No description available.

The European Union (EU) has fully adopted the current international trend that stresses the linkage between development, good governance and security - what is called here the 'development triangle'. Through the implementation of this holistic understanding of development, the EU has widely expanded the range of its policies in West Africa. This thesis identifies three relatively new and closely inter-related fields of European intervention and pressure for reform: security, governance and regional integration. The programmes implemented by the EU in these fields in West Africa, and studied here, all have in common that they are technical in appearance, and yet have profoundly political dimensions. The thesis outlines different reasons for this evolution of the EU's agenda in West Africa, which has failed to 'multilateralise' and 'politicise', i.e. has failed to question the traditional bilateral link between former European colonial powers and African colonies and to adopt a more political, and less technical, understanding of West African development issues. There are, first, clear institutional limits to what the EU can do in West Africa. These limits are obvious both in the field - in the European delegations' lirilited capacities and mandates -and in Brussels - in the often . unclear division of labour between Council and Commission and some member-states' continuing monopoly over relations with Africa. The thesis shows that multilateral and bilateral arrangements may co-exist for many' more decades and can even reinforce each other, so that there is little prospect for a replacement of one by the other. Africa, moreover, is still seen as a field for essentially technical and administrative interventions, not a place for politics, i.e. not a place where politics take place arid even less a place where political analysis and diplomacy are needed. The EU's agenda in West Africa is much more about adapting West African states - thus a transformational agenda - to Europe's understanding of the international order - one dominated by the Westphalian perspective -, institutional imperatives and self-promotion strategies than about adapting Europe's political strategies to West African realities and a more Weberian ideal of the state that would focus on domestic legitimacy and efficiency.

Several indicators highlight that the EU suffers from a democratic legitimacy deficit that threatens not only the effectiveness of its policies, but also its integration project. This deficit has become very prominent since the 1990s and derives from the EU's multilevel governance political system. This political system combines elements both of a nation state and an international organisation, and, thus, transforms traditional politics and government and redefines the concepts of democracy and legitimacy both at European and national levels. This thesis investigates the EU's democratic legitimacy issue and also demonstrates how New Modes of Governance (NMG) can contribute towards the democratic legitimation of the EU's political system. NMG, due to their non-hierarchical, more inclusive and co-operative governance approaches, can theoretically enhance participation and improve the quality of policies and policy-making. Against this background, this thesis examines the employment of NMG in the EU's regional policy and especially in four case studies (Austria, Denmark, Italy and Poland). Through this comparative investigation, it offers an assessment of NMG influence on the EU's democratic legitimacy. Nevertheless, NMG have certain limitations too which constrain their employment on the EU's regional policy and limit their contribution to the EU's democratic legitimation of the EU, but they have to be better connected with the processess of representative democracy. They also depend on the progress of the EU's political integration. However, they constitute an innovative method of governance and further inquiry is necessary.

The aim of my thesis is to investigate the reasons for the appointment of technocratic governments in Europe. In order to do this, I conceptualise what technocratic governments are, both in terms of their own characteristics and in comparison with party governments. I problematize classic elements, such as independence, neutrality and expertise of ministers, and add further ones including the relation to electoral outcomes, their particular type of agenda, and the echo they have in the media. Having established that technocratic governments require a shift in politicians’ preferences away from typical office-seeking behaviour, I proceed to enquire as to the situations that make their appointment more likely. Through a statistical analysis on all European cabinets from 1977 to 2013, I identify situations of economic and political crises – in particular scandals - as the main variables influencing the likelihood of technocratic government appointments. I further examine how these crises have lead to these appointments by exploring cases of over 25 technocratic governments in a range of countries and years. The qualitative illustrative evidence highlights the importance of institutional characteristics of the given political system in which such governments were appointed. The status of the party system, the role of the Head of State and external pressures coming from international or supranational institutionas are thus shown to be important in technocratic cabinet appointments. Finally, I assess whether technocratic governments fit within the European democratic standards and conclude that technocratic governments are symptoms of the decline of party democracy, identifiable in the loosening of delegation and accountability ties between parties and cabinets, increasing external pressures on domestic political actors, and the weakening of partisan ideology-based politics. The thesis adds further elements to reinforce the already vast literature on the crisis of – especially party – democracy in Europe.