The present work aspires to provide a comprehensive analysis of the policy developments through which European-level prescriptions regarding the liberalization of national electricity markets have been accommodated within the domestic policy contexts of two new member states of the European Union: Bulgaria and Czech Republic. Despite being subjected to uniform demands, adaptation to community regulatory provisions in the two countries has prompted divergent patterns of policy change, resulting in full compliance in the Czech Republic and a failure to meet EU objectives in Bulgaria. In order to address the observed inconsistency the envisaged research identifies a causal link between the outcomes of regulatory compliance and the influence of utility regulation as a sector-specific EU governance pattern on the dynamics of resource re-distribution at the domestic level. A major concern of the research is how contextual factors, such as incumbent power balances across actor populations in the target policy area condition the impacts of EU inputs on domestic policy decisions. In this respect the work hypothesizes that due to transition "sediments" in the new EU member states external rules may be selectively applied in order to match the existing realities and lead to outcomes that diverge from the...

This thesis deals with the Europeanization of the selected Czech social policy actors, among them some trade unions and non-governmental organizations. It examines their changes in some particular areas: in an organizational structure, in financial resources, in activities, in interests, in the used argumentation towards representatives of state power and in attitudes to the cooperation with partners from the other EU countries. These changes are observed thanks to the country's accession to the EU and/or thanks to the actors' membership in the European interest groups. The thesis tries to prove that these changes have been caused, at first, by the misfit among the Czech actors and their counterparts from the other EU member states. In the latter case it assesses if it is possible to attribute changes to socialization into the European interest groups. It also focuses on the fact whether there have been suitable conditions for the social learning of the observed actors. The questionnaire and secondary literature have been used for the evaluation. It has been proved that the concept of misfit is not suitable for these cases and thus the observed changes cannot be ascribed to this concept. Another situation occurs when evaluating changes resulting from socialization. There has been shown that the...

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Europäisierung der Statistik im Rahmen der Europäischen Gemeinschaft für Kohle und Stahl (EGKS), der Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft (EWG) sowie der Europäischen Gemeinschaften (EG) seit den 1950ern bis in die 1970er-Jahre hinein. Die Genese und Entwicklung statistischer Verfahrensweisen im supranationalen Rahmen lässt sich jedoch nicht ohne den vorgelagerten und sie begleitenden Prozess des internationalen statistischen Vergleichs verstehen. Denn seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg setzten auch die internationalen Organisationen verstärkt auf regionale statistische Vergleiche, wobei Europa hier eine zentrale Rolle einnahm. Von den in diesen Institutionen gemachten Erfahrungen profitierten die Europäischen Gemeinschaften einerseits, versuchten sich jedoch auch stets von ihnen abzugrenzen. Mit Blick auf die International Labour Organization (ILO), der Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) sowie der Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) analysiert die Arbeit folglich, inwiefern die EG-Institutionen tatsächlich einen statistischen „Sonderweg“ gingen oder ihre Arbeit nicht doch vielmehr in eine Linie mit den internationalen statistischen Vergleichen zu sehen ist. Ausgangspunkt aller internationalen und europäischen statistischen Harmonisierungsvorhaben waren unterdessen die nationalen statistischen Ämter (NSÄ). Wie die EG-Institutionen mit ihnen in langwierige Aushandlungsprozesse gingen, wird vor allem mit Blick auf Deutschland als Fallbeispiel analysiert. Mit dieser Herangehensweise verfolgt die Arbeit gleichzeitig das Anliegen, die Statistiken auf ihre Funktion als Sinnproduzenten zu befragen und macht diesen Ansatz somit für die Geschichte der europäischen Integration fruchtbar. Die Darstellungen gehen damit über eine reine Institutionengeschichte deutlich hinaus. Methodisch verfolgt die Arbeit einen akteurszentrierten Institutionalismus, der kulturgeschichtlich und diskursanalytisch ergänzt wird. / This paper examines the europeanization of statistics within the framework of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC), and the European Communities (EC) from the 1950s to the 1970s. However, the genesis and development of statistical practices in the supranational framework cannot be understood without the preceding and accompanying process of international statistical comparison. After all, since World War II, international organizations have also increasingly relied on regional statistical comparisons, with Europe playing a central role here. On the one hand, the European Communities profited from the experience gained in these institutions, but on the other hand, they always tried to distinguish themselves from them. With a view to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the thesis analyzes to what extent the EC institutions actually took a statistical "special path" or whether their work should rather be seen in line with international statistical comparisons. Meanwhile, the starting point for all international and European statistical harmonization projects was the national statistical institutes (NSIs). How the EC institutions entered into protracted negotiation processes with them is analyzed with Germany in particular as a case study. With this approach, the work pursues the concern of questioning statistics with regard to their function as producers of meaning and thus makes this approach fruitful for the history of European integration. Thus, the analysis clearly goes beyond a mere institutional history. Methodologically, the work follows an actor-centered institutionalism, which is complemented by cultural history and discourse analysis.

