The thesis examines the impacts of European integration on interest representation in an EU applicant country, Hungary. The study identifies and explores the mechanisms of Europeanisation and their effects on the organisation and functioning of interest groups and of interest representation structures. The study primarily uses the qualitative method. The empirical part consists of three detailed case studies, covering the pharmaceutical sector, the agricultural sector, and peak employers' associations. The research is largely based on primary data gained from interviews and documents. Each case study explores the inclusion of Hungarian interest groups in the European level of interest representation, their participation in EU-related policy-making, and the European policy impacts on group developments and interest representation structures. The theories of Europeanisation constitute the primary analytical framework for the study. In addition in an attempt of contextualisation, the theories of political and economic transition and consolidation are also examined. The empirical chapters indicate a variation in the forms and degree to which Europeanisation affected interest representation in Hungary. Sectoral, group and interest representation structure characteristics, and the nature of the EU level interest representation are examined as the variables responsible for the differences. The research findings point to the need to distinguish between formal and substantive Europeanisation. It is also argued that Europeanisation is closely intertwined with and embedded in the double process of political and economic transition and consolidation in the Central and Eastern European context

<p>European Union (EU) Enlargement is more than a collaboration of nations; it has become a large-scale development project where countries facing significant economic challenges undergo enormous transitions in order to meet the standards for acceptance into the EU. This level of accelerated development calls for a strong integrated sustainable development oversight.</p><p>Sustainable development is a global development management philosophy that aims to conserve the integrity of the earth’s ecosystems while supporting economic growth and social welfare. It was developed by the Brundtland Commission during the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987, its primary purpose was to reduce the resistance to the conservation of the environment while raising awareness for the importance of the earth’s natural resources, both for those who need it today and those who will need it tomorrow.</p><p>The aim of this study was to investigate the degree to which sustainable development has been implemented into the process of EU Enlargement. A snowball method was used to identify both qualitative and quantitative data through official documents and statements, reports, research, and web pages. First, I investigated both the EU and the UN definitions of sustainable development to see how they compared and how the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS) addressed EU Enlargement. Next, I examined the EU accession assistance programs available to candidate countries to determine if they were guided by sustainable development and if they had had any influence on the sustainable development within the candidate countries.</p><p>The definitions of sustainable development for both the EU and the UN were notably different. The UN:s definition provided a balanced approach to the Three Pillars of Sustainable Development, while the EU:s definition strongly supported the economic pillar decreasing the value of the environmental pillar. The EU SDS showed no marked reference to EU Enlargement and the accession assistance programs were not guided by sustainable development. Furthermore, the quantitative data collected from the EU sustainable development indicators in EuroStat indicated that the process of accession increased candidate countries GDP growth which also increased their capacity to meet the MDG’s and therefore, to implement sustainable development. However, while economic and social standards of the candidate countries were shown to increase while environmental conservation was shown to decrease. The significant lack of data designed to monitor the environmental pillar of sustainable development within the EU:s strategy indicated that the environmental pillar of sustainable development has been neglected. In conclusion, while the capacity to implement sustainable development has increased, implementation of sustainable development has not. Discussed in response to this is the need for a comprehensive EU SDS that reaches through the boundaries of member states and into candidate and candidate hopeful countries. Acting through an umbrella program the EU Enlargement SDS could bring both enlargement and sustainable development together cohesively increasing the chances that new EU members will make a more rapid advance in the process of sustainable development.</p>

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After the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, large numbers of Central and Eastern Europeans moved to work in Western Europe. The aim of this thesis is to use the case of migration after the enlargement to further our understanding of the relationship between immigrant group size and natives’ attitudes. Recent scholarly debates raise questions about how immigration affects European societies and the political durability of European welfare states. This research puts forward two questions: Does an increase in Eastern European immigration after the enlargement explain differences in civic attitudes in Western Europe? And second, does this relationship (if any) depend on national contextual factors? The relationship between immigration and three categories of public attitudes are examined: attitudes towards immigration, attitudes towards welfare and attitudes of trust. This thesis draws on ethnic competition theory, which postulates that group competition over resources provokes the natives to perceive immigration as a threat to their own or their group’s interests. To test this theory, this study uses data from the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2010 to build multi-level pooled time series models. The results find only partial support for ethnic competition theory. When a greater proportion of E-8 migrants live in the country, individuals tend to have more positive views about immigration. The results also show that this positive relationship is weakened when national economic conditions are more precarious. Additionally, the results do not find that E8 migration is negatively related to Western European attitudes regarding trust or welfare. This implies that as more immigrants arrive, Europeans can potentially acknowledge immigration’s economic and cultural benefits. Moreover, these results challenge pessimistic scholarly predictions that immigration erodes trust and support for welfare in Europe. This thesis offers two academic contributions. First, it considers the case of E8 migration, which has been ignored by existing comparative attitudinal studies about immigration. Second, focusing on post-enlargement migration helps this thesis to overcome common empirical obstacles such as cross-country differences in immigrant composition and admission criteria.

