<p>In the light of the debate on the future of the European Union, a debate on new and better governance has started. One of the subjects of this debate is the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). It was initiated at the Lisbon European Council in 2000 as one of the ways to reach the strategic goals set for the EU at the same summit. Policy coordination was however applied in European policy- making before the Lisbon European Council. In the area of employment these activities had been operating for some years, and the OMC was created with the European Employment Strategy (EES) as a model. Now the OMC is also operating in the area of social inclusion policy, and a number of other policy areas. As its use is being extended, scholars as well as practitioners are studying it to determine its role and functions in EU governance. </p><p>This thesis aims at examining the open method of coordination, in an effort to position it in the European governance structure and discuss if it can be a sign of an emerging new mode of European governance. </p><p>Using a comparative approach, this thesis combines three methodologies; documentation analysis, interviews and case-studies. The analytical framework consists of existing modes of governance, as defined by Helen Wallace (2000). These are complemented with one more mode of governance. A discussion on governance in general and European governance in particular is also part of the analytical framework. </p><p>The OMC is studied by its definition and is further discussed from the view of the different European institutions. Finally a case study of its application in employment policy and social inclusion policy is presented. These findings are then set in relation to the governance modes in the analytical framework, in order to define and explain the OMC. A discussion of the notions of democracy and legitimacy is also held. The conclusions hold that the OMC is an interesting mix of multi-level governance, intensive transgovernmentalism and policy coordination and benchmarking. It also has interesting features of the innovative mode of network governance. This concludes that the OMC does not only build on innovative governance, but is an interesting balance between multi-level and intergovernmental governance. It is also based on notions of legitimacy rather than democracy. </p><p>Based on the findings in this thesis, the OMC should be seen as a sign of a new way of thinking about European governance. Its role should however not be exaggerated as most actors are very clear on it not being an alternative to ordinary Community action, and it should be seen as a complement rather than a substitute. The fact that the Convention on the future of Europe did not include the OMC into the draft constitutional treaty shows a somewhat ambivalent position towards it. It is concluded that the specific mix of governance features in the OMC is best served outside the treaty at this point.</p>

In the light of the debate on the future of the European Union, a debate on new and better governance has started. One of the subjects of this debate is the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). It was initiated at the Lisbon European Council in 2000 as one of the ways to reach the strategic goals set for the EU at the same summit. Policy coordination was however applied in European policy- making before the Lisbon European Council. In the area of employment these activities had been operating for some years, and the OMC was created with the European Employment Strategy (EES) as a model. Now the OMC is also operating in the area of social inclusion policy, and a number of other policy areas. As its use is being extended, scholars as well as practitioners are studying it to determine its role and functions in EU governance. This thesis aims at examining the open method of coordination, in an effort to position it in the European governance structure and discuss if it can be a sign of an emerging new mode of European governance. Using a comparative approach, this thesis combines three methodologies; documentation analysis, interviews and case-studies. The analytical framework consists of existing modes of governance, as defined by Helen Wallace (2000). These are complemented with one more mode of governance. A discussion on governance in general and European governance in particular is also part of the analytical framework. The OMC is studied by its definition and is further discussed from the view of the different European institutions. Finally a case study of its application in employment policy and social inclusion policy is presented. These findings are then set in relation to the governance modes in the analytical framework, in order to define and explain the OMC. A discussion of the notions of democracy and legitimacy is also held. The conclusions hold that the OMC is an interesting mix of multi-level governance, intensive transgovernmentalism and policy coordination and benchmarking. It also has interesting features of the innovative mode of network governance. This concludes that the OMC does not only build on innovative governance, but is an interesting balance between multi-level and intergovernmental governance. It is also based on notions of legitimacy rather than democracy. Based on the findings in this thesis, the OMC should be seen as a sign of a new way of thinking about European governance. Its role should however not be exaggerated as most actors are very clear on it not being an alternative to ordinary Community action, and it should be seen as a complement rather than a substitute. The fact that the Convention on the future of Europe did not include the OMC into the draft constitutional treaty shows a somewhat ambivalent position towards it. It is concluded that the specific mix of governance features in the OMC is best served outside the treaty at this point.

