Czech Interests in Georgia: Analysis of methods of their promotion

The diploma thesis analyzes the way of promoting the national interest of the Czech Republic in Georgia and describes possible changes as a result of the Czech EU Presidency. The national interest is examined based on the assumption that the state foreign policy is the expression of the national interest. Therefore, the primary sources for this analysis are official foreign policy documents of the Czech Republic. The aim is to confirm or disprove the hypothesis that Czech foreign-policy towards Georgia in the period from 2007 to 2011 was driven by the aim to maximize own profit through EU structures. Given the size of the Czech Republic and its geopolitical importace, the analysis is based on the theory of neo-liberal institutionalism, and in accordance with this theory the national interest operationalized into four criteria, namely: 1) Compliance of EU and Czech interests, 2) Profiting from the EU presidency to promote the Czech interests, 3) Long-term consistency of interests, and 4) Economic interests as the main priority. The set of criteria helped to identify whether the Czech Republic behaved in accordance with the theory of neo-liberal institutionalism, and whether the Czech interests were promoted either through multilateral or bilateral relations. The analysis shows that in the studied..