The explosion of super PAC activity in presidential primaries since the 2012 election cycle prompts an examination of these organizations’ behavior and its effects on other types of committees. Specifically, this study investigates how fundraising and spending efforts by candidate-specific super PACs, or single-candidate super PACs, benefit their supported candidate’s principal campaign committee. Integrating data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and various qualitative sources, this study explores how candidate-specific super PACs are progressively exploiting their unique legal structure to fundraise for themselves and their candidate’s authorized committee. The probing reveals that candidate-specific super PACs steer contributions toward campaign committees through a process where soft money is transformed into hard dollars for the campaign to spend. Ordinary least squares and probit regression analysis are also used to determine whether the financial strength of candidate-specific super PACs relative to their candidate’s authorized committee influences the number and types of basic campaign activities the super PAC undertakes. The results indicate that the more a super PAC spends compared to its linked campaign, the more it will engage in more traditional campaign activities and have a greater probability of shouldering particular persuasion and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts. The study’s synthesized findings suggest that the financial activities of candidate-specific super PACs in a presidential nomination contest significantly and increasingly facilitate the operations of presidential hopefuls’ campaigns.

This dissertation examines the political and business career of H. R. “Bob” Haldeman. Scholars studying Richard M. Nixon’s presidency and administration have given very little attention to Haldeman’s career before and after his time as chief of staff. This dissertation argues that in order to understand Haldeman’s actions as chief of staff one needs to have a firm understanding of his career before he entered Nixon’s White House. In contrast to what many have argued, an overt interest in politics and overriding ambition to serve Nixon did not solely drive Haldeman. Instead, the development of Haldeman’s career is best understood through his consistent search for opportunities and activities in which he could alter, reform, or improve existing processes and organizations. Only a study of his entire career brings this motivation to the forefront. Using Haldeman’s recollections, his White House diaries, archival records relating to his business and political career, assessments of the Nixon presidency, and the recently published memoir of his wife, this dissertation provides an in-depth study of his career as a manager in business and politics. This study answers important questions regarding Haldeman’s background, intellectual makeup, and the trajectory of his career by reexamining Haldeman’s work for Nixon and his career in the advertising industry and analyzing how each of these experiences informed his life, skillset, and his managerial behavior. Providing the scholarship with a more complete picture of Haldeman’s life and career augments the understanding of Richard Nixon’s political career and presidency, by filling a critical void with a more comprehensive overview of a close aide and a major figure at the center of the Watergate scandal. An examination of Haldeman’s entire career, moreover, illuminates how significant developments in twentieth century United States political and business history impacted one individual.

The diploma thesis is devoted to the topic of the presidential libraries and its aim is to analyze services of these libraries in Czech Republic. The theoretical part provides a comprehensive summary of presidential libraries, which have in the United States a long tradition. Gradually they are described from view of their character, history, law, administration, content, funding, criticism and future. The following is a presentation of two chosen foreign presidential libraries and Czech presidential Václav Havel Library. In the practical part there is made the comparison at first and its aim is to detect the principles of services of presidential libraries. The following is a presentation of the exploratory survey which discover, how are used the services of Václav Havel Library. The survey was focused on user evaluation of selected service, i.e. digital archive. This research helped map out the current situation and brought a lot of interesting information about attitudes from Czech and foreign users. Keywords digital archive - presidential libraries - presidential libraries in the United States - services of presidential libraries - Václav Havel Library

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Nowadays social networks have millions or some even billions of users who spend most of their free time there. Therefore there is no surprise that the potential impact on society becomes part of many experts research. According to some authors, social networks offer an opportunity for political participation especially for those who generally do not participate. Even politicians start to use these networks to mobilize voters. We can observe this new trend in the first direct presidential elections in the Czech Republic 2013, when some of the candidates tried to reach and mobilize voters through social networks. During presidential campaign 2012/2013, users could have participated in various political activities which enabled sharing political views. The aim of this paper is to determine the impact of using social networks during presidential elections, particularly using of Facebook, on interest in politics between users 18- 35 years. The diploma thesis focuses on the impact of Facebook because it is the most popular and used social network in the Czech Republic and also due to the fact that some experts argue that this social network played an important role in the presidential campaign. This paper will be based on quantitative research in form of a questionnaire survey, which was created on the...