The European Union - EU - came into being in the early 1950s with the aim of avoiding the rival clashes that had previously taken place in Europe. The starting point was a collaboration around the coal and steel industry, but the collaboration has spread to other areas. Likewise, the number of member countries has also increased, from initially consisting of 6 member countries to today consisting of 27. EU membership is preceded by various requirements that must be met for membership to be current. The accession criteria for EU membership, also known as the Copenhagen criteria, contain several requirements, of which the requirement of the fight against corruption is found among these. The criteria are a form of power exercised by the EU and this form of power, known as soft power, is widely used. Through the exercise of soft power, more countries are attracted to want to take part in the community that the EU constitutes, which leads to Europeanization and the enlargement of the EU. The well-known neo-functionalist theory of spillover states that integration leads to changes in the integrated countries. By carrying out a qualitative theory-testing case study regarding the spillover effects on the case of Croatia, the theory's validity is revealed. Does the EU-membership lead to changes in the integrated countries, and specifically regarding the fight against corruption? The research problem is important from a political science perspective and thus relevant to the research, and this work has therefore investigated this. The result shows that Croatia has made clear progress in their work in the fight against corruption, but one can also see difficulties in adopting EU policies. This is aconstant ongoing process that the country has to deal with.

New regulations of labour immigration from countries outside of EU and EEA have on the 15th of December 2008 been introduced into the Swedish legal system. This research examines the law changes of labour immigration from third countries to Sweden at the time of the ratification of the new law. The aim of this research has been to examine how common labour immigration directives and policies of EU are maintained and implemented in the domestic sphere of Sweden and the possible outcomes on the Swedish labour market by applying the current law implementations. The results show the complexity of combining national laws with EU policies and regulations. The main findings show a difficulty of maintaining an unharmed principle of community preference as well as to preserve Swedish employment standards in order not to risk wage dumping when implementing the new law of labour immigration.

