Why do some citizens of the European Union feel indeed European and others do not? Although the officials of the European Union introduced many symbols and discourses of unity, empirical studies show that the development of a sense of belonging at the popular level is slow. This dissertation, by drawing upon the established social identity theories, takes the investigation back to basics. It develops a model consisting of the basic premises of the identity theories as well as factors deriving from national and individual contexts that condition individual experiences relating to the aforementioned premises. Rather than developing new theories, this work's contribution to the study of European identity is that the study presents as complete a model as possible based on the existing theoretical frameworks as a cross-sectional analysis. Doing so, it unifies the disconnected literature on the issue within a consistent theoretical logic and cross-validates the patterns found in 15 countries through a large N multivariate analysis based on the Eurobarometer 2000. Results yield that social identity theories are confirmed in the case of European identity except for external demarcation principle.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-127). Also available via the World Wide web.

Thesis (M.A.. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Donald Abenheim, Edwin R. Micewski. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

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The European Union (EU) and Australia share a significant volume of historical connections in languages, cultures, economic and trade relationships, political views and ideas. These associations have had different levels of strength and frequencies in the past, depending on how these two political entities interacted with each other in the framework of international relations. Australia and the EU jointly developed an important political and socio-economic basis for working together, and cooperation between them is deeper and more common than the public might perceive to be the case. The EU is a growing superstructure; meanwhile Australia is a developed and successful nation, a successful democracy and a middle power. Nevertheless, Australia cannot expect to match the power and position of a polity, which comprises 28 different countries. This fact can produce a certain asymmetric relationship in the connection between these two political entities' communities. These asymmetric elements in the collaboration between them are liable to create certain discrepancies and disharmonies in the development of their different agreements in general. This thesis aims to examine the scope and depth of the EU-Australia working relationship, the convergent and the divergent issues within it. This exploration provides an analysis of the philosophical and sociological foundations of international relations in general, with special regard to the framework of sociological constructivism and sociological institutionalism, as possible catalysers in the growth and furtherance of the many-sided EU-Australia collaboration. To reach the most effective and efficient cooperation between the European Union and Australia, which includes the efforts to alleviate the urgent environmental sustainability and related problems regionally, and in a globalising world, will go a long way to create peace, security, and prosperity in Eurasia and in the Pacific. The EU-Australia mutual relationship is facilitated through shared values, norms and normative principles, such as the constitutive norms of liberty, democracy, good governance; the regulative norms of the centrality of peace, human rights, social solidarity, environmental sustainability; and the evaluative norms of the rule of law, transparency, human dignity and anti-discrimination. The willingness of the European Union and Australia to partake in a joint experience of continuous social learning process, provide them the power to achieve their aims together in a changing world.

European Union membership affects budgetary practices in Britain and France much more than the conventional literature acknowledges. Budgetary Europeanisation, defined as the process of adaptation of budgetary processes to EU pressures, involves not merely the compliance of budgetary aggregates to EU guidelines but mainly changes in bureaucratic practices, methods and strategies. Budgetary institutions have become hybrid because of the growing entanglement of national and EU budgetary procedures; therefore the conventional national approach to budgeting is outdated. The impact on budgeting is greater on spending than on taxing because unanimous voting safeguards national governments' sovereignty on taxation. The thesis isolates various pressures which contribute to budgetary Europeanisation (competition, substitution, regulation, lobbying and demand by Member States). It explains strategic differences between Britain and France. The Euro-PES mechanism and the Fontainebleau agreement in the UK explain the non-maximisation strategy of British administration, which contrasts to the French, based on the "principe de constance" and sectoral rates-of-return. The thesis compares the processes of adaptation of bureaucratic mechanisms to the consequences of EU membership in different policy domains (Agriculture, Transport and Health). It concludes that the degree of adaptation of EU pressures is higher when national bureaucrats often interact with international actors because they are better able to influence decisions at EU level (a major difference between Transport and Health). It confirms the link between budgetary Europeanisation and the amount of EU finance in departments' budgets, but it shows that this link is a secondary explanation of differences in degrees of Europeanisation. Finally, the thesis shows how EU programmes promoted shifts in national decision-making, with greater effect on the processes of decision-making than on the substance of policy. This analysis suggests that national administrations retain a large margin of manoeuvre both in policy-making and in finance, and through their participation in the EU budgetary process.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-229)

Univ., Diss.--Rostock, 1999.