The research puzzle of the thesis is to investigate how policy discourse mediates domestic policy adjustment consequent on commitments entered into at the domestic level by the European Union. Conceptually, it adopts the discursive institutionalist framework as developed by Vivien Schmidt and Claudio Radaelli. Empirically, it chooses a single-case study approach to focus on the Greek old-age pension policy adjustment during 1990-2002. The thesis also appraises the process of Europeanization. It adopts the ‘bottom-up’ approach to Europeanization as developed by Claudio Radaelli. Under this scope it’s analysis does not start from EU policy commitments as an independent variable, but from a system of interaction at the domestic level. Conceptually, the thesis looks at policy discourse as a consensus and legitimacy building resource. It focuses on the discursive interactions of key policy actors and analyses how they use policy discourse in order to justify the necessity and the appropriateness of policy adjustment in a given institutional context. The thesis suggests that the discursive institutionalist argument of how policy discourse facilitates policy adjustment puts too much emphasis on the governmental discourse and that the input of the rest of key policy actors must be included in the analysis. It thus proposes the integration of certain elements of the Neo-Positivist Narrative Analysis framework to discursive institutionalism. The argument claims that policy actors’ discourse will take the form of policy narratives that either expand or contain the policy issue. The institutional context will determine the level at which the discursive interaction will take place. In simple polities like Greece, discourse will be thicker at the communicative level and thinner at the coordinative. The effectiveness of discourse will be determined by the level of trust between the government, the key policy actors and the public. The empirical analysis points to a number of domestic factors that restrict the effectiveness of policy discourse and the process of Europeanization, which fall outside the pension policy area and Greece. The thesis also contributes to the advancement of discursive institutionalism. Firstly, it incorporates narrative analysis to the study of discourse. Secondly, it highlights certain limitations, it suggests ways that discursive institutionalism could be improved and directions towards which it could be fruitfully developed.

Much of the scholarship on Europeanization has explained eastern enlargement according to the logics of materialism or constructivism. Materialists argue that candidates' compliance with conditionality demands is rooted in strong external material incentives and a credible shot at membership, while constructivists point to shared identities, norms and values. These are valuable insights, yet they do not address a critical missing element - how the dispersion of ideas influences institutional outcomes in candidate states. This research demonstrates that in order for the EU to have a transformative impact on the political institutions of the states of former Yugoslavia, national political leaders must be able to communicate a satisfying narrative of EU legitimacy that resonates with national narratives of legitimacy when justifying policy choices. The project goes beyond an analysis of compliant/non-compliant behavior to unearth a greater understanding of how, at the hour of accession, elite discourse operates as an agent to reshape histories, form new identities, and mold preferences. Together these processes have profound policy implications for the new regimes, as they lead to decisions that are consequential for institutional development at both the EU and state level. In particular, using a combination of content analysis and an original elite survey, this research finds that elites' ability to express power through ideas and over ideas can transform power in ideas for the cases of Croatia and Serbia/Kosovo. For Croatia, this entails elites creating conditions whereby the public believes in the idea that EU membership represents an 'escape' from the Balkans as opposed to a 'return' to Europe. For Serbia/Kosovo, elites strive to convince citizens that EU membership signifies a 're-branding' of the Balkan image rather than an escape. The Serbia-Kosovo territorial dispute figures prominently in the picture as it pits new ideas - a re-branded 'European' Serbia - against old ideas wherein the Kosovo narrative is essential to Serbian national identity. Serbian elites work to persuade EU and national publics that these ideas are not in tension and promise to deliver on both - attain EU membership and keep Kosovo.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a number of Latin American countries have undergone a marked shift to the left in their politics. With this, a number of Latin American countries have been pursuing economic policies that give a greater role for the state in economic affairs. Hugo Chavez has promised to build "twenty-first century socialism" in Venezuela, while Bolivia's Evo Morales often attacks the "neoliberalism" that previously guided economic reform in that country. This thesis investigates these economic institutional changes through a discursive institutionalist perspective, focusing on two Latin American countries: Bolivia and Peru. The goal is to analyze the role discourse and ideas played in impacting economic institutional change, or the lack thereof, in these two countries. This analysis suggests that institutional change in Bolivia can be explained by the skill political figures such as Evo Morales had in linking certain economic policies to notions of Bolivian sovereignty and a defense of natural resources. However, in Peru, discursive limitations presented barriers to a shift towards greater state intervention. By emphasizing the impact of discourse and ideas, this thesis aims to provide a novel theoretical interpretation of these events transpiring in Latin America.

