The diploma thesis deals with the regime change in the context of the Arab Spring 2011 with focus on Tunisia, Egypt and Syria. The aim of the thesis is to determine factors causing different progress towards political reforms in each country. Theoretical framework is provided by characteristics of undemocratic regimes, transitions to democracy and democracy itself. Each country is introduced from the historical point of view with focus on the 20th century, especially current methods of the governance. Several conclusions are made based on analytical -- synthetical method of reviewing historical, political and socioeconomical factors determining the domestic situation in compared countries and explaining their influence on different transition progress towards the new political system.

The main topic of the dissertation is the development and changes in the political thinking of Czech reform communism from 1968. While in the 1960s reform communism represented the dominant intellectual and political current, after the military invasion in August 1968 it gradually disappeared from the public discourse and was later completely suppressed by normalization propaganda and labeled as "counter- revolutionary" and "right-wing opportunist" ideology. The central questions of the thesis explore the changes that the political project of reform communism underwent during the twenty-one-year normalization period and the shifts that took place in the "horizon of expectation" of the Czechoslovak socialist opposition in the context of the intellectual and political changes of the 1970s and 1980s. The aim of the thesis is to explain the political perspectives of reform-communist intellectuals in the Czechoslovak opposition after 1968. They represented an important part of both domestic and especially exile opposition, which formed around the journal Listy. Some of them also played an important role in the creation of Charter 77 and its legalistic criticism. Nevertheless, their story does not fully fit into the traditional narrative of Czechoslovak dissent, as they never completely parted ways with...

The paper primarily aims to depict the cultural life in the district city of Tábor against a background of the 1968 - 1970 historical events. The author describes, against the historical background, the individual cultural events and the life of the city, as well as the influence of political events which had the result that the city, and indeed the entire country, returned to the era preceding the "golden sixties". Employing the method of oral history, the author has interviewed narrators who had a proactive relationship to the cultural events in the city. Their testimonies were used as a basis for selecting topics which illustrate the cultural movement in the late 1960s as a period of liberalisation ending with normalisation which suppressed the cultural development of the city; the author especially invokes those events which were irreconcilable with the subsequent political developments in the country. The paper also refers to other resources which outline the atmosphere of the era, namely resources provided by the political authorities of the city and the Tábor City Chronicle. Using the testimonies provided by the narrators and the archival resources, the author has endeavoured to paint the most accurate picture of the atmosphere surrounding the events happening in the city in the said period....

Thesis Alena Slezáková and her position in media. Biographical study deals with career of a journalist, who has witnessed during her activie years in media important events of Czech and Czechoslovakian history. Since the year 1964 she worked in Lidová demokracie, Lidové noviny, Mladá fronta DNES and magazines Naše rodina and Týden. In the year 1969 she was forbidden from entering parliament. She was allowed to return after Velvet Revolution, when she also started to work on education of young and beginning journalists. In the end of her career, right before she retired, she became a book reviewer. This biographical study uses method of oral history, which means that author of this thesis interviewed Alena Slezáková regularly. It also uses method of qualitative content analysis of her texts, that informed about events in politics and society in Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia. Thesis also mentions important historic affairs, so the life and work of Slezáková can me contextualized. Aim of this thesis was not only to describe life of Alena Slezáková but also to outline transformations in media she witnessed - censorship and its dissolution, new media law and transformation of party's press. Part of this thesis are also two hypotheses which were confirmed. During the research it was shown that events...

Intervention in Libya is an anomaly in President Barack Obama's foreign policy during his eight years in the office. This thesis aims to analyze the decision-making process leading to this unprecedented step. Using Graham Allison's Bureaucratic Politics Model, the purpose of this analysis is to investigate the influence of some presidential advisors and allies on his final decision. Data for this study were collected using President Obama's public statements, biographies of several members of the administration, and secondary academic sources. After some general context, the thesis closely examines the selected period from the first protests in Libya on February 15 to the beginning of the Operation United Protector on March 31. This timeframe of forty-five days is further divided into the week-by-week process tracing analyses. The development on the ground in Libya is merged with changes of attitude in the American administration and changing alliances among the members of the advisory team of the President. The Bureaucratic Politics Model is used to analyze specific tactics used by American officials to impose their preferred scenario. The study also tests the applicability of several new methodological approaches within the Bureaucratic Politics Model like the palace politics perspective,...

