CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Steuer, Max |
|---|---|
| Title | The Council of Europe as Gentle Power: The Case of 'Hate Speech' in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary |
| Summary | In times of growing complexity of international relations, the interaction between international organizations (IOs) and domestic politics shows a new but largely unexplored dynamics. This thesis sheds light on this dynamics via a case study of the impact of the Council of Europe (CoE) on domestic politics in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It investigates the impact of the CoE in the country-level approaches towards 'hate speech' (HS). HS poses challenges to modern democracies, and that has been treated differently in the three countries. The analysis of the different mechanisms of the CoE’s impact on the national level in three dimensions (political, judicial, civil) identifies the ‘gentle power potential’ of the CoE in general and its manifestation in determining the 'right' approach vis-à-vis HS in member states in particular. The CoE as gentle power uses several channels in the case of HS to uphold or modify certain domestic approaches to this phenomenon in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. These results challenge the conventional understanding of IOs such as the CoE posed by neorealism ('no power' hypothesis). At the same time, while they do not dispute that of neoliberal institutionalism ('mediated power hypothesis'), they indicate that the independent impact of the CoE as gentle power can best be understood with the help of constructivist analysis. Keywords: International Organizations, Council of Europe, ‘Hate Speech’, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Gentle Power |
| Supervisor | Nagy, Boldizsár |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/steuer_max.pdf |
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