Corruption is perceived as one of the most serious threats to the society and to the economy of the country as well. For these reasons, many social scientists have tried to discover and describe the root causes of corruption. This task is complicated by the fact that corruption is a clandestine activity, which makes it very difficult to measure and to detect its true effects, as well as its underlying causes. The aim of this dissertation is to analyse and explore possible causes for the level of corruption on the European level with a special focus on the differences between post-communist European countries and the rest of countries in Europe. First, this dissertation presents theories explaining corruption on a global level as well as definitions of corruption. Theories explaining the influences between corruption on a global level and various variables, namely GDP per capita, income inequality, generalized trust, values, and the share of Protestants in the population, are discussed and a special focus is made on the possible different effect in the case of post-communist European countries. Next, in methodological part, indicators measuring corruption are assessed and the best indicator is selected - the Control of Corruption by the World Bank. The validity of the theories presented in the first...

Sentencing in the Czech Republic: An Empirical Investigation Abstract Sentencing is in many respects still terra incognita. This holds true especially for other countries than common law ones and those in the Western and Northern Europe. This dissertation thus empirically studies sentencing practices in the Czech Republic using quantitative methods. It is composed of four articles focusing on various sentencing issues: Firstly, on the influence of judicial experience on sentencing using longitudinal data analyzing judges' trajectories from 2008 onward. It shows that increasing experience reduces inter-judge disparity. Secondly, on analyzing previously underappreciated measure to achieve policy change: Informal authority of the supreme institutions. In 2016 the Prosecutor General's Office and the Supreme Court organized several meetings and seminars for prosecutors and judges in order to persuade them to impose more fines. This paper illustrates that these informal tools might have been underappreciated as they are highly effective. The third paper is dedicated to studying a particular extra-legal characteristics influencing sentencing in Prague: The weather. It builds both on psychological literature showing that weather influences mood and mood often impacts behavior and decision-making and on previous US...

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In pursuing their goals, newly-created constitutional courts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics are affected by their institutional setting and capabilities. Yet, previous studies did not explore how constitutional courts develop over time and what noteworthy implications for politics and society result from their institutional growth. To address this gap in the literature, I measured a variety of organizational characteristics and constructed an index of institutional development for the twenty eight constitutional courts in the post-communist countries from the initial year of their transitions through 2005. I argued that high values on this measure (which I labeled the judicial viability score) should enable constitutional court judges to satisfy their policy objectives and improve public and elite perceptions of the judiciary’s role in new democratic systems. To demonstrate this empirically, I tested a series of statistical models of judicial influence to show that the level of court’s institutional viability has profound implications on its legal, political, and social impact. My analyses indicated that the level of the constitutional court’s institutional viability is, indeed, an important determinant of the constitutional court judges’ ability to actively shape public policies and render decisions which are independent of, and in opposition to, the preferences of dominant political actors and government institutions. Additionally, the results demonstrated that the level of constitutional court’s viability significantly affects the perceptions of the ordinary citizens and business elites—ordinary citizens and business owners and managers are more likely to express confidence in the national legal system in countries with relatively institutionalized constitutional courts than citizens living in countries with weakly institutionalized constitutional courts. Thus, my research highlights the importance of studying the evolutionary process by which courts acquire institutional viability and, in doing so, contributes to our understanding of the factors shaping the development of democracy, the rule of law, and constitutionalism in the post-communist societies.

The diploma thesis deals with English language periodicals which were founded and published by Americans in Prague in 1990 - 1995. The first part describes the background of the American community in Prague in the middle 1990s and apprises of the American and Czechoslovak journalism in the frame of media system changes after the fall of Communism. The second part includes newspapers and magazines which existed in Prague the defined period. Except of print media articles, literature concerned with media transformation after the fall of totalitarian regimes and features of American and Czechoslovak journalism the thesis is based on correspondence and interviews with people who are allied to the included periodicals. At the end of the thesis there is a review of the impact that American journalists and writers could have on Czechoslovak and Czech journalism and literature. The influence of American journalists on the Czechoslovak and Czech colleagues remains in form of individual cases. The influence of American literature written in Prague in the defined period has not overreached the English language sphere and so it cannot be considered in the general context of Czechoslovak and Czech literature.