This dissertation argues that European Union membership conditionality operates as a modality of political-economic governance directed at securing the conditions of possibility for a harmoniously functioning political economy of Europe. I argue that conditionality can best be understood not as a series of requirements for EU membership, a set of incentives for rule adoption, or a vehicle for the transmission of European norms to candidate states, but as an ensemble of discursive and material practices – fragile, dispersed circuits of governmental activity directed at a particular strategic ambition. I argue that existing accounts of EU membership conditionality are informed by predominantly rationalist understandings of political economy which work to conceal various cultural, social, and subjective sources of disharmony in political-economic life. Thinking about the political economy of conditionality through rationalist lenses privileges the study of bargaining and negotiation and institutional reform and overlooks the ways that conditionality targets the transformation of problematic socio-cultural and subjective elements of political economy – among them particular habits of culture, patterns of sociality, and subjective qualities and capacities of the person deemed essential to securing order and abundance. Re-reading canonical works in classical and critical traditions of political economy by James Steuart, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx makes clear that political economy as a field of knowledge and practice has long been concerned with understanding the political, legislative-legal, institutional, socio-cultural, and subjective conditions of possibility for securing order and abundance and has long reflected on the potential and limits of governance to secure these conditions in a world of shifting circumstance. I argue that a political economy of EU membership conditionality concerned with disharmony should investigate the ways that particular socio-cultural and subjective features of political-economic life are problematized in the discourse of conditionality and subsequently targeted for transformation through the work of instruments and agents of conditionality operating in a variety of institutional contexts. On this basis, I analyze conditionality as practice – tracing the emergence of instruments of conditionality currently at work in the Republic of Macedonia through official documents produced by the EU and the Republic of Macedonia from 2001-2011. I then examine the ambitions and limits of the Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013 (OP-HRD) – a program tasked with translating the aims of conditionality on paper into concrete activities for implementation in the fields of employment, education and training, and social inclusion. I outline some limits to the program derived from personal interviews with officials of the EU and the Republic of Macedonia who work to implement the OP-HRD "on the ground." In reflecting on these limitations, I return to the political economy of disharmony, concluding that constraints on the operation of conditionality in practice are not merely the product of technical and political impediments but are also derived from inherent limits to the old dream of political-economic harmony to which the ambitions of conditionality are ultimately directed. / Ph. D.

Many economies throughout the world were devastated by the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Ireland in particular experienced a severe collapse in its housing market. Despite the progression of European-influenced planning policy that was meant to promote balanced regional development in Ireland, the country's housing market vastly overbuilt, exacerbating a housing market crash that ended the Celtic Tiger era. Drawing on Europeanization and historical institutionalism as theoretical frameworks, this thesis argues that the link between these EU-influenced policy principles and local Irish planning practice was weak during an important phase of Ireland's economic growth. This conclusion is demonstrated through the analysis of a case study, McEvoy and Smith v. Meath County Council. The findings show that while Ireland's national government created an ambitious National Spatial Strategy modeled on EU principles, non-binding Regional Planning Guidelines allowed local authorities to continue granting zoning changes and permissions. These decisions were therefore uninhibited by the constraints of population projections, consideration for infrastructure provision, and overall good planning practice. This research calls into question the effectiveness of transferring policy principles from the EU to Member States. It suggests more generally that to implement policy and law successfully, policy makers must appreciate the societal and economic context in which these rules will operate.

