Les transformations profondes qui ont eu lieu dans la dernière décennie du XXème siècle - l'effondrement du communisme en Europe de l'Est et ses conséquences, la reconfiguration institutionnelle du continent européen - poussait la Roumanie ainsi que d'autres pays ayant fait partie du bloc communiste à revoir leurs positions sur la scène internationale, tout en acquérant la possibilité de choisir leur propre voie de développement. L'un des principaux leviers dont disposait la Roumanie pour faire face à ce défi était sa politique étrangère et cette dernière devait être revue et adaptée aux nouvelles réalités internationales. Notre recherche est une analyse sur près de 25 ans de la politique étrangère de la Roumanie afin de déceler la manière dont cette politique étrangère a évolué et de comprendre le comportement international de la Roumanie après l'adhésion à l'Union européenne. Le concept de l’européanisation nous a aidé à établir le sens de l’évolution de la politique étrangère roumaine. / The profound changes occurred in the last decade of the twentieth century - the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and its consequences, the institutional reconfiguration of the European continent - urged Romania and other former communist countries to review their positions on the international stage, while gaining the opportunity to choose their own path of development. One of the main levers Romania had to respond to this challenge was its foreign policy. But first of all its foreign policy should be reviewed and adapted to new international realities. Our research is an analysis of nearly 25 years of Romanian foreign policy aiming to observe its evolution and to understand the international behavior of Romania after the accession to the European Union. The concept of Europeanization was a useful tool for establishing the direction of the evolution of the Romanian foreign policy.

This thesis examines party-based Euroscepticism across four different national contexts in the period 2011-3 by bringing into focus right-wing populist parties. Understanding Europeanization as a label for the impact of engagement with the EU and its practical and normative influences on statecraft, policy-making, and the wider society, the thesis looks into the Europeanization of narratives of national identity, minority rights issues, immigration and citizenship. It discusses the way in which the impact of engagement with the EU is perceived as well as the nature of the arguments made against the EU’s involvement in associated policy processes. There has been a recent upsurge in Euroscepticism due to a combination of economic and political factors, on both the popular and party level in EU countries, as well as the increased blurring of the boundaries between mainstream and fringe Eurosceptics. Hence, it is important to analyze the precise reasons behind this phenomenon. The discussion focuses on “soft Euroscepticism” – the thesis is generally not interested in pondering the generic arguments against a country’s membership in supranational entities or shedding light on those parties who oppose the underlying values on which the EU project rests. The thesis therefore probes the attitudes of parties that – with the recent and partial exception of the PVV in the Netherlands – tend to emphasize relatively specific issue-areas as sources of concerns. This work is primarily based on qualitative methods - 32 elite interviews with nationalist-populist politicians including key figures such as party leaders (Rolf Schlierer, Gheorghe Funar), European Parliament representatives (Barry Madlener) and members of the National Parliament as well as of the general party councils (Ventsislav Lakov) in addition to detailed analysis of policy documentation and books authored by party representatives – and highlights and deconstructs these parties’ grievances attributable to nationalistically-oriented concerns. It includes a detailed literature review that clarifies the EU’s impacts and country-specific historical and contemporary differences in the four domains affected by “Europeanization” (Chapters 1-3) and then in Chapters 4-6 uses original empirical data to compare the attitudes of the four parties – Ataka, PRM, REP, and PVV – with regard to the issues already introduced. The thesis utilizes theoretical approaches drawn from several disciplines ranging from political science to sociology, though it mostly confines itself to those pertaining to core group or minority/ethno-regionalist nationalist mobilization, ethnic vs. civic nationalisms in Eastern vs. Western Europe, as well as the different role played by EU conditionality in relation to the political landscape on the two sides of the continent. Extrapolating from this body of research, it develops hypotheses and projections regarding the expected disconnect in viewpoints between Eastern and Western parties. The study finds that attitudes towards “Europeanized” issues areas diverge greatly and do not necessarily correlate with the extent to which EU membership as a whole is opposed by the party. In line with previous research findings, the EU’s capacity to create a super-order nationalism that could challenge conventional readings of patriotism is generally not conceptualized as a significant threat. However, the interviews did reveal that pre-existing transcendent identities – like Latin identity in the case of Romania or the Slavic one in Bulgaria - – are perceived as threatened or as being tacitly degraded due to assumed cultural biases within the EU. At the same time, the reduced salience of such identities among the members of the Western populist parties does not make them more sympathetic to Pan-Europeanism. EU effects on immigration are predictably rated as manifestly detrimental by the West European parties, because they distrust the professionalism of EU agencies and networks, dislike the Eastern Europeans’ increasing involvement in making higher-level decisions and perceive the EU as more liberally inclined than the national government in this realm (with the latter two points especially applicable to the PVV). However, it was interesting that the East Europeans also expressed some disquiet due to the EU’s supposed culpability in encouraging emigration of their own citizens and the presumed unwillingness of the EU organs to offer them the necessary financial means for combating immigration into Bulgaria across the Turkish border. However, contrary to theoretical expectations, the study suggests that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to the populist party’s proclivity to regard the EU as an ally of “minority lobbies”, with the PVV (the most Eurosceptic party) assessing the relevancy of this aspect as minor, while it is gauged to be of fundamental importance by Ataka (less Eurosceptic than the PVV). Among CEE populists, the thesis shows how “privileged minorities” like Hungarians and Turks are viewed with alarm due to supposedly making use of the EU level in order to advance their secessionist ambitions (Hungarians in Romania) or improve their socio-economic prospects at the expense of the majority (Turks in ethnically mixed regions of Bulgaria). In short, the thesis establishes that there is still a strong dividing line between Eastern and Western populist parties in relation to the assessments made with regard to the impact of the EU on European identity, migration issues and majority-minority dynamics.

