Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 307-323). Also available on the Internet.

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Στην παρούσα εργασία εξετάζονται τα αποτελέσματα της οικονομίας της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης στη δομή των επιχειρήσεων των χωρών-μελών. Δίνεται ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στο κομμάτι στο πως συλλέχθηκαν τα δεδομένα και το πώς ταξινομούνται ώστε να έχουμε επαρκή και αξιόπιστα αποτελέσματα στην περιγραφή των δεδομένων μας. Προκειμένου να μελετήσουμε τη δομή των Ευρωπαϊκών επιχειρήσεων, χρησιμοποιήσαμε δεδομένα ανά κλάδο δραστηριότητας και ανά Ευρωπαϊκή περιφέρεια που συλλέξαμε από τη eurostat για τα έτη 1997-2007. Οι επιχειρήσεις ανάλογα με τον τομέα που δραστηριοποιούνται έχουν καταταχθεί σε γενικότερους κλάδους σύμφωνα με την επίσημη στατιστική κατηγοριοποίηση της οικονομικής δραστηριότητας στην Ευρωπαϊκή κοινότητα κατά “NACE”. Οι κλάδοι των επιχειρήσεων που περιλαμβάνει το δείγμα μας είναι οι ακόλουθοι: D. Manufacturing (Κατασκευή σε βιομηχανίες), C. Mining and quarrying (Ορυκτός Πλούτος), E. Electricity, gas and water supply(Ηλεκτρισμός, παροχή αερίου και νερού), F. Construction (Οικοδομικές κατασκευές), G. Distributive trades(Διανεμητικό Εμπόριο), H. Hotels and Restaurants (Ξενοδοχεία και εστιατόρια), I. Transport, Storage and Communication (Μεταφορές και Αποθηκευτικός χώρος) και K. Real estate, renting and business activities(Κτηματομεσιτικές υπηρεσίες ενοικιάσεις και άλλες επιχειρηματικές δραστηριότητες). Για τις επιχειρήσεις (local units) του δείγματος εκτός από τον κλάδο και τη χώρα προέλευσης υπάρχει διαθέσιμη πληροφορία και για τον αριθμό των ατόμων που εργάζονται ως προσωπικό (workforce). Στη συνέχεια μετά από τη συλλογή των δεδομένων, αφού απορρίψαμε τις ελλείπουσες μεταβλητές (missing values), προχωρήσαμε σε περιγραφική ανάλυση των διάφορων κλάδων της οικονομικής δραστηριότητας σε επίπεδο χωρών ώστε να εξακριβώσουμε σε ποια χώρα εμφανίζουν την μεγαλύτερη συχνότητα, καθώς και την κατανομή του εργατικού δυναμικού και την κατανομή των διάφορων κλάδων σε χρονικό διάστημα δεκαετίας (1997-2007). Αυτή η ανάλυση έγινε σε επίπεδο τριετίας ώστε να εξάγουμε όσο το δυνατόν σαφέστερα αποτελέσματα. Η εξαγωγή όλων των παραπάνω συμπερασμάτων έγινε με τη βοήθεια του λογισμικού spss –το πιο εξειδικευμένο στατιστικό πρόγραμμα για επεξεργασία μεγάλου αριθμού μεταβλητών από τα εκάστοτε δείγματα. Ιδιαίτερη έμφαση πέρα από την αρχική ταξινόμηση των δεδομένων δώσαμε στο πως χειριστήκαμε τις missing values ώστε να δώσουμε όσο το δυνατόν πιο ακριβή και αξιόπιστα αποτελέσματα για την περιγραφική ανάλυση που θα ακολουθήσει. / In this work we present the structural business statistics of European area during a decade (1997-2007) of all countries –states of European Union. We used data from all structures of business activities and from each European state during the last decade. We collected the data from the official site of Eurostat. Businesses according to the sector that are activating have been categorized at more general units in compliance with the official statistical categorization of European business activities at European Community as "NACE". Our sample includes this sectors of businesses : D. Manufacturing, C. Mining and quarrying, E. Electricity, gas and water supply, F. Construction, G. Distributive trades, H. Hotels and Restaurants, I. Transport, Storage and Communication K. Real estate, renting and business activities. For all local units we have information about their sectors and the country that exist. We also have important information about the workforce that each sector includes. Then we selected the data and we rejected the missing values of the sample in order to conduct perigraphical statistical analysis for these sizes. We examined the frequency of each business structure in order to conclude at which country each sector has the larger frequency. We also examined the workforce distribution at each country during the last decade (1997-2007). All the conclusions are extracted with the use of specific statistical software-named spss –the most specific software for the collection and usage of data that are extracted from large samples. In this project we tried to be very careful at how we are going ro handle the missing values. And this happened in order to have the most accurate results as we could.

