Czechoslovakia during the Second World War - Influence of the Second World War on the political development of Czechoslovakia The years 1938-1945 determined the development that culminated in the communist coup d'état in February of 1948. At the same time, Czech society was undergoing a deep crisis that has been caused by bitter disappointment of the end of the First Republic and its internal political problems. The Great Depression, mass unemployment and the inability of government officials to deal with this situation satisfactorily led to dissatisfaction with the economic arrangement of the First Republic and became the subject of radical change. According to many, the First Republic political party system also had failed. Too many political parties, the need for coalition governments, selfish adherence to party interests instead of national interests, intrigues, were all given as reasons why democracy had not been able to confirm its primacy in the moments when it was most needed. Betrayal by the Western Allies, especially France (under the strong influence of Great Britain) and the relatively friendly behavior of the Soviet Union during the Munich crisis undermined foreign policy concepts, held in the interwar period. All these events had meant that almost no one wanted to return to pre-war...

There isn¡¦t any clear definition on the discussion of Local Democracy. There are some similar concepts that are easily confused with us, such as local government, local autonomy, localism, and local democracy¡Ketc. Therefore, it¡¦s necessary to clear and find out the relationship among them. In addition, the dichotomy of democracy in the UK polity is particularly conspicuous in relation to local government. Consequently, The challenge is that how we apply the theories to the reality. I will use the approach of historical institutionalism to illustrate the development of UK local democracy. Meanwhile, it¡¦s reasonable to base a normative theory of local government or local democracy on the concept of ¡¥limited democracy.¡¦ In the light of the complexity of local government levels, I will focus my study on England. Case study and document analysis will be the research method of this essay. The process of history should be included six stages. I will make a brief analysis on the institution, actors, and events of each stage. After that, I will synthesize the path and its relationship with the change of voters¡¦ attitudes. The research results included: As for UK polity, although local democracy is the catch phrase of New Labour¡¦s programme for local government, it should not be an unfamiliar concept. The concept of local democracy doesn¡¦t necessarily equate to local autonomy; to some extent, the interdependence between them cannot be ignored. The path of UK local democracy tends to step from the theoretical model of localism to economy and efficiency. When we observe the low turnout of UK local election recent years, the voters¡¦ apathy has been a social normal phenomenon. The reality seems to undermine the immutable and sacrosanct place for democracy in the institutions of local government. However, are the things ostensibly unreasonable really bad? From the enlightenment of the approach of historical institutionalism, the voters have been incorporated into UK polity. Under the constraint of UK polity, they play the role of ¡¥maximizing satisfiers¡¦, unless major issues. In a word, if we want to learn from the lesson of UK local democracy, we have to rethink it again and again. And then, we may have an audit of the health of local democracy in Britain

This work analyses the development of Russian Federation during the presidency of V. Putin in years 2000-2008. It is especially concentrated on the internal development. It starts by summarizing of the Yeltsin period to understand the background, V. Putin was entering into, and to compare both systems in their continuity or difference. Concerning internal affairs, the work focuses on political consolidation, economic stabilization and the evolution of the Russian society. In foreign affairs, it analyses Russia's attitudes towards great powers like EU, USA or China. It mentions also the relations with the post-Soviet countries. Last but not least, the work brings a conclusion about the Russian identity and success of the reforms.