Esta dissertação aborda o tema do futebol, inserido na discussão teórica da ciência política, especialmente a que trata dos grupos de interesse, com destaque para a teoria das coalizões de defesa (Sabatier e Jenkins-Smith, 1999). Especificamente, é estudado o processo de modernização do futebol brasileiro, marcado pela transformação do esporte em uma atividade voltada para a visão do mundo dos negócios, envolvendo quantidades relevantes de dinheiro, ações de marketing, patrocínio de empresas e participação de investidores e empresários no meio futebolístico. Esse processo é abordado em torno de duas questões principais, a saber, a relação de trabalho entre clubes e atletas e a administração dos clubes. Uma torna o futebol uma atividade cada vez mais profissional, enquanto a outra traz a mentalidade empresarial para o esporte. São estudados momentos-chave deste processo, a partir da redemocratização da política brasileira, partindo da Lei Zico, passando pela Lei Pelé, Lei Maguito Vilela, CPIs do Futebol, Estatuto do Desporto, Timemania e Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal do Esporte. Conclui-se que ocorreram mudanças significativas no futebol brasileiro, com o processo de modernização, mas que a atuação dos grupos de interesse foi fundamental para que algumas mudanças não ocorressem, que outras fossem adiadas e também para que algumas fossem efetivadas. / This dissertation deals with the football theme, inserted into the theoretical discussion of interest groups in political science, especially the theory of advocacy coalitions (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). Specifically, the process of \"modernization\" of Brazilian football, marked by the transformation of sport in a focused activity for the business world view is studied, involving significant amounts of money, marketing, corporate sponsorship and participation of investors and entrepreneurs among football. This process is covered in around two main issues, namely the working relationship between clubs and athletes and the management of clubs. The first makes football an increasingly professional activity, while the second brings a business mindset for the sport. Key moments of this process are studied, from the democratization of Brazilian politics, starting from the Zico Law, through the Pelé Law, Maguito Vilela Law, Footballs CPIs, Sports Statute, Timemania and Fiscal Responsibility Law of Sports. It was concluded that there were significant changes in Brazilian football, with the modernization process, but that the role of interest groups was essential for some changes did not occur, to others be delayed and also for some to take effect.

It is estimated that peatlands cover around 20% of Scotland’s land area. Scotland’s peatlands are important ecosystems in terms of the services they provide; carbon sequestration, water chemistry and flow regulation, biodiversity, as well as for the homes and livelihoods they offer to their inhabitants. Due to historical management practices over 70% of Scotland’s peatlands are damaged to some degree, and are now in need of restoration. The remaining peat bogs need to be conserved. Peatlands are complex landscapes that require good governance in order to be managed fairly and effectively. This thesis sets out to explore the issues surrounding peatland management and offer some recommendations. Workshops were carried out in Dumfries, The Cairngorms, Thurso and Shetland in order to explore how landowners and managers perceived peatlands and peatland restoration and the potential to fund restoration through the Peatland Code Payment for Ecosystem Services Scheme. The main findings were; there was confusion over the policy concerning peatlands, landowners and managers felt uncertain of the potential carbon benefits and methods to predict them, the Peatland Code focuses on carbon benefits and landowners and managers cared more about water and wildlife. These findings prompted a more in depth study of the objectives, priorities and values of landowners and managers through the use of qualitative interviews, and a policy analysis to clarify funding options and regulations and to identify potential barriers. Sixty-seven semi-structured interviews were carried out with landowners and managers from the four regions around Scotland. These were analysed in order to find common themes. Many of the interviewees had social and environmental aims for their land, as well as financial aims. There was a very strong sense of care and responsibility for the land, which was linked to heritage, legacy and identity. Communication was poor between different groups (landowners vs crofters, locals vs incomers, landowners and managers vs NGOs, Scientists, Politicians), fostering a sense of discord or antagonism. This lead to a lack of trust and a reluctance to engage with other groups, exacerbating communication issues. Poor communication means that the good environmental intensions of evident from the interviews did not always translate into action. Exceptions to this always involved face-to-face communication, site visits, and a long term relationship allowing the build-up of trust. Policy documents relating to peatlands were reviewed. Findings were presented at a workshop attended by peatland policy experts, in order to identify gaps or misconceptions, which were then addressed. Peatlands do not have their own policy area, but are mentioned in policy related to agriculture, forestry, fresh water and biodiversity. Peatlands are most often mentioned in terms of their carbon sequestration potential. They are poorly integrated in fresh water policy. This shows a mismatch between the interests of policy-makers, and the interests of practitioners, as identified in the workshops. Funding for peatland restoration is limited, restrictive in terms of activities that will be funded, and the application process is onerous. The regulations are poorly communicated leading many to fear they will be penalised for undertaking management that is beneficial to peatlands. There are few policies with the intention of building capacity through information provision or training. The uncertainty surrounding funding options for peatland restoration may discourage contractors from diversifying in this area, leading to a shortage of people with the skills necessary to carry out the work. In all three chapters there is a common thread that the various policies and schemes created in order to facilitate conservation and restoration of peatlands do not adequately harness the feelings of care and responsibility towards the environment that are present in the landowning and managing communities. This is due to poor communication and a misunderstanding of the various perspectives of groups in these areas, leading to sometimes obstructive policies which fall short of their ambitions.

