Barack Obama's administration inherited one of the most severe economic crises in the history of the United States, which severely undermined the American public's confidence in the country's political and economic future. Declining trust in the federal government and its handling of the economic recession gave rise to two influential movements, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, which were thoroughly critical of the country's leadership. Both movements made use of a strong populist rhetoric and mobilized masses by denouncing the political and financial elites, calling for returning control over the country's fate into the hands of ordinary citizens. My master's thesis is an analysis of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street that focuses on the ideology and goals that drove these popular movements, as well as highlights the most crucial commonalities and differences between them. I argue in favor of interpreting the ideologies behind the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street as two distinct types of populism, in addition to which I emphasize the different degree of outside support the two movements enjoyed during their rise to prominence. To determine how influential the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street became during Barack Obama's presidency, I also study their relationship with the political...

This diploma thesis analyzes some of the most successful movements in the Czech Republic - ANO and Svoboda a přímá demokracie Tomio Okamury through the content analysis and the theory of populism by Cas Mudd. The aim of the thesis is to determine to what extent both movements are populist in view of the theory mentioned above and how their populism is different. The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first one - the theoretical part is devoted to the concept of populism. In this part three most distinctive streams of populism research are presented: 1) populism as a political (communication) style 2) populism as a strategy and 3) populism as an ideology. The second one - the analytical part includes a methodology in which the criteria for determining what populism is by using the populist core features defined by Francisco Panniza and Cas Mudd are defined. Subsequently, I analyze the content analysis of programming and media representation involving the Facebook social network of both political entities. The results of the analysis are that ANO and SPD - Tomio Okamury fulfill the criteria of all three core features in their media presentations and therefore can be described as populist. There are all three core features appearing in the programs of both movements, what is more SPD is more...

The subject of this diploma thesis is to examine and compare the ideological and programmatic definition of Fidesz and PiS, their development in time and their current actions and policy-making since forming their single-party governments in 2010 in Hungary and 2015 in Poland, respectively. This work also focuses on the development in both countries during the transformation from communism towards democracy, and sets out to answer what preconditions have formed the demand for populist radical right ideology both in Hungary and Poland. Based on the theory of populist radical right framework, this thesis concludes that, in addition to the negative aspects of political and economic transformation, historical narratives and prejudices against minorities by a significant part of the Hungarian and Polish societies have also played a crucial role in creating a climate for demand for the populist radical right. In the third chapter, this thesis finds a high volatility in the ideological development of both parties, especially in regards to Fidesz, and attributes these considerable ideological and programmatic changes in part to reaction of Fidesz and PiS towards changes in the party system in both Hungary and Poland. However, since 2006 the ideology of both parties has become increasingly consistent with...

This diploma thesis focuses on comparison of ANO 2011 and Fidesz based on their origin, development, organizational structure, program and ideology, and role of the party leader. Beside the introduction of various organizational party types and concept of "genetical code" by Angelo Panebianco, the parties are examined also by concept of populism defined on the basis of the book by Cas Mudde and C.R. Kaltwasser. Based on two case studies of ANO 2011 and Fidesz the goal of this paper was to find out similar and different features and explore their impact on democratic system. As long as these two parties have different organizational structure, one of the important features is dominant role of their founder not only in the foundation of the party but also in the following development towards centralized organization and personalization. The other common feature is populism which appears to be an important variable affecting the party's influence on the democratic system. However, the character of populism is different in these cases. Particular political system and electoral system also play important role in the potential decline of democracy.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate unofficial ways that spread the ideas of right-wing- populism with focus on family, especially on mother as a primar mediator. In a background of a right-wing traditional family will be researched the psychological strategies, that populists use to involve the family through the children. One of those strategies are ideologically based summer camps, that raise the political and social thinking, that the children brought from their families. The impact of those strategies will be theoretically and practically analysed. Keywords right-wing populism, family influence, prejudices, education of children, role of a woman, closed societies

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.

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 and theory of agenda-setting 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 opinion texts based on theory of framing. 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...

Thesis title: Contemporary populism in Europe This thesis maps the development of populism across Europe and investigates its manifestations and core elements in its complexity, which is the groundwork for analysis of populist party, movement or individual. Populism is not considered solely as the relieving strategy meant to maximize the voter's votes by comprehensible, straightforward and hardly feasible promises. Without this attitude in mind, we would hardly be able to put some reason behind the populist boom, which we had chance to witness during the last decade. Therefore this thesis considers populism as the ideological construct, the way politicians present themselves, the rhetorics, the mastered political style or the structure, which provides the foundations of programme documents of political movements and parties. It would be a mistake to a priori consider it as some kind of purely negative phenomenon, but more of as the reflection of various and continuously changing demands of European electorates. Desperation, which mainstream parties evoke in their voters, is toxic and continues to spread across all society classes. This creates a space for various populists to dominate. Thus while tracking their activities, specific kind of critical thinking is necessary, because populists...

1 The thesis Populist Movements in the Czech Republic considers people and political groups using populist appeals which refer to "well-behaved people" and go against unfriendly élites. The thesis describes main topics of these political subjects, and on the base of it it develops a few populist families. In the introductory part, a few theoretical approaches to populism in general and its relationship with democracy are discussed. The main purpose of the thesis is to describe the environment of populist subjects in the Czech Republic and to classify them according to their similarities and cleavage lines.

The master thesis "True Finns. Establishment of right-wing populism in Finland?" deals with political party True Finns (The Finns, PS), its historical development and current position in Finnish party system. The master thesis is devided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with populist radical right political parties (PRR), which have established themselves in a lot of Western Europe party systém (inluding Scandinavia). Finland represented a state which had been immune of PRR. The aim of the first chapter is to answer an question, which are the main reasons of PRR emergence, respectively which were the reasons which delayed the Finnish PRR. The second chapter is concerned with political party True Finns (The Finns, PS), its historical development and ideological profile. The chapter reffers to ideological and personal roots in Finnish Rural Party. A part of the chapter is ideological core used by Cas Mudde (nativism, authoritarianism, populism) which is supplemented by an economical programme. The final part deals with the parliamentary election 2012. The final chapter concerns with current PS position in Finnish party systém and with impact on finnish politics. The chapter is closed with positive and negative factors for the future development.