This dissertation scrutinises two related claims that were particularly heightened in 2009 as the European Union (EU) was celebrating the first tenth anniversary of its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), the implementing arm of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). First, the two policy frameworks allegedly embodied sufficient added value for bettering EU intervention for human protection purposes in third places. Second, the ESDP supposedly enabled the EU to make a difference in its response to two bloody wars that broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) successively in 1996 and 1998. This thesis argues that the alleged added value and difference have been overstated at best. While various studies have taken a similar position, they have important shortcomings for at least four reasons: lack of a comprehensive account of the CFSP motives, capacities, and response; exclusive focus on civil and military operations; focus on the post-Second Congo War period; and a lack of conceptual clarity regarding two key terms – ‘conflict resolution’ and ‘peacebuilding’. This thesis goes beyond generalisation and undertakes a forensic examination of the CFSP statements, decisions, and actions precisely through the lens of Conflict Resolution (CR): a specific subject area of study with its own normative, theoretical, and practical advantages and shortcomings; and with a more comprehensive and indeed seminal conceptualisation of peacebuilding. The outcome is a far more nuanced assessment of failure and success of the EU’s peace endeavours in this context than can be obtained through a broad-brush approach to analysis.

The objective of this thesis is to analyze whether the EU can be considered as a &lsquo / limited&rsquo / military/strategic actor or as a civilian actor in the Post-Cold War international security architecture. In this framework, the impacts of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the US-led war in Iraq on the EU crisis management capabilities are analyzed more specifically. In this framework, firstly, the historical dynamics of European foreign and security policy from the Post-World War II period to the Post-September 11 period are analyzed. Secondly, the EU&rsquo / s changing role in the international arena together with its crisis management capability is evaluated. Thirdly, the EU&rsquo / s international actorness in the Post-September 11 era is discussed with a special reference to the US-led war in Iraq. In this general framework, following a brief analysis on reactions of the US and the EU against global terrorism, crisis management strategy of the EU during and after US-led war in Iraq is analyzed in detail. The last part allocated to, a critical analysis of the security actorness of the EU is made in order to conceptualize it and to draw a more theoretical framework. Moreover, it is mentioned in this thesis that while having triggering effect on the CFSP and ESDP, the 9/11 events and the US-led war in Iraq provides the emergence of new methods for crisis management and the European Security Strategy. Accordingly, considering the new international security context beginning with the end of Cold War period and transforming to another dimension by means of September 11 attacks, the main argument of this thesis is that the EU still tends to be a civilian actor as it was before and it is envisaged to be so in the foreseeable future despite its latest attempts to develop its common security and defence policies.

The aim of this thesis was to study the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) Programme and the North Sea Region (NSR) Programme within the Transnational Interreg IV B Programme for the period 2007-2013, by making a comparison between Sweden and Denmark. The thesis looked at the level of involvement of both National Planning Authorities in the designing process of the programmes and projects, and investigated whether the Interreg programmes influence the authorities in their work with future policy-making, and the national spatial planning policies in general. The ambition of the thesis was also to clarify the links between the Interreg Programmes, the ESDP document, the Territorial State and Perspectives of the European Union and the Territorial Agenda, and how these documents have influenced the EU Territorial Cohesion debate and the creation of the EU Baltic Sea Strategy. The reason was to better understand the role of the National Planning Authorities in the implementation of the transnational programmes and their work towards territorial cohesion. The methods used for the thesis consisted of secondary research and analysis of the intergovernmental “Territorial Documents”, the Interreg programmes and their specific projects, and not least, the study of books, articles, and other documents and sources of interest for this topic. Interviews were made with people working at Swedish “Boverket”, Danish “By- og Landskabsstyrelsen” (BLST) and “Danske Regioner” (Danish Regions). Some of the main findings have been the different approaches among the Planning Authorities towards their potential leadership in the Interreg projects, the little time dedicated to the Interreg work in general at Swedish Boverket, and Boverket’s scarce intervention in the development-process of the EU Baltic Sea Strategy. On the Danish side there is very little priority given to the diffusion and transfer of knowledge, while in Sweden on the other hand, this is one of the main issues for all the authorities involved. The conclusion is that, even if Sweden and Denmark are close neighbours and are collaborating in many fields, there are some substantial differences in attitude and action towards their role as participators of the Transnational Interreg projects, differences which, if emphasised, could be useful knowledge for both parts in order to develop their own Interreg-work, responding to the growing interest of the EU in territorial concerns. / m.bengtsson@tiscali.it

American policy towards European integration process has always seemed equivocal: on one hand it actively supported and encouraged the process, but on the other hand it tried to contain some specific European ambitions and steer the process in a desirable direction. The objective of the thesis is to offer a possible explanation of the long-term US policy towards the European integration and European region in general. The dissertation presents a hypothesis that the American policy towards Europe since the Second World War until current times can be explained within the theorethical concept of "regional hegemony strategy". The concept builds on neorealist and neoliberal interpretations of hegemony, which are applied to the process of formulation of American grand strategy. It identifies a set of independent variables effecting the resulting strategy and operationalizes the expected strategy into particular goals. The empirical part of the dissertation then tests the established hyphothesis in two ways. In the first part it analyzes the identified independent variables and tests the causality betwen their historical evolution and evolution of the American grand strategy, especially in relation to the European region. In the consequent parts, it focuses on the American policy towards the European integration...