In the early 2000s when several Central and East European countries (CEECs) negotiated their accession to the European Union (EU), they introduced foreign aid policy despite most of them being aid recipient countries at the time. This thesis seeks to explain the evolution of foreign aid policy in two Central and Eastern European countries that took divergent paths in adopting the policy, Slovenia and Latvia. While Slovenia evolved into a relatively active donor country among the CEECs, Latvia’s aid policy developed relatively slowly and aid allocations were smaller. The thesis approaches this subject from the perspective of the ‘Europeanisation East’ literature that seeks to explain policy adoption in the CEECs in terms of EU influence. The literature is divided on how to explain the policy adoption processes in the CEECs. Rationalists, on the one hand, stress the role played by external incentives, in particular the conditions the EU imposed on the CEECs for them to be admitted to the EU, known as EU conditionality. Rationalists also note the role of domestic veto players who can delay or even stop adoption of the policy if it incurs high adoption costs upon them. Constructivists, on the other hand, explain policy adoption in terms of identification and social influence, policy resonance, or the presence of influential norm entrepreneurs. In an important study, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005) concluded that most of the policy adoption processes can be explained by the overwhelming influence of EU conditionality, thus downplaying constructivist explanations. This thesis examines whether their finding can be applied to the adoption of foreign aid policy in the preaccession period (1998-2004). It focuses on the role of EU as well as domestic factors in the policy adoption processes. It then explores what factors account for further developments in the policy adoption processes in the period after the CEECs acceded to the EU (2004-2010). The empirical basis of this study consists of a series of interviews with policy makers and civil society representatives in the two countries. The findings in these interviews have been checked against and triangulated with an encompassing examination of policy documents and archival material. The main findings about the pre-accession period indicate that EU conditionality indeed played an important role in foreign aid policy adoption, but so did identification and social influence. Hence policy adoption costs and the efforts of veto players could not delay policy adoption. In the post-accession period, it is argued here, the further policy adoption processes can largely be explained by identification and social influence. Nevertheless, veto players and adoption costs, as well as policy resonance, did emerge as constraining factors in the policy processes. All in all, the thesis argues that the policy adoption processes can be explained best by a combination of both Constructivist and Rationalist theories and that role of domestic factors should not be neglected in research into EU influence on the new member states.

British Labour Party&rsquo / s attitudes and policies towards European integration have historically oscillated between varying degrees of support for concrete integration steps and obstinate opposition to it. A major and pronounced volte-face on European policy occurred after 1983 and the aim of this study is to locate the causes of this shift in European policy and its subsequent course under &lsquo / New&rsquo / Labour period. The causes and motivations are searched within the general transformation of the party and they are assessed according to the changes in party&rsquo / s ideology and its perceptions about the needs of British national political economy. The scope of the study covers the intersection area between intra/inter-party politics and political economy. On these areas, Neo-Marxist theories of state and Regulation Approach are utilised, as well as the classical political sociology models on party politics. An historical inquiry on party policy encompassing the post-war period has been undertaken. In a similar vein, in order to compare it on ideological grounds, other European social democratic-socialist party policies are analysed alongside the British Labour case. It is argued that party&rsquo / s policy preferences are strongly influenced by and shaped according to the national socio-political institutional structure. The thesis comes to the conclusion that historical institutionalist analysis coupled with a &lsquo / structural dependency to capital&rsquo / theory offers a highly plausible explanation for the evolution of Labour Party&rsquo / s policy course on Europe, including the recent &lsquo / New&rsquo / Labour period.

Denna studie undersöker europeiseringen av svenska politiska partier från 1998 till 2016. Syftet har konkretiserats i frågeställningen ”På vilka sätt har svenska politiska partiers skrivande om samt inställning till EU-medlemskapet och unionen generellt utvecklats över tid?” och dess underfråga ”Har en europeisering av dessa partier skett?”. Det empiriska materialet har erhållits med hjälp av både kvalitativ och kvantitativ ansats i form av text- och innehållsanalys, och har innefattat Vänsterpartiets, Centerpartiets och Liberalernas partiprogram och valmanifest. De mätpunkter som har varit i fokus är omfång, inställning och policy vs. polity. För att analysera materialet användes europeiseringsteorin. Studieresultaten visade att samtliga partier har europeiserats inom åtminstone en av mätpunkterna. I Vänsterpartiet syns en svag europeisering vad gäller omfånget av vilket de nämner EU eller ord kopplade till unionen, i Centerpartiet syns en europeisering vad gäller inställningen till EU och det svenska medlemskapet och i Liberalerna syns en svag europeisering vad gäller inställningen till EU och det svenska medlemskapet såväl som vad gäller indelningen av olika politikområden kontra unionen i sig. Slutsatserna som dragits är att Europeiska unionen alltså har påverkat de svenska politiska partierna, men att denna europeisering tar tid och är väldigt varierande beroende på parti, mätpunkt och årtal. / This study examines the Europeanisation of Swedish political parties from 1998 to 2016. The purpose has been concretised in the research question “In what ways have the Swedish political parties’ writing of and attitude towards the EU-membership and the Union in general developed over time?” and its sub question “Has a Europeanisation of these parties occurred?”. The empirical material has been obtained by both a qualitative and a quantitative approach in the form of text and content analyses, and has included the Left Party’s, the Centre Party’s and the Liberals’ party platforms and manifestos. The measurement points that have been in focus are range, attitude and policy vs. polity. To analyse the material the Europeanisation theory was used. The study results showed that all parties have been Europeanised in at least one of the measurement points. In the Left Party a weak Europeanisation regarding the range of which they mention the EU or words linked to the Union was visible, in the Centre Party a Europeanisation regarding the attitude towards EU and the Swedish membership was visible and in the Liberals a weak Europeanisation regarding the attitude towards EU and the Swedish membership as well as regarding the dividing of different political areas contra the Union itself was visible. The conclusions that have been drawn are that the European Union thus have affected the Swedish political parties, but that this Europeanisation takes time and is very varying depending on party, measurement point and year.

