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No / This book seeks to analyse the development of the European Union (EU), which was founded upon the principle of the free movement of capital, goods, services and people in 1957. Its central thesis is that, from a practical and theoretical point of view, such a basis is fundamentally at odds with the creation of an interventionist regime that the construction of a social Europe would require.

The economic crisis in the European Union has raised numerous policy questions. It has also raised many important questions for scholars. One of these is the question of why we have witnessed such radically divergent reform speeds in different countries under Economic Adjustment Programmes. Closer examination of these Programmes clearly shows their high degree of uniformity, so that the answer cannot be found in the nature of policy input. This thesis instead takes a Varieties of Capitalism approach. Looking in depth at the cases of Greece and Ireland, which represent polar opposites of the spectrum of economic models within the EU, this thesis argues that success of Economic Adjustment Programmes crucially depends on a country’s pre-existing economic model. This insight challenges the current approach to crisis resolution, which endorses a ‘one size fits all’ approach to structural reforms. An adapted version of Bruno Amable’s Varieties of Capitalism (VOC) approach is conducive to detailed analysis, as it permits disaggregating the structural reform agenda according to five institutional areas. Thus, reform patterns can be compared between countries as well as between institutional areas. The hypothesis put forward in this dissertation is that the reforms promoted in Greece and Ireland can be accurately described as a reform trajectory intended to take both countries closer to a market based variety of capitalism. The analysis, based on textual analysis of the Economic Adjustment Programmes, as well as interviews with Greek, Irish and European policy-makers, suggests that VOC predicts reform trajectories largely accurately. The application of Amable’s approach also revealed its weaknesses, particularly in underestimating the role of political decision making in times of crisis through a rather mechanistic conceptualisation of the EAP implementation process. This is addressed through the inclusion of Streeck and Thelen’s mapping of political responses to external change, adding an important component to the VOC literature and making it suitable to the analysis of reform in crisis conditions.

The thesis concers with position of Poland in contemporary Europe. We try to answer following research questions: What are the factors influencing polish european policy? Has Poland become a regional power?

This dissertation examines the welfare state and social pacts and determines both the causes for their decline and the political effects of their erosion in a series of three papers. Though each of these papers stands alone, together they speak to the growing influence of the European Union, which I find has been a catalyst for retrenchment and diminished social pacts in the aftermath of the Eurozone Crisis. Furthermore, it has been an underestimated factor in the contemporary spike in support for radical right parties. In an era where unpopular policies are imposed by governments under pressure from supranational entities, this volume answers the question of how the public responds to and perceives these changes. Importantly, this dissertation finds that there are two distinct national models for how the public responds to unpopular policies and ultimately the distinction between these two models is whether or not the public rewards parties for past performance or simply punishes them for unpopular policies. This volume sheds light on a political world where austerity is the consensus policy and national governments are constrained by supranational politics. The first paper presents an experimental design testing how the policy evaluations of people in Sweden and the U.K. are influenced by partisan cues. I develop the concept of issue deficits, building and expanding upon the issue ownership literature and behavioral economics. The results show two distinct models, with Sweden acting according to the issue ownership model and the U.K. acting according to my issue deficit theory. My second paper combines a large-N analysis of a cross-national survey with a qualitative analysis, which demonstrates that Euroskepticism is a major independent driver of support for radical right parties. My third paper shows that the European Union has been a significant factor in the decline of social pacts in Europe using a nested analysis. Pressure from the EU can either produce negotiations or stifle them, depending on if the pressure is visible in the public sphere.

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The European integration process has been a relevant topic since the creation of the European Communities. Member states of the European Union have often formed its projections on the development of the institutions, either favoring further integration or disagreeing with it. In this study, the establishment of the perception of European integration will be analyzed. This will be done through a critical discourse analysis on four speeches by four different conservative leaders of Germany and Britain. Speeches selected from German political leaders are by Helmut Kohl, a speech from 1991, and Angela Merkel, a speech held in 2012. The two British leaders’ speeches, which will be analyzed, are by Margaret Thatcher, a speech from 1988, and David Cameron, a speech held in 2013. After the analysis of each speech, a comparison will be made in order to consider a development in perception of the two countries. Two relevant European integration theories, supranationalism and intergovernmentalism will be applied, as well as the concept of Euroscepticism. These have helped to come up with the results: Germany has developed a clear supranational, pro- European stance towards the EU and British leaders the opposite, a clear Eurosceptic, intergovernmental perception. Both stances have developed increasingly towards both poles.