The research compares the energy security approaches and strategies of China and the EU since the early 2000's. It examines the nexus between strategies and approaches of the two actors and it seeks to highlight the importance of domestic issues such as energy security governance and domestic politics. In addition, it sheds light to the notion of hedging which has become recently a buzzword among political scientists. Finally, it takes a critical position towards the mainstream dichotomy between strategic and market-based approaches to energy security. Despite their structural differences, China and the EU share similarities regarding their conceptualization of energy security. Interestingly, both sides have based their perceptions on perceived and contested energy security risks. Hence, in the mid-2000's, the two actors securitized energy due to external factors such as the Russia-Ukraine gas crisis and the so-called "Malacca Strait dilemma". Domestic factors however served as a transmission belt and they determined the process of how these external challenges shaped their energy security perceptions and eventually their strategies. During the last years of the examined period, Beijing and Brussels have adopted more comprehensive and sophisticated approach. Their declared adherence to market-based principles reflects among others their interest in self-identifying as liberal actors. The latter has been a global trend among states. Furthermore, it is concluded that their energy security strategies have distinct differences as well as certain similarities. For many years, issues such as the "Malacca Dilemma" and the European dependence on Russian gas have played an important role to the energy security strategies of China and the EU. Again, the two actors have been incorporating strategic and market-based policies in their energy security strategies that aim at their domestic markets as well as abroad. In order to analyse the energy security perceptions of the two actors, the research assumed that China and the EU have been adopting a hedging strategy. While their behaviour has the characteristics of hedging, a basic difference between the two actors is that for China hedging is a strategic choice while for the EU hedging is a combination of policies adopted by different actors. As a result, while it can be accepted that China has been implementing a hedging strategy the EU has been merely pursuing a hedging behavior. The distinction between hedging strategy and hedging behavior stands as one of the theoretical contributions of this research. Finally, the research chooses the Caspian Sea region as a case-study in order to examine the energy security strategies of China and the EU. Both actors have been seeking access to the Caspian energy resources in order to hedge against their energy insecurities. Their approaches however are fundamentally different as China has established a strong foothold in the region adopting mainly mercantilistic tactics while the EU has been facing important hardships as a result of domestic setbacks that limit the effectiveness of its resource diplomacy as well as due to political incompatibility with the Caspian states. Using the Regional Security Complex Theory as a conceptual starting point, the research approaches the Caspian Sea region as an energy security complex where China and the EU have been also integrated. The research analyses the energy security strategies of China and the EU within the Caspian complex applying the theoretical framework of neoclassical realism. This theoretical novelty can be evaluated as successful and as a result, the research has established an alternative theoretical approach to regional security complexes.

Energy policy in the European Union (EU) is a patchwork of diverging interests and preferences. While the European Commission pushes for a common energy policy, Member States are responsible for their own separate energy policies. These divergences in interests and preferences might create a conflict situation between the Commission and Member States. This thesis explores the Commission’s behaviour vis-à-vis the Member States, investigating the conditions under which the Commission is likely to try to deviate from Member States’ preferences in the external dimension of the EU internal energy market. Adopting a Principal-Agent Model (PAM), this thesis conceptualizes the Member States as principals and the Commission as their agent. A qualitative case study approach and process-tracing method are applied to appreciate the variety of preferences of the actors involved, and provide a means to study the various shades of post-delegation agent’s behaviour. This thesis looks at four in-depth case studies: 1) Decision 994/2012 on establishing an information exchange mechanism with regard to intergovernmental agreements between Member States and third countries in the field of energy; 2) Directive 2009/73/EC on common rules for the internal market in gas; 3) Energy Community Treaty; and 4) Energy Charter Treaty. These were selected based on their relevance to the research question. Findings suggest that two factors are likely to affect the Commission’s deviation from Member States’ preferences: a) the preference alignment among the principals and b) the preference alignment between the principals and the agent. This thesis suggests that when the preferences between the agent and the principals are heterogeneous, the agent is more likely to deviate from the preferences of the principals. This thesis also suggests that the preference alignment among the principals only has a secondary effect on the agent’s deviation. Finally, this research contributes to the further development of the PAM offering a possible categorisation of post-delegation agent’s behaviour going beyond the dichotomy of deviation and non-deviation.