This research project will focus on the relationship between technology and integration. In practise, this means taking a transnational European project and using it as a lense in political and social discourse to trace how Britain and Europe have been placed regarding each other, and the implications this has for British identity. The chosen technology is the Eurofighter Typhoon, whose development involved numerous European nations ranging from Spain to France and Germany. The work seeks to contribute into the historiography focusing on identity in Britain's Europhile versus Eurosceptic debate, and the growing field of technological history spearheaded by works linking technology and the co-construction of national identities. Keywords: Technology, Integration, Europhile, Eurosceptic, Britain, Europe, Eurofighter.

Dans cette recherche, on analyse la question à savoir « comment les trois principaux types de groupes kurdes -nationale, religieuse et économique- coopèrent pour établir un consensus sur un objectif commun : une région politique kurde en Turquie ». En suivant la théorie du constructivisme, le modèle des Trois I, la sociologie de l'organisation et de la sociologie de l'action collective sont articulé pour examiner l'action collective kurde, qui est constamment reconstruite dans un contexte historiquement construit, qui est aussi constamment reconstruit par les dynamiques aux niveaux nationaux, transnationaux (géopolitiques), européens et mondiaux. Quant à la tâche empirique, on examine les conflits, les négociations, la coopération et le consensus de ces trois groupes kurdes sur la question kurde et l'influence des cinq dynamiques structurants mentionnés ci-dessus. La principale méthode utilisée dans ma recherche est l'analyse qualitative des entretiens en profondeur. Au niveau conclusion théorique, la recherche fait remarquable contribution aux théories et approches concernant les identités collectives et les groupes (étant groupe) collectives, l'État, le modèle des « Trois I », la dépendance au sentier, la géopolitique de la question kurde et l'européanisation. Au niveau empirique, la principale conclusion de l'étude est le fait que les groupes kurdes n’ont pas atteint de construire une organisation commune et des règles collectivement acceptées jusqu'ici. Les idées, les intérêts et les institutions des groupes ne sont pas équivalents ; et les intérêts particuliers des groupes ont pesé sur l'action collective dans la région kurde. / In this research, I analyzed the question of “the three main types of Kurdish groups -national, religious and economic- cooperate to establish a consensus on a common purpose: a Kurdish political region in Turkey.” Following the theory of constructivism, the Three I model, the sociology of organization and the sociology of collective action are articulated to examine the Kurdish collective action, which the is constantly re-constructed in historically constructed context, which is also constantly re-constructed by dynamics at national, trans-national (geopolitical), European and global levels. As to the empirical task, I examined the conflicts, negotiations, cooperation and consensus of these three Kurdish groups regarding the Kurdish issue(s) and the influence of the above-mentioned five structuring dynamics. The principal method used in my research is the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews. At the level of theoretical conclusion, the research makes remarkable contribution to the theories and approaches concerning the collective identities and groups(ness), the state, the “Three I” model, path dependency, the geopolitics of the Kurdish issue, and Europeanization. At the empirical level, the main conclusion of the research is the fact that the Kurdish groups have not achieved to build a common organization and accepted rules so far. The groups’ ideas, interests and institutions are not equivalent and the groups’ distinctive interests have weighed on the collective action in the Kurdish region.

Europeanisation of civil law Abstract This diploma thesis aims to discuss the phenomenon of Europeanization of civil law. This is a contemporary phenomenon in the law of the member states of the European Union. Its substance is the process of influencing the sphere of private law and civil law respectivelly, as a result of the ongoing process of European integration. The first chapter deals with the definition of basic concepts. The second chapter briefly discusses the history of the whole process and then discusses the underlying theoretical questions: whether Europeanization is at all necessary and, if so, whether it is feasible and what methods thereof are being used. It aims to introduce and confront different approaches. The third chapter gives an overview of the current state of hard law in the field of civil law at the EU level. The fourth chapter focuses on the soft law in the field of European civil law and provides an overview of some of the most important academic initiatives in that field. It also demonstrates how some of the academic projects had influence on the current Czech Civil Code. The fifth chapter then specifically focuses on one area of civil law at EU level - the European tort law, which it seeks to discuss in a synthetic way. The final part of the thesis summarizes key facts and...