As part of its initiative to decarbonise the energy grid, the European energy transition towards alternative energies presents a relevant field of inquiry within energy politics. This study delves into the discursive contestations between France and Germany about the energy transition, examining their influence on EU-wide approaches. Debates encompassing nuclear power's role and technological sovereignty considerations are central to the analysis. Germany’s focus on renewables contrasts France’s reliance on atomic energy as a low-carbon solution. Moreover, the discourse extends to the necessity of a cohesive European strategy for the energy transition, especially in response to global economic dynamics and the intention of achieving carbon neutrality. Furthermore, the study explores the socio-economic impacts of the transition, with both countries striving to support their industries while ensuring competitive electricity pricing. It is manifested through initiatives such as the Electricity Market Reform (EMR) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The discussions are analysed through a constructivist lens, employing a discursive institutionalist method, examining the institutional context through ideas, agents and discursive interactions leading to collective actions. The thesis concluded that France’s greater assertiveness in debates around the RED III and the EMR secured the importance of nuclear power in the EU’s future energy transition efforts.

Situated within a global context of political unease over Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, this thesis challenges views of Russian foreign policy as enigmatic and unpredictable. It examines the relationship between identity politics, conceptions of security, and the foreign policy preferences of the Russian political elite. It shows how particular aspects of Russian identity that are dominant in different international contexts work to structure policy preferences. This contributes to the pursuit of apparently contradictory objectives across these settings, and to inconsistencies between the rhetoric and reality of Russian security policy. Previous studies have looked into the impact of Russian identity on its policy preferences, but most have taken a limited, instrumentalist view of identity as a tool that is mobilised by political elites to further their existing policy preferences. By contrast, this thesis argues that conscious elite mobilisation of identity provides only part of the picture. Visions of Russian identity (and consequently of its international role) are constrained by institutional factors. These include the linked historical development of the Russian military, economy and education/research sectors. Following a discursive understanding of institutions, they also include the limited number of ways in which identity has previously been represented. These factors produce subconscious constraints on the imagining of Russian identity. This limited conceptualisation of Russian identity has become even more specific in the Putin era, due to the political elite’s frequent repetition of one, highly restrictive, narrative of a ‘usable’ history, presented as the factual background to policy discussion. This narrative foregrounds favoured events, associating them with preferred identity themes. Resultant ‘truths’ of Russian identity then provide a framework for foreign policy. Particular elements of this framework dominate Russia’s relationships with different multinational bodies, impacting on the type of policy cooperation pursued. In relations with the EU, focus on Russia’s equal contribution to European civilisation brings normative incompatibilities between the parties to the fore and acts as a barrier to compromise. With contrasting visions of their identities in their shared region, of what security there should look like, and of how it should be achieved, Russia-EU cooperation has been most effective when undertaken in a specific, sectoral manner. Anticipating the ‘West’s’ relative decline in global influence, Russia has gradually downgraded EU relations whilst pursuing a ‘multivector’ foreign policy that emphasises alternative partners. Capitalising on its identity as one of the BRICS rising powers, Russia has been able to pursue a joint challenge to the contemporary structure of the international order, facilitated by members’ shared convictions of the inequities of the existing system, and of their subordinate positions within it. Here, Russia’s identity as a cultural bridge has been emphasised, giving it a unique possibility to negotiate between the old and the new global powers. Most recently, Russia has built upon its identity as a continent-straddling regional leader, and a supposedly natural representative of Eurasia. In developing the Eurasian Union, Russia seeks to use its privileged regional role to ensure continued global relevance during an anticipated, and desired, transition to global multipolarity. This is a new reading of Russian ‘great power’, in which Russia’s multiple international roles are combined to give it the greatest possible level of influence in determining new global structures.