La thèse porte sur la "reconversion partisane" de la social-démocratie en Europe. Elle propose une explication au paradoxe apparent entre d’une part l'existence de travaux décrivant la crise voire la mort du régime social-démocrate d’après-guerre, et d’autre part la conservation par cette famille de partis de son statut de grande alternative de gouvernement. La reconversion partisane est définie comme une modalité particulière de changement partisan, qui seule pouvait permettre à la social-démocratie de surmonter l’obsolescence (plus ou moins avancée) de son projet, de sa coalition électorale et de son modèle organisationnel. M’inscrivant dans la tradition de l’institutionnalisme historique, je propose une étude macrosociologique et comparée de quatre processus de reconversion, analysés de manière systématique au Royaume-Uni, en France, en Suède et en Allemagne. Leurs similarités et leurs différences sont ensuite expliquées, notamment à l’aide de plusieurs variables susceptibles de peser sur la forme et la temporalité des reconversions. Mon travail s’achève sur une appréciation provisoire de la mise à l’épreuve des reconversions par la grande crise économique en cours depuis 2008. Au-delà de l’éclairage nouveau qu’elle projette sur la trajectoire historique de cette famille politique, la thèse est une contribution à la littérature sur le changement partisan, sur la "cartellisation" des grands partis de gouvernement, et sur l’adaptation de ces derniers aux mutations de la structure des clivages politiques en Europe. Elle illustre aussi comment une approche "intégrée" des partis (sur plusieurs niveaux d’analyse) peut entrer dans un dialogue fécond avec les travaux sur les recompositions contemporaines de l’Etat moderne et du capitalisme. / The thesis deals with the "partisan conversion" of social democracy in Europe. It aims to resolve the apparent paradox between the existence of many publications describing the crisis or even the death of social democracy on one hand, and the fact that this political family has remained one of the major party alternatives on the other hand. We define the partisan conversion as a singular type of party change, which was the only one that could help the Social democrats to overcome the obsolescence of their project, electoral support and organizational model. My analysis is methodologically anchored in the historical institutionalism paradigm. It offers a macrosociological comparison of four processes of partisan conversion in the United Kingdom, France, Sweden and Germany. The similarities and differences between these processes are then explained, partly through a set of variables weighing on the structure and the temporality of conversions. My work ends with an appreciation of how theses conversions have been put under stress by the 2008 global crisis. The thesis thus provides a reconstructed picture of the historical path of social democracy, additional analytical tools to the literature in party change, and some insights to the reflections about the contemporary cleavage structures. Our intention is also to prove the usefulness of an investigation nurtured by the most recent works on global capitalism and the modern state.

In the field of European studies, the notion of ‘differentiated integration’ (Stubb 1996) was developed in the late 1990s as an alternative to the crude membership/non-membership dichotomy. While the theoretical benefits of this approach are broadly discussed in the existing literature, further empirical studies have been deemed necessary (Holzinger and Schimmelfennig 2012). The Nordic states constitute a particularly interesting laboratory in order to study this phenomenon. Indeed, while these states share several socio-economic and political characteristics, they also differ in terms of their relationship with the European Union. Several studies on these relationships emphasise the relevance of certain contextual variables as key explanatory factors for the variation in attitudes between the Nordic states. However, there is also lack of analysis that looks into the domestic political features that these countries share. Furthermore, most studies in the field tend to ignore the respective government’s positions on European integration, and mostly adopt a top-down approach when focusing on the nation-state as a whole. Adopting a most similar systems design, this thesis aims to answer the following question: have Nordic government preferences on European integration been influenced by domestic political factors? In order to answer this question, four domestic variables are introduced and analysed: relative strength of parties in parliament; composition of government; type of government; and government ideology. Within this comparative framework, three Nordic countries have been selected: the first one belonging to the ‘inner core’ of the European Union (Finland);; while the second is located at its ‘outer core’ (Sweden);; and the third one serves as a control case as an ‘EU-outsider’ which is still located in the Union’s ‘inner periphery’ (Norway). For each state, the analysis starts in the early 1990s, when ‘Europe’ developed into a politically salient issue in domestic politics. The focus is furthermore set on their respective government’s positions regarding five distinct policy areas: participation in the European Economic Area; application for European Union membership; participation in the Schengen Area; participation in the Economic and Monetary Union; and participation in European Battle Groups. The main findings of the thesis suggest that when analysing governments’ positions on (differentiated) European integration, the domestic political features should not be downplayed. For instance, the Swedish government’s opposition to participation in the EMU in 1997 is mostly explained by a lack of party consensus over this issue, unlike in Finland where a broad inter-party agreement was secured for this policy area. The analysis further suggests that studies on party and government preferences on Europe should focus on policy areas rather than on the issue of integration as a whole. Such a focus provides for better understanding of the nature of ‘Euroscepticism’ in the Nordic region and, to a broader extent, in Europe.

This thesis examines through the means of a comparative perspective, factors which have allowed the British National Party to enjoy recent electoral success at the local level under the leadership of party chairman Nick Griffin. Such electoral successes have arisen despite the seemingly relative obscurity of the party at the turn of the century. A number of different aspects are examined in order to achieve this aim. The history of the far right in the UK is examined to establish whether the BNP have changed their stance in comparison to previous far right movements. The BNP are also investigated comparatively with other West European parties who have enjoyed national success, as a means of discovering whether the party are similar to their far right neighbours and why they have not enjoyed similar national success. The press coverage of the BNP is examined at a local and national level, using content analysis and the LexisNexis database. The thesis looks at the role played by the BNP in local elections and the decline of participation in political activity, to establish if there is a link between these two factors. Finally a case study is taken of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, to establish directly if any of the above factors can be directly applied to BNP electoral success in this district. The research discovers that there are opportunities for the BNP to establish a connection with the electorate in local politics which are not necessarily available at times of general election.