The aim of this Master thesis is to analyse the British civil service reforms both in theory and practice. The author picked three areas where the reforms would be scrutinized. By analysing four essential documents that contributed to the reforms of the civil service: The Northcote-Trevelyan report, The Fulton report, Next Steps and Modernising Government, we would be able to evaluate the impact of these changes in the following areas: 1) Human Resources (recruitment, training and the promotion of the civil servants) 2) Administration and Accountability (the aspects of ministerial responsibility, accountability, special advisers) 3) Decentralisation and Fragmentation (impact of the multi-level governance including deconcentration, devolution and EU membership). The first chapter is the necessary introductory part that deals with the basic principles of the British civil service, its history and the challenges it faces today. The second chapter provides analysis and historical background of the four documents that are used in the next section. Finally, the third chapter discusses the three above mentioned problematic areas. By analysing and comparing the documents, we seek to understand the reforms of the British civil service and their impact.

- 62 - 8. SUMMARY The thesis deals with the television policy of the Labour Parry, 1992-1997. The topic works as a framework for interpretation of Norman Fairclough's concepts, applying his transdisciplinary approach and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Within the framework, I answer simple questions such as whether discourse that had reached the status of policy can have real economic impact (in the case of Campaign for Press and Broadcasting not) or where the global discourse meets the local (issues of cross media ownership and new technologies). In my quest to better understand the relationship between social change and discourse, I follow the history of deregulation of the broadcasting duopoly, the way of the Labour Party towards deregulation and in the light of this information analyse three different texts and shortly follow up on coherence in the 1992 and 1997 Labour and Conservative manifestos. To conclude, I appreciate the wide academic freedom that discourse and its interconnectivity provides. As discourses can influence society, a free society should understand and participate in its discourses. In Labour Party television policy, the participation was certainly not complete.

[pt] O objetivo desta dissertação de Mestrado é analisar o processo de reformulação da identidade coletiva do Reino Unido no governo de Tony Blair, em função de sua participação na Política Européia de Segurança e Defesa da União Européia, com base em conceitos desenvolvidos pela teoria construtivista de Relações Internacionais. As mudanças ocorridas no esquema de segurança e defesa europeu receberam um grande ímpeto por parte do Reino Unido, que, tradicionalmente, tem se caracterizado por uma política reticiente no que diz respeito a cooperação em questões de segurança e defesa. Argumenta-se que o novo enfoque da política britânica com relação à Política Européia de Segurança e Defesa, a partir de 1998, insere-se num processo de redefinição da identidade coletiva com relação a União Européia, apos o Reino Unido ter sido relegado ao segundo plano no que se refere a questões de uniao política européia. / [en] The aim of this dissertation is to analize the process of identity reformulation of the United Kingdom under Tony Blair through its participation in the European Security and Defence Policy of the European Union. This analysis is based on constructivism litterature. The changes that had taken place in the european security and defence field were, to a certain degree, the result of a british attitude, which has traditionally been characterized as sceptical in these areas. The argument is that this new british approch is part of a deeper process of colletive identity reformulation.