This dissertation scrutinises two related claims that were particularly heightened in 2009 as the European Union (EU) was celebrating the first tenth anniversary of its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), the implementing arm of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). First, the two policy frameworks allegedly embodied sufficient added value for bettering EU intervention for human protection purposes in third places. Second, the ESDP supposedly enabled the EU to make a difference in its response to two bloody wars that broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) successively in 1996 and 1998. This thesis argues that the alleged added value and difference have been overstated at best. While various studies have taken a similar position, they have important shortcomings for at least four reasons: lack of a comprehensive account of the CFSP motives, capacities, and response; exclusive focus on civil and military operations; focus on the post-Second Congo War period; and a lack of conceptual clarity regarding two key terms – ‘conflict resolution’ and ‘peacebuilding’. This thesis goes beyond generalisation and undertakes a forensic examination of the CFSP statements, decisions, and actions precisely through the lens of Conflict Resolution (CR): a specific subject area of study with its own normative, theoretical, and practical advantages and shortcomings; and with a more comprehensive and indeed seminal conceptualisation of peacebuilding. The outcome is a far more nuanced assessment of failure and success of the EU’s peace endeavours in this context than can be obtained through a broad-brush approach to analysis / European Community-funded Sustainable Peacebuilding (SPBUILD) Research Training Network; University of Deusto’s ‘RETOS’ research group on socio-cultural and human rights challenges in a changing world.

The dissertation is about the impact of the European Union (EU) on the foreign policy of a candidate in the pre-accession period. More specifically, the research analyses the factors and processes that intervene between the EU power to generate change in Turkish foreign policy and Turkish national compliance with the EU conditions between 1997 and 2005 by way of analysing three cases: Turkish foreign policy towards Cyprus issue, Greek-Turkish bilateral problems in the Aegean Sea; and Turkey’s stance vis-à-vis the launch of the ESDP. Main question the research addresses is “why does a candidate choose to comply (or fail to comply) with the EU conditions in foreign policy?” In other words: “How (through what mechanisms) does the EU generate compliance with the EU conditions in foreign policy?” The dissertation approaches these questions through the perspective of the Europeanization literature and its conditionality school drawing on the Rational Choice Institutionalism. In accordance with this rationalist account, main argument the doctoral research intends to prove is that “the EU’s adaptational pressure on Turkey (operationalized as a function of clear/attainable membership perspective and credible conditionality policy) is a necessary yet not a sufficient condition for domestic compliance in foreign policy if the cost of compliance is high for the target government. In this respect, domestic actors’ strategic calculation is the ultimate determinant of the compliance degrees at the domestic level. In order to prove this core hypothesis, the research used theory testing process-tracing, longitudinal comparison of cases, counter-factual reasoning and the use of a control case. The evidence for testing the argument comes from the measurement of conditionality (measured as the linkage between a given foreign policy condition and membership-related reward) and domestic compliance (measured as foreign policy output ranging from rhetorical to behavioural change) through the content analysis of primary documents. This analysis is complemented with 33 semi-structured elite interviews. The dissertation by proving that the EU’s transformative power in foreign policy works through the cost and benefit calculation of the ruling party and by elaborating on the conditions under which the EU can interfere with this rational calculus (hence modify the opportunity structure for the target government), advances our understanding of the EU’s transformative power and contributes to the Accession Europeanization literature in general. Furthermore, the study provides additional empirical as well as theoretical in-depth case knowledge to the available literature on the Europeanization of Turkey and Turkish foreign policy. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Le grand élargissement de 2004 et la perspective d’une Europe élargie ont amené l’Union européenne (UE) à imaginer un cadre contractuel d’action homogène pour les voisins de l’Est et du Sud dénommée la politique européenne de voisinage (PEV). L’objectif de la PEV est d’éviter l’émergence de nouvelles lignes de division entre l'UE élargie et ses nouveaux voisins, mais également d’encourager la stabilité politique, la sécurité et la prospérité économique dans son voisinage. Il s'agit d'une stratégie incitative fondée sur une plus grande différenciation visant à encourager les réformes politiques et économiques internes. Dans le cadre de la PEV, l’UE propose au Maroc, à travers le statut avancé (SA), une relation privilégiée à mi-chemin entre association et adhésion basée sur l’acquis du Processus de Barcelone (PB). Les transformations des relations euromarocaines après la PEV ont permis l’émergence progressive d’une nouvelle forme relationnelle avec un impact positif sur la dimension bilatérale du partenariat euro-méditerranéen (PEM). Entre complémentarité et substitution, c’est la question de l’articulation entre les deux processus qui est au centre de notre étude. Outre cette problématique, le SA qui incarne la PEV suscite des incertitudes quant à sa finalité. Ce partenariat privilégié a pour finalité de mettre le Maroc dans une situation comparable à celle des États candidats à l’adhésion sans perspective d'adhésion. Dans un contexte international en pleine mutation et face à l’émergence d’autres puissances en Méditerranée, l’UE devrait repenser sa PEV, identifier un projet clair et cohérent visant à structurer les relations euro-méditerranéennes de demain. / The great 2004 enlargement and the prospect of an enlarged Europe led the European Union (EU) to imagine a uniform contractual framework for action for the neighboring Eastern and Southern named the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The objective of the ENP is to avoid the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and its new neighbors, but also to encourage political stability, security and economic prosperity inits neighborhood. It is an incentive strategy based on greater differentiation to encourage internal political and economic reforms. Under the ENP, the EU proposes to Morocco, through the Advanced Status (AS), a privileged relationship midway between association and membership based on the acquis of the Barcelona Process (BP). The transformation of Euro-Moroccan relations after the ENP allowed for the gradual emergence of a novel relational framework with a positive impact on the bilateral dimension of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). Between complementarity and substitution, the question of the relationship between the two processes is central in our study. In addition to this addressed question, the AS that embodies the ENP, creates uncertainty to its purpose. This special partnership aims at putting Morocco in a situation such that of the States applying for accession without membership prospects. In an international context, changing with the emergence of other powers in the Mediterranean, the EU should rethink its ENP, identify a clear and coherent plan to structure the Euro-Mediterranean relations in the future.