The main objective of this thesis is to analyze political involvement of national political parties in local politics in Czechia or, more specifically, how successful are these parties in the municipal elections. The main theoretical background of this thesis is divided into two chapters. The first part contains of general definitions of political parties, functions and objectives of political parties, typology of political parties, and development of the party system in Czechia as well as basic characteristics of the different national political parties. The second chapter deals with studies of voting behavior in Czechia, the municipalities themselves and their councils. The second chapter also presents municipal elections. The practical part of this thesis is summarized in one large chapter, which is further divided into smaller subsections. In the first phase the success of parties in drawing up lists of candidates for municipal elections is studied, followed by multiple regression analysis aimed at exploring of relationship between national politics and the success of the political parties at the local level. It also describes other variables which affect that relationship. The third phase of practical part consist of LISA analysis, which is used to determine the local level of spatial...

Abstract The emergence of a cabinet and political parties that could be called democratic was one of the focal objectives for the Allied Occupation of Japan that lasted from 1945 until 1952. Cooperation with the local political actors was also necessitated by the model of indirect rule through domestic institutions that was adopted. The occupation authorities were actively seeking suitable political leadership to govern Japan and were ready to intervene in the development of Japan’s domestic politics for the sake of achieving their goals. Great efforts were, however, made not to distract the democratic façade that covered the undemocratic and non-transparent behind-the-scenes orders. It was important to make the selection of the new political leadership to appear as something that originated from the freely expressed will of the Japanese people. This dissertation offers the first narrative identifying and analyzing the characteristics of the occupation authorities’ policy concerning the Japanese conservatives at the beginning of the occupation. The study emphasizes the importance of understanding the planning period’s influence on the actual occupation policy and introduces a wartime discussion concerning the Japanese conservatives. The process of sorting out the most suitable Japanese leaders in 1942 –1947 can be divided into several phases. What was considered suitable varied during different times, but what was expected from the suitable Japanese leadership remained rather unchanged. The planners of the occupation looked for moderate conservatives: who were to be thanked for Japan’s prewar steps toward democracy; who were not to be blamed for the war; and who were to help in the reconstruction process. At the beginning of the occupation, the occupation authorities sought for cooperative conservative statesmen who would be ready to follow the wishes of the occupier and yet claim the reforms as their own initiatives. After the first postwar general election in April 1946 this rule had to be connected with the conservative parties. Finally, the occupation authorities began to search for suitable middle-of-the-road conservatives who could, together with the right-wing of the Socialist Party, to continue the previous cabinet’s work while ensuring the social stability and the success of reforms in the changing situation.

The dissertation deals with some areas of the work contract (the scope of the work, the price of the work and the payment terms and the execution of the work). The dissertation consists of two unevenly large parts. The general part briefly introduces the concept of commitment and contract, describes in general the contract for a work including a brief historical and foreign excursion and generalizes the national legislation of contract for a work according to the Civil Code, focusing on its character, form, typical features and essentials. The last subchapter differentiates the contract for a work from some similar contractual types. A special part of this dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first chapter approximates the concepts of "mandatory" and "non-mandatory" provisions as the types of legal nature of a legal rule. The next chapter deals with contract for a work focused on construction work and examines the legal nature of the special provisions. The following and most extensive chapter consists of three subchapters (price for a work, the scope of a work and the performance of a work and payment terms) and deals in detail with both the legal regulation of the part and the legal nature of provisions, as well as the reflection of the parties' interests in the area of the contract...

In recent years a wave of right-wing populist parties has sweep in Europe. Two of these are Sweden’s Swedish Democrats and Norway’s Progress Party. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to research on how political parties are portrayed in mainstream media and how that may influence political party success in the elections. Content of two daily newspapers over two months before the last parliamentary elections in Sweden and Norway is examined within the study. The method used is a quantitative content analysis. The result was added to the agenda setting theory. From the result, an analysis was conducted to reveal how publication in newspapers can be expected to affect or not affect the selected parties’ successes in the elections. The result shows that the Progress Party receives more space in the daily press than the Swedish Democrats. Both parties are often mentioned in relation to other parties. In several articles, other parties want to show that there is a difference between their basic values, as opposed to the right-wing populist parties. Negative value words appear in the articles, especially in the case of the Swedish Democrats. There are both negative and neutral values in the case of the Progress Party. However, the articles often appear in a neutral way. The conclusion is that the daily press does not seem to have influence over the political parties’ successes in the elections in this case.