Este trabalho tem por objetivo fazer uma análise das coligações presidenciais vencedoras entre 1994 e 2010 comparando duas dimensões de análise: a ideologia e o pragmatismo eleitoral. A dimensão ideológica mediu a consistência das coligações. A dimensão pragmática avaliou o horário gratuito de propaganda eleitoral, a representação ministerial dos partidos que compunham a coligação vencedora (excluído o partido do presidente), e a representação eleita à Câmara dos Deputados. O estudo apresentou evidências de que os partidos atribuem maior importância à dimensão pragmática do que a ideológica quando definem suas estratégias de campanha. / This work aims to make an analysis on the winning electoral presidential coalitions between 1994 and 2010, comparing two different dimensions: ideology and electoral pragmatism. The ideological dimension of the presidential coalitions was based on their consistency. The pragmatic dimension assessed the campaign time available on TV for each coalition, the distribution on the representation of the coalitions’ parties on the presidential cabinet (presidential party excluded), and the amount of representation concerning the coalitions’ parties elected on the Chamber of Deputies. The study shed light on evidences that generally the parties give more importance to pragmatic aspects than ideological ones when they define their electoral strategies.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo fazer uma análise das coligações presidenciais vencedoras entre 1994 e 2010 comparando duas dimensões de análise: a ideologia e o pragmatismo eleitoral. A dimensão ideológica mediu a consistência das coligações. A dimensão pragmática avaliou o horário gratuito de propaganda eleitoral, a representação ministerial dos partidos que compunham a coligação vencedora (excluído o partido do presidente), e a representação eleita à Câmara dos Deputados. O estudo apresentou evidências de que os partidos atribuem maior importância à dimensão pragmática do que a ideológica quando definem suas estratégias de campanha. / This work aims to make an analysis on the winning electoral presidential coalitions between 1994 and 2010, comparing two different dimensions: ideology and electoral pragmatism. The ideological dimension of the presidential coalitions was based on their consistency. The pragmatic dimension assessed the campaign time available on TV for each coalition, the distribution on the representation of the coalitions’ parties on the presidential cabinet (presidential party excluded), and the amount of representation concerning the coalitions’ parties elected on the Chamber of Deputies. The study shed light on evidences that generally the parties give more importance to pragmatic aspects than ideological ones when they define their electoral strategies.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo fazer uma análise das coligações presidenciais vencedoras entre 1994 e 2010 comparando duas dimensões de análise: a ideologia e o pragmatismo eleitoral. A dimensão ideológica mediu a consistência das coligações. A dimensão pragmática avaliou o horário gratuito de propaganda eleitoral, a representação ministerial dos partidos que compunham a coligação vencedora (excluído o partido do presidente), e a representação eleita à Câmara dos Deputados. O estudo apresentou evidências de que os partidos atribuem maior importância à dimensão pragmática do que a ideológica quando definem suas estratégias de campanha. / This work aims to make an analysis on the winning electoral presidential coalitions between 1994 and 2010, comparing two different dimensions: ideology and electoral pragmatism. The ideological dimension of the presidential coalitions was based on their consistency. The pragmatic dimension assessed the campaign time available on TV for each coalition, the distribution on the representation of the coalitions’ parties on the presidential cabinet (presidential party excluded), and the amount of representation concerning the coalitions’ parties elected on the Chamber of Deputies. The study shed light on evidences that generally the parties give more importance to pragmatic aspects than ideological ones when they define their electoral strategies.

This thesis deals with changes in the presidential office in Ireland during the presidency of Mary Robinson between 1990-1997. The presidential office holds very few powers and it has been always perceived more as ceremonial and symbolic function. Robinson had been very active during her reign since the beginning, thus breaking the precedence given by former presidents. The goal of this thesis is to define both, particular tools and mechanisms which Robinson had used to transform the nature of the office. Moreover, the thesis aims to examine whether Robinson stayed within the constitutional boundaries. My hypothesis states, that main tools which Robinson used to transform the presidency, are the different forms of activism. The first part the research focuses on the analysis of the constitutional development of presidential office as well as the powers of president listed in the constitution. Further, in the thesis, I focused on Robinson's activity not only during her presidency but also on the prior period as the presidential campaign or Robinson's professional career. This is important to define particular tools and mechanisms which Robinson used to change the presidency. The main findings of my thesis reveal the tools which Robinson used to transform the office - activism and symbolism. Both of...

The recent usage of presidential directives by President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump initiated debates around limits of presidential power. Research on the presidential power has shown lack of focus on the presidential directives, misinterpretation and wrong terminology which resulted in false accusations of presidential overreach and abuse of power. This thesis argues that the political gridlock and increasing passivity of Congress have contributed to a shift between the executive and legislative power of government. This thesis will trace the extent to which Congress has become resistant to pass two of the key priorities of President Obama's political agenda - immigration reform and gun regulation, after which the President had to act on the issues unilaterally. The main aim of the thesis is to show that presidential directives of President Obama were not issued in a vacuum and that there were debates, persuasion and negotiations preceding the executive actions in an attempt to advance President's agenda in a form of bipartisan legislation rather than unilateral presidential directive.