The aim of this thesis is to place Slovak political party SMER in the political and party system of the Slovak Republic and attempt to analyse ideological and programmatic development of this party. The author devotes attention to development of SMER from the emergence in 1999 until last general elections in 2012. First chapter seeks to describe evolution of socialism and following ideologies including the concept of the Third way which was reflected by some Western European social democratic parties. The second chapter is dedicated to left-wing political parties in Czechoslovakia and lately in Slovak Republic. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section is about parties existing before 1989 and the second one devotes attention to parties after Velvet Revolution in 1989. Next part of this work is focused on the SMER itself. Author describes three phases of development of this party including emergence in 1999, opposition activities between 2002 and 2006 and phase of hegemony following after 2006. The purpose of the last part of the thesis is to analyse ideological and programmatic development of SMER and highlight some problematic features of proclaimed social democratic orientation.

The present dissertation deals with the relationship between democracy and agonism. It attempts to defend the idea that certain problematic aspects of contemporary liberal democracies are not due to their origin primarily in the change of social conditions (the massification of democracy, the growth of complexity in modern societies), that made the original democratic promises unrealizable, but in certain oblivion of the agon. The agon is understood as a constitutive feature of democratic society and its oblivion is seen not to be accidental. To defend this proposition I focuse on an interpretation of the dialogue between populist republicanism (Machiavelli) and elitist republicanism (Guicciardini). This dialogue is usually understood as one of the sources of modern democratic tradition. I try to explain that in Machiavelli's political theory two notions of agonism are present - pragmatic agon that sees conflict as a basis of social cohesion and strategic agon that is described as a ferocious egalitarianism employed by the second class citizens in order to gain equality from the first class citizens. These two forms of agonism are explained to form the axis of Machiavelli's notion of the political and also of a free republic and democracy. Guicciardini's elitist republicanism is shown to stand in opposition...

Aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the role of nationalism in contemporary Czech extreme right movements. Its author has two fundamental objectives. The first is to evaluate strength and relevance of contemporary Czech nationalism within extreme right movements. The second objective consists in the analysis of nationalism itself, which should reveal the true nature of these organizations and their ideological platform. This thesis presents an overview of Czech extreme right spectrum. It was essential to select movements that mutually differ and therefore represent various manifestations of Czech right extremism. All three platforms can be classified as extreme right movements strongly resonating with Czech nationalism. They see themselves as patriots who defend conservative values and national traditions. Revue of The National Idea represents an attempt to create a sophisticated, intellectual forum providing conditions for ultra-right views and ideas. D.O.S.T. movement acts as a conservative "people's initiative", standing against multiculturalism and the European Union. The National Party is then an example of extreme political grouping with traces of populism, xenophobia and pure racism. Content analysis of these three movements is the main topic of the thesis. Examining their goals,...

Stuart Hall, who passed away in February 2014, was one of the founding figures of what is known today as ‘cultural studies’ and long-time director of the renowned Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. In addition, he was a central figure of the British New Left, founding editor of the journal New Left Review, and one of Britain’s most charismatic public intellectuals. Crucially, for Hall, intellectual practice was a politics, and questions of culture were political questions. His was a thinking that was inquisitive, flexible and open-ended, regularly moving across disciplinary boundaries and synthesising different theoretical outlooks. It was rigorously contextual, extremely attentive to complexity, dedicated to the concrete, activist, committed and practical, and driven by a curiosity that constantly led onto new – and frequently largely uncharted – theoretical terrain. The subjects covered by Hall’s work include topics as diverse as popular culture and mass media; representation and signifying practices; subcultures; questions of power, ideology and resistance; ‘race’ and ethnicity; globalisation; multiculturalism and diaspora; cultural and personal identity; Thatcherism; New Labour; and neoliberalism. The present issue of Coils of the Serpent endeavours to contribute to the timely exploration of the legacy of Stuart Hall’s highly influential and multi-faceted work.

"Most people don't mind global warming": Climate change denial in Czech politics between the years 2018 - 2021 This thesis deals with the topic of climate change denial in contemporary Czech politics. It aims to describe how the narrative of climate change denial is formed and reproduced. The first part captures the origins and the background of climate change scepticism in both Czech and international context with the special stress laid upon ideology. Based on the critical discourse analysis of the rhetorics of Alexandr Vondra, Jan Zahradník, Václav Klaus Jr., and Tomio Okamura, the second part of this paper aims to contribute by unravelling the key symptoms of climate change denial discourse of the above mentioned politicians as well as the dominant frames and discursive strategies used to deny both the anthropogenic climate change and the climate change politics. The last goal of the analysis is to describe in what aspects the linguistic means of selected right-wing populists differ or intertwine with the language of right-wing conservatives. Keywords: climate change denial, right-wing populism, climate policy, discourse, rhetorics