Despite deficient institutional practices, political resistance, and lagging public support for European Union (EU) membership, as well as the presence of two existential EU crises—the euro crisis and migration crisis—, the states of Southeast Europe (SEE) continue to adapt their domestic policies, procedures, legislation, norms and values to the EU’s acquis communautaire—Europeanization. The Europeanization literature explains that such processes of adaption are induced by incentives, and informed by the (limited) ability of each state to negotiate its membership requirements. However, given the degree of political and institutional weakness in SEE, in addition to the EU’s current apathetic stance towards enlargement, this dissertation questions the explanatory power of traditional, hierarchical conceptualizations of Europeanization. It in turn investigates the extent to which the EU and Southeast European candidates (SEECs) have employed new, ‘horizontal’ mechanisms of Europeanization that rely on cooperation, learning, and the co-production of outputs to overcome the technical and strategic problems facing the candidates. Very little work has acknowledged Europeanization outside of the traditional top-down-bottom-up dichotomy, and even less has attempted to specify and investigate the impact of these alternative mechanisms of Europeanization. To address this gap in the literature, this study traces incidents of civil servant cooperation (twinning) and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) involvement in Croatia and Serbia, and assesses to what degree these mechanisms have helped Croatia and Serbia comply with the acquis. It argues that while the effectiveness of these mechanisms vary due to a number of factors, they have been vital to the accession processes of Croatia and Serbia. These mechanisms have helped align domestic and EU legislation, improved institutional procedures, fostered inter-ministry cooperation, updated policy frameworks, extended state programs to rural and minority populations, and encouraged more systematic public consultation, all of which have been deemed a necessary part of membership preparations. More broadly, these findings suggest a shift in EU-candidate state relations, and demonstrate that a more diverse set of actors and mechanisms are active in Europeanization and governance processes. In candidate states, and indeed even in some member states with weak institutional capacities, tense political environments, and an uncertain public, mechanisms that rely solely on conditionality have varied in their ability to induce domestic compliance. This dissertation contends that horizontal mechanisms that rely on socialization instead of coercion, may present a worthwhile alternative. / Graduate / crouchgb@uvic.ca

This research analyses the extent to which three newer (European Union) EU member states, Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia have attempted and succeeded in shaping the development of the EU's energy security policy, focusing on natural gas. This explores the argument that EU membership affects the formation of national foreign and energy policy as well as procedures of policy-making, and that newer member states have also been able to shape EU level policy-making through the ‘uploading’ of national preferences. The research engages with relevant conceptual issues to develop and utilise a framework which is a synthesis of literature on EU agenda-setting, policy framing, Europeanisation and the social construction of energy ‘crises’ and (in)security. This conceptual frame is then used to explore and evaluate the influence of newer member states on EU energy policy agenda-setting, policy-making and policy implementation. Evaluating the obstacles and opportunities for influence, an empirically rich data set is analysed to test the extent to which five theoretically derived hypotheses account for member state influence. Five mechanisms are identified as potentially key factors in explaining the degree of influence which member states have. The thesis suggests that one is the impact of supply disruptions and price rises on perceptions and constructions of national and EU energy security. This can contribute towards a context that is conducive to the arguments about policy change and projection being made, a policy window, and is a reflection of the social construction of energy insecurity and energy crises. Diplomatic skill and learning to ‘play the EU game’, being active in Council summits and technocratic level(s), and engaging in consensual policy-making that adheres to EU norms and interests is seen as important. Another key factor is the role of Russia as a major and sometimes monopoly gas supplier, in constraining, enabling, and influencing the strength of national interests - the extent of political will and EU energy policy activism. A fourth factor is considered to be the extent to which institutionalised sub-EU regional and strategic alliances exist and are prioritised as an arena to develop coordinated policies and preferences. The final conceptually derived factor is related to the strength of administrative capacity, in terms of well-coordinated institutions at the national and EU level, and sufficient personnel and resources. The thesis also provides a study of the development of EU energy policy since the 1950s in chapter two, and chapters three to five focus on the three country case studies; Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia. These empirical chapters include in each case a history of their energy policy and relations with both the EU and Russia. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the empirical findings using comparative country case manner approach, along with conceptual (and methodological) observations based on the testing of the hypotheses.