The year of 1989 was a milestone in re-creation of the European continent and the relations between states of Western and Eastern Europe. After the collapse of Eastern Bloc, namely the end of the Cold War era, the relations were reshaped and there was a convergence of the Western and Eastern sides of the continent to common values, rules and political and economic structures. As a result of these new developments in the continent, the fifth enlargement wave of the European Union occurred. This was a controversial issue for the entire Europe. According to many scholars and researchers, Poland&rsquo / s political history and geography caused Poland to be perceived as a special case for the European Union. Poland could be seen as the most difficult candidate for the European Union membership in terms of its population and size. Because of its so-called &ldquo / special position&rdquo / , its membership was discussed in terms of whether being a stumbling block in the enlargement process. The main motivations behind Poland&rsquo / s goal of being a member of the Union were political and security-related. On the other hand, the challenges of membership were mostly concerning economic effects of membership on &ldquo / losers&rdquo / of the process, and social issues. Accession and integration process was a very difficult and complex period for all candidate countries. Poland created new institutions, bodies and charged many people for this process. The analysis of the organisational structure established in Poland for negotiations and the entire integration process shows that Poland created a well-functioning and efficient structure and was able to execute a stable integration process. The negotiations were carried out in 31 chapters with each candidate country. While some negotiation chapters could be accepted as easy topics, some of them required a hard &ldquo / bargaining&rdquo / in order to close the chapter. Five problematic chapters, free movement of persons, free movement of capital (particularly acquisition of real estate by foreigners), agriculture, environment, financial and budgetary provisions, could be accepted as the examples of tricky and hard negotiation chapters. As a conclusion, it can be said that Poland achieved NATO and EU membership, which were its twin goals in 1990s. Although, Poland was perceived as one of the most controversial candidates in European Union&rsquo / s most comprehensive and difficult enlargement movement, the &ldquo / big bang&rdquo / , it could constitute well-functioning coordination mechanisms and conclude the negotiations on time with the other candidate countries. Poland did not become a stumbling block in the enlargement process and concluded its accession process successfully.

European Union (EU) Enlargement is more than a collaboration of nations; it has become a large-scale development project where countries facing significant economic challenges undergo enormous transitions in order to meet the standards for acceptance into the EU. This level of accelerated development calls for a strong integrated sustainable development oversight. Sustainable development is a global development management philosophy that aims to conserve the integrity of the earth’s ecosystems while supporting economic growth and social welfare. It was developed by the Brundtland Commission during the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987, its primary purpose was to reduce the resistance to the conservation of the environment while raising awareness for the importance of the earth’s natural resources, both for those who need it today and those who will need it tomorrow. The aim of this study was to investigate the degree to which sustainable development has been implemented into the process of EU Enlargement. A snowball method was used to identify both qualitative and quantitative data through official documents and statements, reports, research, and web pages. First, I investigated both the EU and the UN definitions of sustainable development to see how they compared and how the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS) addressed EU Enlargement. Next, I examined the EU accession assistance programs available to candidate countries to determine if they were guided by sustainable development and if they had had any influence on the sustainable development within the candidate countries. The definitions of sustainable development for both the EU and the UN were notably different. The UN:s definition provided a balanced approach to the Three Pillars of Sustainable Development, while the EU:s definition strongly supported the economic pillar decreasing the value of the environmental pillar. The EU SDS showed no marked reference to EU Enlargement and the accession assistance programs were not guided by sustainable development. Furthermore, the quantitative data collected from the EU sustainable development indicators in EuroStat indicated that the process of accession increased candidate countries GDP growth which also increased their capacity to meet the MDG’s and therefore, to implement sustainable development. However, while economic and social standards of the candidate countries were shown to increase while environmental conservation was shown to decrease. The significant lack of data designed to monitor the environmental pillar of sustainable development within the EU:s strategy indicated that the environmental pillar of sustainable development has been neglected. In conclusion, while the capacity to implement sustainable development has increased, implementation of sustainable development has not. Discussed in response to this is the need for a comprehensive EU SDS that reaches through the boundaries of member states and into candidate and candidate hopeful countries. Acting through an umbrella program the EU Enlargement SDS could bring both enlargement and sustainable development together cohesively increasing the chances that new EU members will make a more rapid advance in the process of sustainable development.