With different interests at stake, conservation is at the centre of power relations and negotiations over how best to manage a landscape, and is thus a potential source of conflicts, not only about how to manage the land, but also more importantly about what is just. In 2008 Sweden's National Park Plan, the creation of a national park in the area of Vålådalen-Sylarna-Helags in the county of Jämtland was recommended. This area covers in part the land used by Handölsdalen, Mittådalen and Tåssåsen samebys for reindeer herding, and, in May 2016, the samebys declared that they would oppose the national park project. Negotiations between the samebys on the one hand, and the authorities in charge of running the project – the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the County Administrative Board of Jämtland – took place, until, in May 2017, the project actors officially met all for the first time. The samebys most notably demanded that reindeer herding and the Saami culture are recognised in the national park, and that the samebys have a clear influence in the project and later in the park management. Despite being overrepresented in national parks, Saami reindeer herders remain in fact underrepresented in the management of these parks, and still struggle locally to be included in conservation projects. In parallel to the progressive recognition of their rights as an indigenous people and within a national trend fostering local participation, they have been however increasingly included in the discussions on conservation projects at the local scale. This thesis aims at contributing to challenge the way conservation is still conceptualised and practiced in Sweden. It raises the question of what the opportunities are for the affected samebys to anchor their claims in the negotiations over the establishment of a planned national park in the area of Vålådalen-Sylarna-Helags. The question is studied through the lens of the discursive institutional conflict management analysis, which allows to have a deep understanding of the negotiation process, by looking at its procedural as well as contextual aspects, and at the interdependence between the samebys and the authorities. Overall, the procedural aspects of the negotiation process are unfavourable to the samebys, the contextual aspects provide only mixed opportunities for the samebys, and the interdependence of the parties, while positive, is weak in degree which may hamper the anchoring of samebys' claims. This thesis demonstrates the importance of institutional change and building of trust for the effective recognition and participation of the samebys in the process. / Med olika intressen står konservering i centrum för maktrelationer och förhandlingar om hur bäst man kan hantera ett landskap och är därmed en potentiell källa till konflikter, inte bara om hur man hanterar landet, men också viktigare om vad som är rätt. I Nationalparksplan för Sverige under 2008 rekommenderades att skapa en nationalpark i området Vålådalen-Sylarna-Helags i Jämtlands län. Detta område täcker delvis marken som används av samebyarna Handölsdalen, Mittådalen och Tåssåsen för renskötsel, och i maj 2016 förklarade samebyarna att de skulle motsätta sig nationalparksprojektet. Förhandlingar mellan samebyarna och de myndigheter som ansvarar för att driva projektet - Naturvårdsverket och Länsstyrelsen Jämtlands län - ägde rum fram till maj 2017 då alla projektets aktörer träffades officiellt för första gången. Samebyarna krävde framför allt att renskötsel och samekultur erkänns i nationalparken och att samebyarna har ett tydligt inflytande i projektet och senare i parkförvaltningen. Trots att de är överrepresenterade i nationalparker är samiska renskötare faktiskt underrepresenterade i förvaltningen av dessa parker och strider fortfarande lokalt för att bli inkluderade i projekt för bevarande. Parallellt med det progressiva erkännandet av deras rättigheter som ursprungsbefolkning och inom en nationell trend som främjar lokalt deltagande har de emellertid alltmer ingått i diskussionerna om bevarandeprojekt på en lokal skala. Avhandlingen syftar till att bidra mot att utmana hur bevarandet fortfarande är betraktat och praktiserat i Sverige. Det väcker frågan om vilka möjligheter som finns för de drabbade samebyarna att förankra sina krav i förhandlingarna om inrättandet av en planerad nationalpark i området Vålådalen-Sylarna-Helags. Frågan studeras genom linsen i den diskursiva institutionella konflikthanteringsanalysen, som möjliggör en djup förståelse av förhandlingsprocessen genom att titta på dess procedur- och kontextuella aspekter samt på det ömsesidiga beroendet mellan samebyarna och myndigheterna. Sammantaget är de procedurmässiga aspekterna av förhandlingsprocessen ogynnsamma för samebyarna, de kontextuella aspekterna ger endast blandade möjligheter för samebyarna, och parternas ömsesidiga beroende, vilket är positivt i sig, är svagt i en grad som kan hämma förankringen av samebyarnas krav. Denna avhandling visar vikten av institutionell förändring och uppbyggnad av förtroende för samebyarnas effektiva erkännande och deltagande i processen.

The Polish Law and Justice party has initiated domestic policies and regulations that challenge women’s rights. Poland is a member of the European Union where the gender inequality issues have never had such a high priority before and the union is currently operating under the Gender Mainstreaming strategy alongside with additional approaches. The two folded aim of this thesis is to create an understanding on how the Polish politicalauthorities can present backsliding tendencies of women’s rights by studying how thedomestic political institutions frame gender equality policies and Gender Mainstreaming followed by how the Polish political agents can legitimize the framings and implementations to the Polish society through the public discourse. A qualitative discourse analysis will be applied on materials from the EU, Polish politicalprograms and secondary sources such as news articles. The empirical findings suggest that the backsliding is part of a non-linear process where the Polish framing and implementation of policies on gender equality both converge and diverge from the EU. In the latest years, an incremental process of backsliding tendencies has appeared. As for the political discourse, the gender equality policies often end up in the background, overruled by pro-family policies. Also, the inadequate implementations and domestic framings is legitimized by the referencesto the foundational ideas of Polish society, where the EU challenges the traditional familywith “harmful gender ideologies”.