The activity of interest groups in the political process of the European Union has given rise to a broad debate concerning the effect on European democracy these groups have. As relatively powerful political actors, the question of these groups’ views on the EU and how the union should be is an important one. The status of these groups owns democratic representation also affects the democratic status of the EU. Being based on a number of theories, this study adopts an ideology analysis for the purpose of testing these theories on two cases – the Swedish environmental organizations World Wide Fund for Nature and The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. This study conducts an investigation of these questions based on theories of interest group involvement in politics, aswell as the broader theories of pluralism and corporatism in a democratic political system. The question of representation is examined based on different perspectives and theories of representation, specifically on discursive representation which offers a view unlike the normal one of representing individuals or voters. The analysis shows varying support for the pluralist and corporatist view of politics, aswell as clear support for the discursive representation together with the more “traditional” view of representation.

Entre os objetivos enunciados no acordo fundacional do Mercosul encontramos a eliminação das tarifas internas entre os países membros (a instituição de uma zona de livre-comércio) e o estabelecimento de uma tarifa externa comum para a relação com os demais países (criação de uma união aduaneira). A permanência de exceções ao livrecomércio entre os membros do bloco e à Tarifa Externa Comum (TEC) reflete um nível de proteção maior do que o que fora acordado inicialmente. A presente dissertação tem como objetivo explicar esse déficit observado entre o acordado no Tratado de Assunção e o efetivamente implementado no Mercosul. A tese defendida ao longo do trabalho diz respeito à influência de grupos de interesse na formulação de políticas. Mais especificamente, argumenta-se que a influência de grupos de interesse foi um fator preponderante nos descumprimentos em relação ao acordado, especialmente no que se refere a questões comerciais. O trabalho, além disso, busca oferecer indícios, através do estudo do caso brasileiro, que ajudem a sustentar essa hipótese de que os grupos de interesse influenciaram a política comercial no Mercosul, fazendo, dessa forma, com que houvesse o déficit entre acordado e realizado. / Among the objectives stated in the foundational treaty of Mercosul we are able to find the elimination of tariffs in the commerce between member-states (the institution of a Free-Trade Area) and the establishment of a Common External Tariff (CET) for the commercial relations with the rest of the world (creation of a Customs Union). The permanence of exceptions to free trade among the member-states of Mercosul and to the CET reflects a level of protection beyond the level agreed initially in the Tratado de Assunção. The main objective of the present dissertation is to try to explain the deficit observed between the agreed in the Tratado de Assunção and the effectively implemented in reality. The central thesis of this work is that the influence of interest groups was (and still is) a key factor when trying to explain the deficit between agreed and implemented, specially in what refers to the commercial matters. This dissertation, besides, tries to offer some evidence, trough the study of the Brazilian case, in favor of the assertion that interest groups affected (and are still affecting) commercial policy in Mercosul.