Les politiques migratoires européennes sont conçues en termes de contrôle de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers. Depuis la mise en place des conditions de libre circulation dans les années 1980, l’Union européenne est impliquée dans le traitement des non-nationaux qui, auparavant, relevait exclusivement de la discrétion étatique. La migration et l’asile sont aujourd’hui des domaines de compétence partagée entre l’Union et ses membres. La priorité est accordée à la lutte contre la migration irrégulière, perçue non seulement comme un défi à la souveraineté, mais aussi comme une menace à l’État providence et un risque pour la sécurité. Cette recherche porte sur l’européanisation de la lutte contre la migration irrégulière et ses effets sur les droits humains des étrangers. Il est soutenu que l’européanisation définie comme un processus de construction, de diffusion et d’institutionnalisation des normes, des pratiques et des convictions partagées, permet aux États d’atteindre leur objectif de limiter le nombre d’étrangers indésirés, y compris des demandeurs d’asile, sur leur sol. L’européanisation légitime et renforce les mesures préventives et dissuasives existantes à l’encontre des migrants clandestins. De nouvelles normes communes sont produites et de nouveaux dispositifs de coopération européenne sont créés en vue de réprimer la migration irrégulière. Ce phénomène transforme le paradigme migratoire dans les États membres ainsi que les pays candidats à l’adhésion qui se trouvent désormais chargés de la sécurisation des frontières extérieures de l’Union. La recherche démontre que ces développements ont un impact négatif sur les droits fondamentaux. Ils exacerbent aussi la vulnérabilité des demandeurs d’asile assimilés aux migrants économiques. Une analyse comparative de l’européanisation du renvoi forcé en France, au Royaume-Uni et en Turquie montre que la politique européenne engendre des atteintes aux droits et libertés des étrangers et limite leur capacité de contester les violations devant les tribunaux. L’accent est mis sur la nécessité de trouver un équilibre entre la préoccupation légitime des États et de l’Union d’assurer la sécurité et le bien-être de leurs citoyens et la protection des droits des migrants irréguliers. Il revient ultimement aux tribunaux de veiller à ce que le pouvoir discrétionnaire étatique s’exerce en stricte conformité avec les normes constitutionnelles et les obligations internationales découlant du droit international des réfugiés et des droits de l’homme. / In Europe, migration policies are designed to control the entry and residence of foreigners on the national territory. Since the establishment of a common market in the 1980s, the European Union is increasingly involved in the treatment of foreigners. Migration and asylum have become issues of shared jurisdiction between the Union and its members. Policies are dominantly focused on the fight against irregular migration, perceived not only as a challenge to territorial sovereignty, but also as a threat to the welfare state and as a security risk. This research explores the Europeanization of migration and asylum policy and its impact on irregular migrants’ human rights. It is asserted that, as a process of construction, diffusion and institutionalization of norms, practices and shared convictions, the Europeanization enables States to limit the number of unwanted foreigners on their territory, including asylum seekers. It legitimizes and reinforces already existing preventive and deterrent measures against clandestine migrants. Common norms and cooperation mecanisms are established with a view to optimizing States’ control over irregular migrants. This process transforms the migration paradigm not only in member States, but also in accession countries as they become the gatekeepers of the European Union’s external borders. The research maintains that these developments have a negative impact on clandestine migrants’ fundamental rights. The vulnerability of asylum seekers is exacerbated by their systematic association to economic migrants. A comparative analysis of the securitization of French, British and Turkish forced removal policies demonstrates how the Europeanization limits the foreigners’ rights and curbs their capacity to claim rights before tribunals. It is necessary to strike a fair balance between the legitimate aim to ensure citizens’ welfare and security and the protection of irregular migrants’ rights. It is argued that this balance will only be achieved by allowing the judiciary to test over time the constitutionality of repressive measures as well as their compatibility with international obligations of human rights and refugee protection.

La Turquie, pays candidat à l'Union européenne, est confrontée à une pression européenne pour l'adaptation de ses structures administratives et de ses cadres institutionnels aux règles et aux critères européens concernant la mise en œuvre des fonds structurels. A cet égard, dans le contexte de processus de préadhésion à l'UE, l'Etat turc s'amène à reformuler sa politique de développement régional. Dans ce sens, la réforme majeure entreprise par l'Etat turc est celle de la création des Agences de développement dans les vingt-six régions statistiques de NUTS II. Parallèlement, il s'agit de la mise en place d'un processus de décentralisation. En effet, ces réformes renvoient à une européanisation de la gestion publique territoriale. Cependant, les changements qui sont en œuvre ne dépendent pas exclusivement des recommandations de l'UE. De plus, il est nécessaire de prendre en considération la dimension territoriale du processus d'européanisation. Quels sont les différents facteurs et les diverses dynamiques qui déterminent le changement dans les politiques de développement régional ? Dans quelle mesure peut-on imputer le changement à la conditionnalité européenne ? Comment l'Europe procède pour inciter l'Etat turc à reformuler ses politiques régionales ? Quel est le rôle du niveau infranational dans le changement ? Autant de questions auxquelles cette étude essaye de fournir des éléments de réponse / Turkey, a candidate for the European Union, faces European pressure to adapt its administrative structures and institutional frameworks of its rules and European standards concerning the implementation of structural funds. In this respect, in the context of pre-accession process to the EU, the Turkish state is coming to reformulate its policy of regional development. In this sense, the major reform undertaken by the Turkish state is that of the creation of development agencies in the twenty-six statistical regions NUTS II. Meanwhile, it is also the establishment of a decentralization process. Indeed, these reforms refer to Europeanization of territorial governance. However, the changes that are implemented do not depend exclusively on EU recommendations. Morever, it is necessary to consider the territorial dimension of the Europeanization process. What are the different factors and the various dynamics that determine the change in regional development policies? To what extent can we attribute the change to the EU conditionality? How Europe proceeds to urge the Turkish government to reformulate its regional policies? What is the role of sub-national level in the change? These are the questions that this study attempts to provide some answers. So our goal in this work consists on the one hand, to understand the logical adaptation of Turkish state with the recommendations of Europe indicating the junction of different dynamics of change, on the other hand, identify the change through the articulation of different levels of public action, from local to Europe