Le Partido Verde brésilien, le Partido Ecologista chilien et le Proyecto Sur argentin sont des partis politiques appartenant à la mouvance des partis verts ou de tendance écologiste. Ils constituent, dans leurs pays respectifs, des forces politiques nouvelles, qui entendent se distinguer par l’affirmation d’une identité particulière, fondée sur la place centrale accordée à la protection de l’environnement et au développement durable ainsi que sur la volonté de « faire de la politique autrement ». Si les membres de ces partis estiment ainsi se démarquer de la gauche, ils s’en rapprochent néanmoins par les idées qu’ils défendent en matière sociétale, mais aussi en matière économique et sociale. Ils participent ainsi au mouvement plus vaste de recomposition de la gauche et se trouvent en concurrence avec les autres forces de gauche, dont ils partagent l’électorat. Ces trois partis ont émergé, dans un contexte de renouvellement démocratique, en lien avec les acteurs de la société civile. Ils continuent à entretenir des liens étroits avec le monde associatif, syndical et artistique. Leur organisation est fondée sur un modèle basé sur des principes démocratiques tels que le pluralisme, la représentativité, la territorialité. Néanmoins, comme leurs homologues d’Europe occidentale et d’Europe centrale et orientale, ils font face à la difficulté de mettre effectivement ces principes en œuvre dans leur fonctionnement quotidien et sont confrontés à un phénomène de concentration du pouvoir à la tête du parti. Si le Partido Eccologista chilien, le Partido Verde brésilien et le Proyecto Sur argentin ont chacun su occuper un espace jusqu’alors vacant sur la scène politique de leur pays respectif, leurs perspectives d’évolution et de développement demeurent incertaines. / The Partido Verde from Brazil, the Partido Ecologista from Chile and the Proyecto Sur from Argentina are political parties belonging to the movement of green or ecologist parties. They represent, in each country, new political forces which aim at differentiating themselves through a particular identity, built on the focus on sustainable development and the strong will to do politics in a new fashion. Members of those three political parties believe they are apart from left-wing activists. Nevertheless, they do share similar ideas, regarding societal issues, as well as economic and social questions. These parties appeared in a particular context, influenced by democratic renewal, in connection with civil society activists. They continue to keep strong ties with associations, unions, and artistic movements. Their organisation is based on democratic principles such as pluralism, representativeness and territoriality. However, like their European counterparts, they have trouble applying these principles in actual fact. They also face the issue of monopolized power by party leaders. The Partido Verde, the Partido Ecologista and the Proyecto Sur were able to fill a political vacuum in their respective countries, yet their prospects in terms of electoral success remain uncertain.

Magister Legum - LLM

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The study of student politics in Africa has evolved in the last decade from a focus on non-institutionalised student activism and student movements to institutionalised student political participation in institutions of higher education. Thus it followed a development route in which student leadership had to find new ways in which to organise their movements in institutional, national and continental political organisations to influence policy and remain relevant in students’ lives. Since this study focuses on one particular dimension of this change, the study seeks to understand the relationship between student leaders in Makerere University, Kampala, and political parties in Uganda. The specific focus of the study is on highlighting the reasons for establishing and maintaining the relationship; the arrangements necessary for the relationship to exist, and how the relationship impacts on the ability of student leaders to represent students’ interests. Following an analysis of the relevant literature in line with the topic, it was decided that a mixed methods approach would be suitable for the study. Hence in-depth interviews were conducted with student leaders and leaders of national political parties and an online survey targeting all undergraduate students at Makerere University was done (as part of a larger study). Theoretically, the study adopted a framework originally proposed by Schmitter and Streeck (1999), and adapted it to study the relationship between student leaders and political parties, drawing also on the insights of studies that had previously used adaptations of the same framework to study student leadership in other contexts. The study found a continuing historical relationship between student leaders of Makerere University and political parties in Uganda. It found that a significant number of students are members of a political party, whereby student leaders are most likely not only to be ordinary party members, but party leaders. Political parties use the student guild elections to recruit new members. As part of being members of a political party, student leaders tend to be more influential in weak political parties, in contrast to a ruling party which is more influential in student politics given its ability to provide access to government resources. Moreover, the relationship is such that student leaders from Makerere University are most likely to end up in powerful political positions in the country (e.g. Byaruhanga, 2006; Mugume and Katusiimeh, 2014); this situation corresponds to the reasons that student leaders give for establishing relationships with political parties in the first place, as most student leaders have future political ambitions. The most influential organisations in student politics appear to be political parties, followed by cultural groups on campus. The study also highlights weaknesses in formal institutional governance structures given that student leaders believe their problems are better addressed in personal networks with members of university management staff than through the committee system. The relationship between student leaders and political parties generally leads to positive developments such as student leadership training in democratic politics; consequently they are even able to satisfy their personal interests in the process. It is further argued that students who are not in leadership positions mostly gain indirectly from the benefits that student leaders may derive from their relationship with political parties. For example, student leaders may govern their organisation better. However the evidence also strongly shows that such indirect gains are highly compromised in cases where student leaders have future political ambitions, as they may sacrifice the students’ interests in order to maintain their good reputation in the party. Since most student leaders aspire to be politicians in future, the study concludes by acknowledging that the relationship between student leaders and political parties has some positive consequences to students not involved in leadership, but they are outweighed by negative consequences. Hence it is argued in the conclusion that, taking into account the scope of this study, the relationship is largely a distraction to the student leaders rather than assisting them in enhancing their ability to represent students’ concerns.