Over the past two decades, both the British and Russian states have sought to institutionalise relations with their Muslim communities through Muslim councils. However, such attempts at institutionalisation raise challenges for these organisations, which need to balance state demands for incorporation into religious governance and Muslim community expectations for more inclusive representation. Challenges of integration and representation have received considerable coverage in Western and Russian studies. However, little comparative research has focused on the behaviour of Muslim councils and how this is affected by different institutional settings. In particular, theories of social movements and interest groups suggest that strategies for dealing with this tension between integration and representation vary between more corporatist and pluralist state-religion relations. Russia and Britain are taken as exemplars of the two traditions, and thus help us to understand how these tensions manifest themselves and are responded to in the two different contexts. The project provides a comparative analysis of the strategies and discourses used by the Muslim Council of Britain and the Russia Council of Muftis in 1997-2013. It explores the conditions under which the councils engage with or disengage from the state. It also examines how the two organisations respond to criticisms from Muslim communities and undertake internal reforms to improve their legitimacy. A detailed analysis of the councils’ engagement with state authorities and Muslim communities is used to unpack the challenges of Muslim collective representation. The thesis contributes to research by providing new empirical data and theoretical insights on Muslim national organisations. It offers an innovative analytical framework by revisiting the concepts of pluralism and corporatism and applying them to the institutional context of state-religion relations in Britain and Russia. It draws on social movement theories and institutionalist approaches to understand how Muslim organisations deal with the dual pressure of co-optation and representation. It examines how Muslim councils behave like interest group organisations and offers theoretical insights that can be extrapolated to other kinds of institutions. Finally, the thesis integrates Western and Russian scholarship on the role of interest groups in general and religious institutions in particular.

In this work we make analysis of the tax evasion practices which have become widely used by the small and medium enterprises in the Russian transitional economy. Taxation has always been the issue best describing relations between state and private business; in Russian economy taxation has come to characterize specificity of interactions between authorities at different levels of government and businessmen. We look at the current situation through the theoretical framework provided by the neoinstitutional theory which allows us to consider data and facts collected on the problem through the perspective of institutional change. By employing analytical tools of the neoinstitutionalism we consider tax evasion as a part of evolving institutional environment. Persistence and prevalence of the schemes used by small businesses to avoid payment of full tax liabilities leads us to qualify the current situation as an institutional dead-lock or in other words inefficient socio­ economic equilibrium: tax-evasion is seen as an illegal activity by the state and development-hampering by businesses, nonetheless the practice persists for decades. We consider that institutions are promoted and supported by different groups united by common socio-economic interest, therefore to describe and analyse this situation we identify...

This thesis engages in discribing Czech gambling law and it's recent development in preparing a very new gambling act. The goal of this diploma thesis is to point out at the biggest problems of so far existing gambling act and at what way they should be dealt in the new one. I use two main economic theories to explain reasons of issuing new act. The first one is The Theory of Interest Groups and the other one is Theory of Public Interest which are applied at the case of Czech Republic. Next goal of this thesis is an analysis of popularity of all gambles according to sum of money gambled and money paid back. I also describe a historic development of gambles and it's regulation and show that the ability to innovate new ways to evade the law had very often no limits and the regularors have never been able to make up a clear set of rules that would be unavoidable.

Scholars often argue that republican government works because elected representatives adopt policies favored by their constituents. Theoretically, this relationship is stronger with morality issues because such issues are technically simple, involve core values, and thus foster greater levels of citizen engagement. Since the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Casey and Webster, state legislatures have passed hundreds of policies that place cumulatively significant restrictions on women's access to abortion. The increasingly conservative nature of abortion policy might indicate an increasingly conservative electorate, but public opinion on abortion has remained stable since the 1970s with most Americans favoring legal abortion with some restrictions. This is the motivating question of my dissertation - why are states increasing abortion restrictions in the absence of public demand? Previous research on abortion policy in the states has generally focused on specific policies at specific years. Studying a single policy at discrete moments in time carries an implicit assumption that the determinants of policy are constant. In order to better state abortion conservatism, I comprehensively examine the formation of state abortion policy in the different stages of policymaking, across policy types, and over time. I find that the stages of the policy making process invokes different incentives for legislators, and as a result, the determinants of abortion policy at each stage of policymaking are different. Despite obvious differences across policy stages, I find a common theme: legislators create abortion policy in strategic ways, at the margins of the policy making arena, and excluding the preferences of the mass public. In the first empirical chapter, I focus on the agenda setting stage of policy making. Using an original dataset of all abortion-related bills introduced in the states from 2000-2010, I find that the predictors of sponsorship varies across legislator gender and party types. Additionally, I find that the effect of citizen ideology and interest group contributions varies across legislators. In the second empirical chapter, I study the diffusion of nearly 40 pro- and anti-abortion rights policies across the states. I establish a set of average predictors of state policy adoption and show how the effect of partisan actors varies across the policies. In the final empirical chapter, I develop a theory of bureaucratic activism. I use the cases of telemedicine abortion bans in Iowa, insurance bans in Georgia, and clinic regulations in Virginia to show how state bureaucracies take advantage of the broad authority granted to them to enact policy change unprompted by the legislature.

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