Prague Spring in Collective Memory of the Members 28th Fighter-Bomber Air Regiment in Čáslav Jiří Hlaváček The aim of essay is to analyse the course and the consequences of the Prague Spring at the 28th Fighter Bomber Wing in Čáslav based on oral recollections of the direct participants of the events and their comparison with accessible contemporary sources. The research is utilizes the method of oral history, focussing on the testimonies of six members of the 28th Fighter Bomber Wing, who were dismissed from the Army during the normalization purges between 1968 and 1974. The essay is concerned with the important events of Prague Spring, covering them chronologically from January 1968 until Apríl 1969 and with reflection of these events by the formal members of the Wing. The main part of the essay focusses on a detailed description of the events taking place at Čáslav airport during the entry of the Warsaw Pact troops on the territory of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The other part is devoted to the methods of the normalization purges in the Army and their impact on the witnesses lives inclusive of theme of collective memory of this group. Key words: Czechoslovak People's Army - Prague Spring - Air Force - the normalization - rehabilitation - oral history - collective memory - biography.

Abstract The Master thesis Czechoslovakia in 1960s from the point of view of theory non- democratic regimes deals with the analysis of political, economic and social development, especially with the so-called Prague Spring of 1968. The 1968 reform was an attempt to transform the Czechoslovak communist regime. The aim was to transform Czechoslovakia into a modern industrial society, break free from the total subordination to the Soviet Union, yet with the leading role of the Communist Party. For this reason, the year 1968 holds an important position in our post-war history. The thesis is divided into two main parts and seven chapters. The first part is devoted to non-democratic theories, particularly to totalitarianism and authoritarianism. The second part describes the events in the communist Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1960. And subsequently, the remaining part is devoted to the main topic of the thesis, to Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. The aim of my thesis was to describe the situation in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, identify the causes and consequences of the so-called Prague Spring of 1968 and try to match Czechoslovakia to a certain type of non-democratic regime in the 1960s and thus determine where Czechoslovakia was on the imaginary scale from totalitarianism to democracy in this period.

Bibliographic Note Sundal, Kendra. 2013. La Frontière/Il Confine: French and Italian Migration Discourse. 85 pages. Master's thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Studies. Supervisor doc. PhDr. RNDr. Nikola Hynek, M.A., PgDipRes, PhD Abstract This work analyzes the historical background and discourse on migration in Italy and France, focusing on migration from and through former colonies in North Africa. Drawing on a feminist methodological approach, the work discusses how migrants may be perceived or treated differently based on gender, and how this impacts (or is impacted by) policies. In particular, one illustrative event, the closure of the Franco-Italian border in April 2011, is analyzed more deeply using the theory of domopolitics as introduced by William Walters. By tracing the history and the discourse about migration and integration from colonial times to the present, this event and other recent debates related to Mediterranean migration are contextualized. Key Terms: migration, France, Italy, borders, Arab Spring, domopolitics, feminist methodology, discourse analysis, historical representation

The master thesis titled Italian Political Discourse and Securitization of Immigration: the Case of the Maghreb revolutions in 2011 deals with the issue of mass immigration waves reaching Italian shores and, in particular, the tiny island of Lampedusa during the initial phase of the so called Arab Spring. Its main goal lies in reconstruction and interpretation of the political discourse led by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government presenting the immigration crisis as a serious threat to national and potentially to European security. The first part introduces the general theoretical framework. The securitization theory of the Copenhagen School was used as an instrument for the thesis, including major criticism raised by the authors belonging to the social constructivist approach. In the second part, the author tries to characterize the basic historical and political context and clarifies the specifics of immigration in contemporary Italy. The last segment contains structuralized discourse analysis of the 2011 events and explores the extraordinary measures adopted and implemented in reaction to the government rhetoric at both the national and supranational levels. In this respect, the author pays special attention to how the process of negotiations finally led to the revision of the EU...

The thesis "Syrians in the Czech Republic" is engaged with the Syrians living in the Czech Republic, and their activities here. Attempts to outline the Syrians view on the Czech society and their integration into Czech society. The main method of work is a field research among the Syrians supplemented with study of technical literature. Keywords Syria, Syrians, the Arabic spring, the Arab revolution, Bashar Assad, the Baas, Syrian identity, islam, emigration, immigration, integration process, problem of identity