Ce travail analyse la construction de la politique d’immigration en Espagne à travers le cas desmigrations ouest-africaines, un révélateur privilégié des ambiguïtés et ambivalences qui latraversent. Dans le contexte du retournement des flux migratoires qui transforme l’Espagne en unedestination de plus en plus importante, nous abordons la mise en place compliquée d’une politiquenationale qui, dès sa naissance en 1985, doit conjuguer les obligations européennes et les intérêtsinternes. Nous étudions comment la virulente politisation de la question migratoire, en 2000,constitue un moment clé dans le développement de la politique espagnole, en modifiant d’abord leprocessus d’européanisation. L’Espagne, qui initialement est un récepteur passif de normes etpratiques européennes, se transforme ainsi en une actrice clé dans l’UE en matière d’immigration,tant par son adhésion à la sécurisation de l’immigration, que par son rôle dans le processusd’internationalisation des enjeux, où son action vis-à-vis du continent africain devient unarchétype. Nous analysons ainsi le développement du volet extérieur de la politique espagnole qui,par une focalisation exacerbée sur les flux subsahariens, impulse une diffusion poussée des enjeuxmigratoires dans les rapports avec l’Afrique. La réévaluation et revalorisation des relations del’Espagne avec le Maroc, en tant qu’espace de transit des flux, et le réengagement conséquent enAfrique de l’Ouest, à la suite du Plan Afrique, témoignent du rôle du continent africain commeterrain d’expression privilégié de l’externalisation du contrôle des flux. Le décryptage de cerégime euro-africain des migrations en essor, ainsi que de sa négociation, permet de saisir enprofondeur les conséquences et les effets collatéraux de cette politique. / This project aims to analyse the development of Spanish immigration policy through the caseof West African migrations which significantly reveals the ambiguous and ambivalent nature ofthe policy. In the context of migratory flows reversal, Spain has become an increasingly importantdestination for immigrants, so I wish to address the complicated implementation of a nationalpolicy which, from its birth in 1985, has had to reconcile EU obligations with internal interests. Ishall look at how the virulent politicisation of immigration issues in 2000 not only represents akey moment in the development of Spanish policy, but Europeanization process as well. Thesignificance of this is that Spain, a country which was at first a passive recipient of Europeannorms and practices, steadily became a central actor in the key debates and issues surroundingimmigration in the EU. These include the Spanish alignment to the securitisation process ofimmigration as well as becoming a model in the internationalisation of immigration policythrough its action towards the African continent. I will also analyse the development of theexternal dimension of Spanish policy, which through an exacerbated focus on sub-Saharanimmigration leads to a widespread effect of the migratory issues in its dealings with Africa. Thereassessment and consequent improvement of Spanish relations with Morocco was a crucialmoment due to the country’s strategic importance as a “transit zone” to Europe. This trendcontinued with the consequent re-engagement in West Africa following the Africa Plan which Ibelieve reflects the role of the African continent as a privileged field of expression towards theexternalisation of migratory flows control. The deciphering of this emerging Euro-Africanframework of migration governance and its negotiation help us to fully comprehend theconsequences and collateral effects of this policy.