The thesis deals in the theoretical part with a presentation and comparison of views of political science on party-political euroscepticism, including a description of the development of the form of eurosceptic factions in the European Parliament after 2014 and political subjects associated in them. Practical part presents, analyzes and interprets the voting of these political entities in the election periods 2014-2019 and 2019-2024, especially in terms of their coherence within individual factions. Both in general (overall average coherence) and by individual thematic agendas. In its outputs, the work tries, based on the obtained data, to answer the question, what are the dominant common ideological characteristics of the eurosceptic political parties represented in the European Parliament and whether they form, or can form, a separate so-called party-political family. Keywords: Euroscepticism, European Union, European Parliament, factions, political parties, populism, elections Title: Eurosceptic Political Parties Factions in the European Parliament: constitution, form, political activity and changes in the context of the European Parliament elections 2019

The diploma thesis is devoted to the analysis of the political communication of Czech populist politicians in the context of the elections to the Chamber of Deputies in October 2021. It aims to map the communication activity of selected political representatives and to compare how these politicians use social networks for their political communication, what influence the proximity of the elections has on the activity and narrative of their communication strategy, what topics they focus on the most in their posts and to what extent they use attributes of populism and personalization. The theoretical part focuses on the definition and genesis of the term populism with a special emphasis on the perception of populism as a communication style. Afterward, the thesis pursues the issue of political communication in the context of the emergence and spread of the Internet and social media, in particular how political leaders take advantage of this transformation of the communication environment in their political strategy. The analytical part of the thesis then examines the communication activity of three selected populist politicians (Andrej Babiš, Tomio Okamura, Robert Šlachta) on Facebook in the pre- election period, the post-election period and the period of ordinary political struggle, for a total of...

Topic of the thesis is the image of Czech far-right parties in Czech media prior to Elections to Chamber of Deputies in 2017. Aim of the thesis is to investigate how media displays far-right parties prior to the Elections in 2017, what the topics of media coverage are in regards of far- right and how the topics changed in the Elections in 2017 comparing with Elections in 2013. Using quantitative content analysis the thesis monitors texts with far-right topics in national daily newspapers Mladá fronta DNES, Lidové noviny, Právo and Hospodářské noviny in the periods prior to the Elections to Chamber of Deputies in 2017 and 2013. Author also uses qualitative analysis of specific texts. The parties followed in thesis are chosen based on definition of far-right by Cas Mudde and definition of right wing populism by Hans-Georg Betz. In the period prior to the Elections in 2017 the followed parties are: Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti; ROZUMNÍ - stop migraci a diktátu EU - peníze našim občanům, důchodcům, dětem, zdravotně postiženým; Svoboda a přímá demokracie - Tomio Okamura; Blok proti islamizaci - Obrana domova; Sdružení pro republiku - Republikánská strana Československa Miroslava Sládka and Řád národa - Vlastenecká unie. In the period prior to the Elections in 2013 the focus is on parties Úsvit...

In this dissertation, I investigate the role of oil resources and economic and political institutional quality on the economic performance of Iran. To this end, I examine four related themes. First and foremost, I provide a detailed picture of the economic structure of Iran and compare its performance with other oil and non-oil economies of the Middle East and the Middle Easterb region. As we get a clear picture of the relative economic position of Iran in the MENA region, I go further into macroeconomic analyses of oil wealth effects on the Iranian economy. The second theme investigated in this dissertation is the interaction of political power structure with oil rents and their effects on Iranian economic growth. This study is the first examination which takes into consideration political factionalism interaction with oil rents in the case of Iran. The results show that oil resources have a direct positive effect on economic growth in Iran. However, the interaction effect of factionalism (as a proxy for political asymmetry degree) with oil rents is negative and significant. The third theme which is examined in this study is illegal trade in Iran. This topic is also related to natural resource management in Iran. A large number of fuel products smuggled from Iran are due to heavy subsidies within the country. In this study, I measure the amount of illegal trade in Iran, identifying the major causes and indicators of smuggling. The average of illegal trade in Iran’s total trade is 13%. The value of annual illegal trade, on average, is within the range of $ 2.5 - 3 billion. The fourth topic which is examined in this dissertation is macroeconomic populism in Iran. The main source of financing populism spending in Iran is the oil revenues. Therefore, it is connected to the management of natural resources.

Univ., Diss.--Frankfurt am Main, 2004. / Literaturverz. S. 181 - 191. - Bibliogr. A. L. von Rochau S. 193 - 205.