This study examined the differences in reporting in Radio-Television of Serbia's (RTS) main newscast, Dnevnik 2, between the period of Slobodan Milosevic’s rule (1989-2000) and the period after the establishment of democracy in Serbia (2001-2009). The data were gathered by the content analysis of 63 RTS newscasts in the period 1989-2009. The research included quantitative analysis as well as additional observations of RTS newscasts noted at the time of coding. The major findings suggest that in the democratic period (2001-2009) RTS newscasts become shorter, more consistent in duration, less dedicated to coverage of state and ruling party officials’ activities, and more inclined to reporting about social issues and other political events. The number of voices in RTS newscasts became significantly higher. The overall reporting became more balanced and more diverse. At the same time RTS kept the old priority in news reporting which put Official Stories in leading positions and remained occasionally inclined to increase the number of Official Stories in times of important political events. Based on these results this study derived the following hypotheses for state/public service television stations in countries in transition: 1) consistency of duration of newscasts increases as the regime in the country becomes less controlling 2) the dominance of Official Stories decreases as the regime in the country becomes less controlling 3) the number of sound bites in newscasts increases as the regime becomes less controlling (the number of voices in newscasts increases as the democracy progresses), and 4) the coverage of Official Stories increases in times of important domestic political events, possibly those that have endangered national security, even if the regime becomes less controlling.

Collective memory emerges within our physical realm through material and spatial manifestations that link personal and collective conceptions of the past and present. The role of the memorial, as the primary urban element of collective memory, aims to encourage selective remembrance and reconciliation as part of a cultural healing process held over time. This thesis is situated in the city of Sofia, at a site of collective traumatic memory: the site of the former G. Dimitrov Mausoleum. Once considered the icon of Bulgarian communism, this building was symbolically demolished in 1999, following the collapse of the regime, leaving a scar in the heart of the city’s fabric and consciousness. This site, along with its abandoned adjacent public square, has become a significant representation of the urge found across all of the former Eastern Bloc countries, to suppress and erase the memory of the recent traumatic past, as a means to heal. However, without any efforts to commemorate, reconcile or face the past, the restrictive environment of oppression during the regime has in turn been replaced by an environment of repression, where mourning has become an impossible task. The modern tradition of public commemoration has been founded upon the notion that permanent monuments as physical objects can become representations of collective memory, preserved through time. Throughout the various attempts to create memorials, this assumption has remained for the most part unquestioned. However, the memorial as such has recently faced a major debate, as the issues of memory and forgetting have emerged as dominant concerns in dealing with the trauma that continues to haunt modern Western culture. Consciously discrediting the reality of the events and the victims associated, the Bulgarian culture has created a form of disconnect between its identity and its collective memory. Challenging the static forms and detached imagery, this proposal will reexamine the traditional definition of the monument as object on pedestal. By revisiting the site where the void left by the demolished mausoleum still haunts those trying to forget, and allowing the memory to emerge back into the collective consciousness, this proposition will allow the trace of the past to be transformed and connected to a new city narrative of remembrance. An engaged and dynamic ritual, beginning and ending at the memorial site, will draw a connection between space, time and memory through a series of new public spaces. Through the recovery of collective memory, it will offer an alternative to the healing process. The memorial is dedicated to the countless victims of censorship and control during the Iron Curtain regime.

Collective memory emerges within our physical realm through material and spatial manifestations that link personal and collective conceptions of the past and present. The role of the memorial, as the primary urban element of collective memory, aims to encourage selective remembrance and reconciliation as part of a cultural healing process held over time. This thesis is situated in the city of Sofia, at a site of collective traumatic memory: the site of the former G. Dimitrov Mausoleum. Once considered the icon of Bulgarian communism, this building was symbolically demolished in 1999, following the collapse of the regime, leaving a scar in the heart of the city’s fabric and consciousness. This site, along with its abandoned adjacent public square, has become a significant representation of the urge found across all of the former Eastern Bloc countries, to suppress and erase the memory of the recent traumatic past, as a means to heal. However, without any efforts to commemorate, reconcile or face the past, the restrictive environment of oppression during the regime has in turn been replaced by an environment of repression, where mourning has become an impossible task. The modern tradition of public commemoration has been founded upon the notion that permanent monuments as physical objects can become representations of collective memory, preserved through time. Throughout the various attempts to create memorials, this assumption has remained for the most part unquestioned. However, the memorial as such has recently faced a major debate, as the issues of memory and forgetting have emerged as dominant concerns in dealing with the trauma that continues to haunt modern Western culture. Consciously discrediting the reality of the events and the victims associated, the Bulgarian culture has created a form of disconnect between its identity and its collective memory. Challenging the static forms and detached imagery, this proposal will reexamine the traditional definition of the monument as object on pedestal. By revisiting the site where the void left by the demolished mausoleum still haunts those trying to forget, and allowing the memory to emerge back into the collective consciousness, this proposition will allow the trace of the past to be transformed and connected to a new city narrative of remembrance. An engaged and dynamic ritual, beginning and ending at the memorial site, will draw a connection between space, time and memory through a series of new public spaces. Through the recovery of collective memory, it will offer an alternative to the healing process. The memorial is dedicated to the countless victims of censorship and control during the Iron Curtain regime.