This paper aims to use different Taylor rules in analyzing the interest rate for the Euro Area. The Euro Area was chosen because it consists of all the countries that use the Euro. The European Central Bank also behaves with the national banks in much the same as manner as the US Federal Reserve Bank system. The Taylor rule is used because the main objective of the Euro Area is price stability. Two different Taylor rules are used in this paper: simple Taylor rule, and dynamic Taylor rule. Each Taylor rule is also broken down to include the individual country coefficients. This allows for the effect each country has on the Euro Area's monetary policy to be determined.

Why do interstate barriers persist and proliferate in the US and go unnoticed by neoliberal policy-makers, while in other places, like the EU, they get systematically addressed? I challenge the common assumption that the EU is trying but failing to emulate the single market created in the US a long time ago. I show that in many ways, the EU has adopted more liberal rules for the exchange of goods and services across its members states than the US has in effect across its state borders. Focused on the US, I assemble a wide-ranging set of evidence for this assertion ranging from federal policies pursued by conservative administrations since the 1980s and conservative think tank scholarship to an in-depth study of mobility and market barriers in the construction industry. To explain this, I develop two arguments. Firstly, I argue that American and European free-marketeers fundamentally conceptualize markets differently, with American conservatives seeing them as the natural product of government-non-intervention, and European officials seeing them has a deliberate creation of central authority. This leads to different market building strategies with differential effectiveness. At the same time, I argue that the fragmentation and decentralization of the party and interest representation system in the US incentivizes state by state and sector by sector thinking and dis-incentivizes political action—leaving the bigger picture, i.e. interstate barriers, unchanged. Especially interest groups struggle to articulate preferences for inter-state or cross-sectoral cooperation due to organizational incentives. Applying a Bayesian process-tracing logic to mostly within-case and some cross-case evidence, I test conventional structural and institutional theories against my account. Tracing the lack of mobilization of conservative policy-makers and agenda-setters around federal market authority since the 1980s, and interviews with firms, regulators, and legislators about interstate barriers in the construction industry, clearly demonstrate how their imagination of markets prevents a single market building agenda top-down while institutional structures prevent it bottom-up. This is a novel argument, speaking to broader debates about the socially-constructed nature of markets. Studying the US shows that interstate barriers and local protectionism flourish when no central authority deliberately creates ‘free markets’.

In the tumultuous political climate following Brexit, the European integration lives on borrowed time. With the ever-increasing need for democratic legitimacy on the EU stage, the ‘Early Warning Mechanism’ is viewed by many as the last salvation. Since its introduction to the EU with the Treaty of Lisbon of 2007, it has been used to trigger a subsidiarity test three times, issuing so called ‘yellow cards’ to the Commission, and forcing it to review its proposal on grounds of subsidiarity. However, the Commission has ruled in favor of itself at every instance, making both the EU and the Member States question its efficiency. By presenting the three yellow cards, this study aims to scrutinize the Commission’s and the Member States’ involvement in the EWM while discussing their views on subsidiarity as a whole.

This thesis focuses on national identity, constructed and represented in Poland’s media, and analyzes three daily newspapers which are diverse in their orientations as follows: Catholic Nasz Dziennik, pro-establishment business-conservative Rzeczpospolita, and independent center-left Gazeta Wyborcza. The research questions are how Gazeta Wyborcza, Nasz Dziennik, and Rzeczpospolita constitute national identity in content and what differences there are in identity construction in Gazeta Wyborcza, Nasz Dziennik, and Rzeczpospolita. The method is quantitative content analysis. It was found out that the Polish media employ a broad spectrum of identity construction strategies which could be defined as identification with and antagonizing from the European Union, redefining and creating new meanings of past events. The prevalent identity represented in the media is an identity of a civic and law-abiding democratic society. This identity is an outcome of political struggles in the country since 1989. The differences between three media types are minor: the media lack one established identity agenda and media content tends to depict the national identity as ambivalent. / <p>SPSS file https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GneVcb7iv2z0tUEIeNCAjJm6gQBPeJk7/view</p>