐國家對於加入歐盟的態度 第二節、 歐盟對於東擴所作的準備 第六章、 結論 參考書目

This dissertation on negating, resisting or affirming cosmological principle towards an African humanism leadership theory and model has evolved through an embryonic process that arose from the research ‘itch’ as regards the way in which post-colonial African leadership has been critiqued. This research ‘itch’ also focused on how the postcolonial leadership in Africa, were trail blazers in formulating liberation philosophies and ideologies that did not, unfortunately, translate into sustainable peace and development. Thus, this dissertation has been a journey of immersion into the public and macro-level discourse contained in pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial African leadership case studies. This enriching journey revealed a postcolonial African leadership which had focused on ideologies and philosophies and had deviated from the spirituality embedded in indigenous cosmologies and knowledge systems. Hence, this dissertation examines relevant cosmological principles embedded in indigenous cosmologies and knowledge systems for analysing African leadership; for the embryonic process that begins with the universal humanism perspective of African leadership, cognitive justice and transformation by enlargement, and basic African humanism perspectives. Thus, this study examines cognitive justice as the enabler of indigenous cosmologies and transformation by enlargement as the enabler of indigenous knowledge systems, both of which provide relevant cosmological principles for analysing African leadership. In addition, the dissertation analyses indigenous cosmologies and knowledge systems from the African continent in an effort to distinguish between the various forms of leadership found in Africa and to generate an African humanism leadership theory and model. The indigenous cosmologies and knowledge systems in this dissertation are from four regions in Africa, namely, North Africa (Egypt); West Africa (Ghana-Akan); the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia) and Southern Africa (Bantu). The methodologies used in the study include Afrikology and critical discourse analysis and enabled the research study to ascertain whether cosmological principles embedded in indigenous cosmologies and knowledge systems are relevant for analysing African leadership. Critical discourse analysis enabled the geographic triangulation of African leadership and the indigenous cosmologies and knowledge systems, thus resulting in the development of the African humanism leadership theory and model of individual dualism leadership. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)