This thesis explores how and why the United States (U.S.) support for Turkey&rsquo / s participation in the European Union(EU) shifted from being an asset to a liability for Turkey between the years of l995 and 2005. There have been some earlier studies that analyzed the impact of U.S. support for Turkey&rsquo / s inclusion in the EU on EU-Turkey relations. The purpose of this study is to contribute further to that literature with a plausible explanation for the shifting influence of the United States on EUTurkey relations, utilizing the multi-dimensional approach of neoclassical realism. This thesis focuses on the changing EU-U.S. relations in the altered international climate after the end of the Cold War / the attempts and strategy of the U.S. in supporting Turkish membership in the EU / and why the reactions of EU leaders and politicians to U.S. interventions turned in a much more negative direction during the early 2000s. By applying neoclassical realism and its flexible methodology, this thesis is highly sensitive to the multi-levels of influence behind given policy outcomes by balancing the role of external structural factors with domestic contexts and constraints. This analysis demonstrates that besides the international climate, a range of EU level and domestic factors operated together in influencing the EU decisions about Turkey and reactions to US interventions during the early 2000s. In turn, this analysis supplies evidence that, consistent with the perspective of neoclassical realism, external influences as well as a range of domestic influences should all be taken into consideration for a complete understanding of international policy outcomes and postures.

From the beginning of 2000 the European accession process was placed at the centre of peace-building in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The prospect of EU membership provided a common vision that could encourage different segments of society and the political elites to bridge ethnic divergences and engage in authentic post-war reconciliation. As a pre-accession criterion the European Union required Bosnia and Herzegovina to unify its fragmented policing system at the level of the state. However, this requirement proved to be a step too far, resulting in a protracted and ultimately unsuccessful process of political negotiations that lasted from 2004 to 2007. This thesis analyses the police reform negotiating process. In the aftermath of interethnic violence, ethnic communities tend to focus on protecting their self-continuity and, as a result, aspects of identity and security become closely linked. It was for this reason that the European Union’s insistence on placing law enforcement authority at the state level in Bosnia and Herzegovina came to be viewed as an identity threat, which subsequently affected interethnic group dynamics in a negative way. From this premise, the study goes on to assess the impact of the negotiating process on the political discourse in Bosnia and Herzegovina and on public notions of societal security. The study illustrates the background and rationale of the European Union’s strategy and analyses the dynamics between the international community and the domestic political elite. The conclusions of the thesis are drawn from interviews with the principal domestic politicians and the main international policymakers of the international community, and also from a broad range of opinion surveys as well as the original documentation of the negotiating process.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a geopolítica da Turquia após as transformações que alteraram o ambiente geopolítico em escala mundial. Desde a fundação da República da Turquia, Ancara tem desenvolvido relações preferenciais com o Ocidente, implementando diversas adaptações políticas, sociais e econômicas a fim de superar definitivamente o legado otomano e se ajustar às exigências do mundo ocidental. Durante a Guerra Fria, a Turquia passou a integrar a Aliança Transatlântica e serviu como elemento de contenção da União Soviética. Entretanto, o fim do mundo bipolar reduziu a importância da Turquia para a ampla estratégia de contenção americana, trazendo a necessidade de novos argumentos para manter o seu peso estratégico. Ao mesmo tempo, surgiram novas oportunidades para Ancara, especialmente quanto ao desenvolvimento de relações econômicas e culturais com os Estados independentes da ex-União Soviética. Os atentados de 11 de setembro e a reação norte-americana colocaram a Turquia novamente no centro da política americana como exemplo de compatibilidade entre o Islã e a modernidade ocidental e no combate ao terrorismo. Diversas interpretações do espaço geopolítico mundial destacam a importância da Turquia, desde sua importância estratégico-militar até seu papel como interlocutora entre o Ocidente e o mundo muçulmano, dentro de uma sugestão de choque entre as civilizações. Apesar disso, a Turquia ainda enfrenta sérios desafios externos em todas as direções, entrelaçados com seus problemas internos que, por muitas vezes, ultrapassam suas fronteiras e se tornam assuntos transnacionais. / The aim of this research is to evaluate Turkey\'s Geopolitics after the tectonic forces that reshaped the balance of power and the geopolitcs at a world level. Since its foundation after the Ottoman Empire break up in the years immediately following World War I, Ankara started to adapt itself in Western structures, such as NATO. The collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe, raised some doubts about Turkey\'s importance to the West. However, the aftershocks at the beginning of the twenty-first century and the War on Terrorism launched by the US and its allies, pushed Turkey from the Western periphery to the very center of world politics, thrusting Turkey into an increasingly role in the Middle East, the Southeastern Europe, and Caucasus/ Central Asia. In addition, its geopolitcal position interpreted by some scholars reinforced its strategic and, at some extend, crucial position to the West and to the system evolution. At the same time, Turkey\'s aspiration to become a member of the European Union, its ethnic, linguistic and religious affinities to the Turkic republics combined with the energy resources issues eastwards and its security concerns in the Middle East, reveal the complexity and the challenges facing Turkey.

