The thesis aims to analyze and explain the origin, development and manifestations of the process of Europeanization of two players of the Czech party system - the ODS and the KSČM. The thesis starts with a theoretical part, which summarizes the current debate in political science and Europeanization in the context of political parties. The main aim was to trace the changes that were seen among those due to the involvement of political parties in the debate over the meaning of European integration for Czech politics and the practical integration into EU institutions. The basic hypothesis, which is verified, aims to examine the correlation and negativistic relation ODS and KSČM on issues of European integration after twenty years of exposure in the Czech party system. At the same time an analysis of election results mentioned parties to the European Parliament, as well as the method of election campaigns of parties in the same institution. The analytical part of the work analyzes the ODS and KSČM in the line of the general impact of European policies, program outcomes of affected parties, as well as electoral competition in elections to the EP and Czech national assembly. Key words: Europeanization, political parties, ODS, KSČM, European Union

The mass character of political mobilization is not the only measure for the strength of civil society. It turns out that, in post-communist countries including the Czech Republic, transaction capacity became the characteristic of protest movements and initiatives. It referrs to the ability to cooperate, take advantage of inter-organizational network and share resources and know how. These transactions, to a certain extent, compensate for poor mobilization capacity, which is typical for new transactional activism and civic self-organizations. The contrast between "old" social movements, episodic mass mobilisations, new transactional activism, along with civil self-organization, illustrated that even without mass mobilization a mature structure of civil society and advocacy organizations can emerge and operate. The year 1998 brought the beginning of favorable conditions for political activism. It turns out that the activity of the "old" activism decreases with the number of members of trade unions, which is typical for this mode. At the same time, people prefer forms of direct action and direct public protest. Using five selected case studies we described the nature of episodic mass mobilization, civil ad hoc and informal self-organization and new transactional activism,whose repertoire is besides petitions...

This work focuses on the research of contemporary Czech and Slovak visual art which critically reflects problems in the society. Due to the totalitarian past in former Czechoslovakia, this orientation of art made a specific genesis. It was established as a acknowledged part of art only in the last decade. The aim of my thesis was to analyze when and by which means the Czech and Slovak sphere of visual art became repoliticized. I research and analyze selected works of artists who are critically reacting to the problems of politics and society. I keep the chronological order of the artworks and exhibitions. Afterwards I focus on the two important topics in this field: feminism and queer issues. The engagement of the artworks was forced in the past and this fact has its result in the devaluation of the term. Part of my thesis examines the terms political art and activist art in the international and domestic context and proposes its definitions.

1 Vojtěch Kotecký Czech forestry subsides coherence with environmental policy objectives Abstract: Public bodies in the Czech Republic spend on average about CZK 1.2 billion (€ 44 million) a year on subsidy schemes in forestry. Subsidies are an important instrument of public policy; they also have major environmental consequences and may influence ability of forests to contribute towards ecosystem services. Consistency of forestry subsidies with the government's environmental policy goals in the Czech Republic is investigated in this thesis. Almost half of Czech subsidy budget is appropriated to schemes that have got an element of conflict with environmental policy goals incorporated in their design; thus, a range of environmentally harmful subsidies is potentially identified here. However, a number of schemes - and, in 27% of subsidy expenditure, even the same schemes, also contribute towards the same policy objectives. Farmland afforestation payments, contributing to the government's goal of forest expansion but shown in a statistical analysis to be focused primarily on regions with high forest cover, and involving a surplus of Norway spruce with a deficit of both European beech and silver fir, are an illustration of complex nature of forestry subsidies.

This work deals with a phenomenon of party alliances, especially with the alliance of TOP 09 and STAN. This phenomenon is current in the Czech politics. This work concerns other unions of the right-wing or the center parties in the Czech Republic too, and searches an answer for the question, if it is an alliance. Primarily this work deals with the alliance of TOP 09 and STAN, which were established in 2009. It also deals with differencies of this alliance on the state, regional and local level, and searches any cleveages of this alliance on the state, regional or local level. This work also searches the answer for the question, what the perspectives of this alliance in the future are. The first agreement about the alliance was confirmed in 2009. The second agreement was confirmed in 2013. This agreement enables free relationship between TOP 09 and STAN on the regional and local levels.

This work deals with a phenomenon of party alliances, especially with the alliance of TOP 09 and STAN. This phenomenon is current in the Czech politics. This work concerns other unions of the right-wing or the center parties in the Czech Republic too, and searches an answer for the question, if it is an alliance. Primarily this work deals with the alliance of TOP 09 and STAN, which were established in 2009. It also deals with differencies of this alliance on the state, regional and local level, and searches any cleveages of this alliance on the state, regional or local level. This work also searches the answer for the question, what the perspectives of this alliance in the future are. The first agreement about the alliance was confirmed in 2009. The second agreement was confirmed in 2013. This agreement enables free relationship between TOP 09 and STAN on the regional and local levels.

Political parties in the Czech Republic have a dominant position in decision-making and nomination of public representatives. At the same time they must deal with complex problems, such as pension reform. I suppose therefore that they need an expert opinions for building their decision-making. Therefore, I would like to figure out my research how to deal with this, how they are able to generate the requisite expertise and how that expertise is used in the final decision. I wonder how institutional arrangements of political parties affects the process of creating professional views on public policy, namely to focus on the reform of the Czech pension system. Where and how exactly are formed the expert views on the functioning of the pension system in different political parties? I would like to reveal the basic criteria that determine who is considered an expert, and how this person is related to the organization of political party. I also focus on mainstreaming expertise during the subsequent political decisions. The basic methods of research will document analysis, interviews and observations.

The master thesis "Development of the Czech party system between 2010-2013" focuses on an analysis of the state of the Czech party system with an emphasis on political developments over the past few years as well as the last two Czech Parliamentary elections in 2010 and 2013. The results of the elections deviate from the long term developments in the country since the 1990s and the fall of the communist regime. The goal of this work is to define phases which capture the essential developments of the Czech party system and what trends it currently demonstrates using quantitative methods which will help us to calculate things such as the index of the effective number of parties in the party system. The main question that this work will try to answer is whether or not we can consider the Czech party system to be consolidated.

China's emergence as one of the largest FDI source country has attracted global attention. There are many researches on the determinants and characteristics of China's outward FDI, but there are only few researches about China's outward FDI in CEE countries. Based on the dataset, which comprises data of 11 CEE EU member states over the period 2003-2014, this thesis investigates the determinants and patterns of China's outward FDI in CEE-11 countries by using a panel data technique. The regression results reveal that for the whole sample period, culture proximity and existing trade relation have significantly positive impacts and China's FDI in CEE-11 is negatively associated with the institution environment of host country. And the results also demonstrate that determinants of China's FDI in CEE-11 change over time. Besides, political relation is also an important influential factor and policy makers should put more effort to strengthen the bilateral cooperation.

The goal of this dissertation is to find out how the ideological position of the British Labour party has changed between 2010 and 2015. This is achieved by content analysis of electoral manifestos for the House of Commons elections of 2010 and 2015. The results are achieved via the MARPOR RILE method. The result of this research serves to verify a theory created by Danish authors Martin Bækgaard and Carsten Jensen who claim that in political systems dominated by two large parties, these big parties react to electoral losses by moving the party from the median voter position towards their party base. This paper implies that the Labour Party has moved to the left on the left-right axis between 2010 and 2015 which means it has moved towards its party base. This means the aforementioned theory has been strengthened. Apart from the empirical result, this work also provides an overview of the party's policies in both points in time. These policies are divided into individual thematic categories.