In 1993, Sweden instituted the Sámi Parliament (Sámediggi) as a state agency with the main purpose of representing the indigenous Sámi people externally, as well as monitoring internal cultural affairs, governed by a popularly elected assembly. In the absence of official statistics on the Sámi population, or any formally recognized approaches to define who should count as Sámi, one of the challenging tasks was to create an accurate register of all those who would be eligible to take part in the elections. The idea was to design an electoral roll that would be normatively neutral and have no other functions beyond its core function of being a list of eligible voters, a concept that had already been put in use during the previous initiations of the Sámi Parliaments in Norway and Finland. Previous research from similar contexts, most prominently Norway, shows that electoral rolls of this sort might be attributed other functions by indigenous populations, especially in the absence of other formal devices that can be used to confirm their indigenous identity. It appears that the electoral roll might, under certain circumstances, assume an important and far-reaching role in indigenous institution building. In Sweden, however, similar research is missing. In this study, I examine perceptions within the indigenous Sámi community regarding the central functions of the electoral roll using a constructivist, discourse-theoretic approach. A systematic mapping out of the discourse surrounding the electoral roll, as reflected in public records from within the political sphere of the Sámi Parliament and relevant accounts in Sámi media, reveals that the electoral roll is attributed functions by the Sámi population that go far beyond its original, formalistic design. The act of formally defining a people, regardless of the limitations of the purpose, can seemingly cause unintended and far-reaching consequences, especially when the people itself does not control the definition. The analysis shows a fundamental conflict regarding the competing functions of the electoral roll as both an instrument of representation and a mechanism of identity validation. This influences the power structures between the Sámi people and the Swedish state as well as within the people itself, and affects the ability of the Sámi Parliament to gain legitimacy as an indigenous institution and instrument of self-determination.

This thesis examines the migration policy changes that were adopted by the European Union during the so called ‘refugee crisis’ 2014-2016 and problematises the discourses that were deployed by EU policy makers. It builds the method and theoretical framework around Vivien Schmidt’s discursive institutionalism, and complements it with constructivist conceptual theories around discourses that are identified through the researched empirical material. The primary material is to a large extent based upon official documents from the EU such as regulations and communications, but also includes speeches from officials such as Jean Claude Juncker (President of the Commission), Donald Tusk (President of the Council) and Martin Schulz (President of the European Parliament). The findings are comprised of discourses that can all be connected to the EU imaginary. The thesis also concludes that there has been a continuation of the securitisation of migration during the ‘refugee crisis’ as well as a normalisation of this discourse. In regards to the communicative and coordinative skills of the EU actors, it becomes clear that the former still is problematic, whilst the coordinative discourses have increased the cooperation within the EU institutions during the time period studied.

This thesis explores constructions of meaning, or frames, surrounding the policy of women’s hours in public debates and municipal settings, using newspaper articles and municipal documents as main empirical sources. Departing from the puzzle of how women’s hours are depicted as both gender equitable and gender inequitable in the debate, the thesis draws on previous research of how gender equality and multiculturalism relates to each other, potentially producing tensions in policymaking and discourse. Although Sweden has often been noted for its exceptionality in both dimensions, research suggests that multiculturalism has lost its favorable status in Sweden. To understand the impact framing may have on institutions, analysis is grounded feminist discursive institutionalism. The analysis is realized in two steps. First, the analysis identifies four frames, two supporting and two opposing, most prominently used to construct and depict women’s hours in public debate. Second, the analysis zooms in on the three municipalities Västerås, Haninge and Västervik, exploring the relationship between framing and outcomes. The thesis finds that the frames of women’s hours are often involved in culturalist language, depicting women’s hours as a Muslim policy, or, implicitly, depicting women’s hours as a gender equal policy by connecting it to other women than Muslim. In relation to institutional outcomes, the thesis finds that if the policy is constructed in a Muslim-culturalist language - that is, diagnosed as a Muslim practice - it leads to disapproval. If the policy is constructed as a gender equal policy beneficial to “all” women, it seems more accessible to keep. In line with previous research, the findings are suggestive of how the idea of multiculturalism as a problem seems to have become salient while gender equality remains a highly attractive master frame, contributing to how the policy of women’s hours is adopted only if successfully connected to other groups of women than Muslim.