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a geopolítica da Turquia após as transformações que alteraram o ambiente geopolítico em escala mundial. Desde a fundação da República da Turquia, Ancara tem desenvolvido relações preferenciais com o Ocidente, implementando diversas adaptações políticas, sociais e econômicas a fim de superar definitivamente o legado otomano e se ajustar às exigências do mundo ocidental. Durante a Guerra Fria, a Turquia passou a integrar a Aliança Transatlântica e serviu como elemento de contenção da União Soviética. Entretanto, o fim do mundo bipolar reduziu a importância da Turquia para a ampla estratégia de contenção americana, trazendo a necessidade de novos argumentos para manter o seu peso estratégico. Ao mesmo tempo, surgiram novas oportunidades para Ancara, especialmente quanto ao desenvolvimento de relações econômicas e culturais com os Estados independentes da ex-União Soviética. Os atentados de 11 de setembro e a reação norte-americana colocaram a Turquia novamente no centro da política americana como exemplo de compatibilidade entre o Islã e a modernidade ocidental e no combate ao terrorismo. Diversas interpretações do espaço geopolítico mundial destacam a importância da Turquia, desde sua importância estratégico-militar até seu papel como interlocutora entre o Ocidente e o mundo muçulmano, dentro de uma sugestão de choque entre as civilizações. Apesar disso, a Turquia ainda enfrenta sérios desafios externos em todas as direções, entrelaçados com seus problemas internos que, por muitas vezes, ultrapassam suas fronteiras e se tornam assuntos transnacionais. / The aim of this research is to evaluate Turkey\'s Geopolitics after the tectonic forces that reshaped the balance of power and the geopolitcs at a world level. Since its foundation after the Ottoman Empire break up in the years immediately following World War I, Ankara started to adapt itself in Western structures, such as NATO. The collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe, raised some doubts about Turkey\'s importance to the West. However, the aftershocks at the beginning of the twenty-first century and the War on Terrorism launched by the US and its allies, pushed Turkey from the Western periphery to the very center of world politics, thrusting Turkey into an increasingly role in the Middle East, the Southeastern Europe, and Caucasus/ Central Asia. In addition, its geopolitcal position interpreted by some scholars reinforced its strategic and, at some extend, crucial position to the West and to the system evolution. At the same time, Turkey\'s aspiration to become a member of the European Union, its ethnic, linguistic and religious affinities to the Turkic republics combined with the energy resources issues eastwards and its security concerns in the Middle East, reveal the complexity and the challenges facing Turkey.