In developed democracies, incumbents are consistently found to have an electoral advantage over their challengers. The normative implications of this phenomenon depend on its sources. Despite a large existing literature, there is little consensus on what the sources are. In this three-paper dissertation, I find that both electoral institutions and the parties behind the incumbents appear to have a larger role than the literature has given them credit for, and that in the U.S. context, between 30 and 40 percent of the incumbents' advantage is driven by their "scaring off" serious opposition. / Government

This thesis explores the nature and extent of political party institutionalization in Kenya. More specifically, it focuses on the four dimensions of party institutionalization, namely organizational systemness, value-infusion, decisional autonomy and reification. The study itself is largely located within the historical-institutionalist school of thought, with particular emphasis on the path dependency strand of this theoretical framework. However, the study also employs a political economy approach. It recognizes that the development trajectory of party politics in Kenya did not evolve in a vacuum but within a particular historical-institutional and political-economic context. The thesis advances the notion that those current low levels of party institutionalization that are evident in almost all parties, and the relatively peripheral role that they have in Kenya's governance can be traced to Kenya's colonial and post-colonial political history, the resource poor environment and the onset of globalization.

En dépit de la place importante qu’elles occupent dans les sociétés contemporaines, les activités physiques et sportives continuent d’occuper une place secondaire sur l’agenda politique. Pourtant, dès le début du 20e siècle, des militants ouvriers ont commencé à développer une approche particulière du sport. Après avoir rappelé quelques éléments de l’histoire de ce « sport ouvrier », et en particulier les contradictions qui le traversent, nous nous intéressons surtout ici à la manière dont ses héritiers après la Seconde guerre mondiale ont tenté d’ériger le sport en enjeu politique de première importance en France. Ce « milieu communiste du sport », site d’interactions particulier qui dépasse les frontières des organisations s’articule cependant autour d’un certain nombre de carrefours. La commission sport nationale du PCF institutionnalisée en 1959 est de ceux-là. Appuyée sur l’analyse d’archives, d’entretiens et d’une participation observante de plusieurs années au sein de ce collectif, cette enquête propose ainsi d’étudier le statut, le fonctionnement et le recrutement d’un tel groupe de travail thématique. Il s’agit en d’autres termes de chercher à comprendre ce que militer pour la cause du sport veut dire, comment certains en viennent à s’engager pour cet objet relativement illégitime dans le champ politique pour saisir enfin quel type de doctrine ils produisent. Une deuxième partie est consacrée aux appropriations elles-mêmes de cette doctrine ailleurs dans le parti, en s’intéressant aux politiques sportives de deux municipalités de la « banlieue rouge » puis à celle menée au gouvernement lorsque le portefeuille des Sports échoit pour la première fois à une communiste, consécration en trompe-l’oeil du travail de la commission. / In spite of the major attention they benefit from in contemporary societies, sport and physical activities remain a secondary matter in the political agenda. Yet, since the beginning of the 20th Century, working class activists began developing a peculiar approach of sport. After recapping a few elements on this “working class sport” and specifically its contradictions, we will focus on how its heirs have tried to make sport a first-matter subject in France after World War II. This “communist sport world” goes beyond organizations’ borders but is nevertheless made of several crossroads. Created in 1959, the French Communist Party sport commission is one of them. This inquiry is based upon various archival sources, direct interviews and above all an ethnographic immersion during several years. It aims at studying the status of such a work group in a political party or a Trade union, how it works and who are its members. In other words, it is trying to understand what it means to advocate for sport while being a communist activist and what kind of doctrine they produce given who they are and where they stand from in social space. The second part focuses on how other members of the Party appropriate themselves this doctrine by analyzing the sports policies developed in two historically communist cities and then finally the consequences of having a communist minister of Sports for the first time in the very end of the 20th Century.