La Bulgarie avait en 1990 l’un des nombre d’enfants, ayant des parents vivants, abandonnés dans des institutions parmi le plus élevé au sein des de l’Union Européenne. En portant notre attentions sur la manière dont la candidature à l’Union Européenne a affecté l’héritage post-communiste en Bulgarie, notre thèse cible le développement de la réforme des orphelinats et donc des institutions en approfondissant le concept de « désintitutionnalisation ». Dans un second temps, nous comparons cette réfome à la réforme britannique. Notre objectif est d’éclairer le rôle de l’Union européenne dans la transformation des politiques sociales de protection de l’enfance. Notre terrain de recherche est celui de la Bulgarie et du Royaume-Uni et leurs systèmes de protection infantile de 1989 à 2015. / In the 1990’s Bulgaria had one of the highest numbers of abandoned children with living parents among European member states. Our question of departure was how the European Union membership has changed the post-communist heritage of institutional care and we focus on the transformation of orphanages through the deinstitutionalization reform. Furthermore, this doctoral research compares the development of the Bulgarian deinstitutionalization reform to the British one, and offers an insight into the role of the European Union in the transformation of social policies of child protection. The terrain of the research is Bulgaria and the United Kingdom, and their systems of child protection from 1989 to 2015.

This diploma thesis deals with the topic of the French and EU asylum policies and their reciprocal influence. The main goal of this thesis consists in demonstrating (if applicable) France's success in enforcing its legislation at the European level, or if it is rather the opposite phenomenon that prevails: the necessity of the implementation of asylum rules (that have been approved in the EU) to the French regulations. The whole thesis is grounded on the concept of Europeanization which determines a theoretical framework that serves as a basis for the empirical part, consisting of an analysis of the development of French and common European asylum legislation first. The crucial part of this thesis is the fourth chapter where the interconnection between the theoretical and empirical part takes place as well as the discovery of the link between the French and European asylum legislation and drawing of consequences that respond to initial propositions.

In 2009 the sovereign debt crisis started in the European Union. Every member state was involved in the financial turmoil, in particular Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Why were these countries effected more so? Were they still committed to core ideas of the European Union? This paper will review this topic through the perspective of Portugal. Being a former colonial power, once having an authoritative government, and now a full-fledged member of the European Union, Portugal has a unique story to tell about the crisis at hand. This paper will evaluate different European Union principles involving gender equality, tertiary education, politics, and economics while comparing how Portugal ranks in Europeanization to the European Union specifically during the sovereign debt crisis. This paper will conclude by summarizing these topics, analyzing triumphs and setbacks, and hypothesizing Portugal's future in regard to their Europeanization of European Union standards and the current sovereign debt crisis the country faces today.

Alors que la littérature académique sur les politiques de l’emploi se concentre sur les variables nationales du changement, cette recherche s’intéresse à la perméabilité des frontières nationales de l’action publique dans un contexte européanisé. En adoptant une approche interactionniste de l’européanisation, elle explique d’abord comment les institutions européennes ont défini un modèle, celui de la flexicurité, qui articule deux dimensions que les experts et les acteurs politiques ont longtemps considérées comme incompatibles : la flexibilité des marchés du travail et la sécurité des travailleurs. La recherche se penche ensuite sur la comparaison de deux cas nationaux, dont les systèmes de protection sociale étaient traditionnellement éloignés des cadres de la flexicurité, mais qui ont pourtant mis en œuvre des réformes qui vont dans le sens prescrit par les institutions européennes : la France et le Portugal. In fine, la thèse montre que les frontières nationales sont remises en cause mais n’ont pas disparu. Même s’il devient difficile d’agir de manière indépendante, les acteurs politiques nationaux mettent en œuvre des stratégies destinées à préserver leur autonomie. / The literature on employment policies has mainly focused on national variables in order to explain change. This research studies the degree of openness of national boundaries in a European context. By adopting an interactionist approach of Europeanization, it first explains how European institutions have defined a model of flexicurity that combines flexibility on the labor markets and security for the workers, whereas these two characteristics have long been considered incompatible. Then the research compares the recent evolution of two social protection systems that did not fit with the flexicurity framework and have nevertheless implemented employment policy reforms in line with European requirements. To explain the link between European demands and national reforms, this research underlines two mechanisms. First, it shows that national spheres are embedded in a broader context that strengthens the competition between welfare models but has a different impact on national spheres (the “national delay issue” in Portugal and the “specificities of the French model” in France). Then, in both cases, the political and administrative actors have tried to depoliticize policy reforms by mobilizing academic expertise. The different modalities of expert interventions crucially influence trade unions’ capacities to participate in the framing of national reforms. All in all, the thesis shows that national boundaries are challenged but have not disappeared. Even though it becomes difficult for them to act independently, national political leaders tend to develop strategies to preserve their autonomy.

<p>Through the use of political conditionality, the EU has exercised what many have chosen to call an international normative power. The fast democratisation process of the central European countries that joined the EU in 2004 has often been attributed to the force of EU’s normative power. Here, the core of the political conditionality was found in a promised future membership – acting as a reward in exchange for democratic reforms. The new European Neighbourhood Policy however, initiated briefly after the 2004 enlargement, gave rise to new prerequisites to the Unions new neighbours and this time enlargement fatigue prevailed in the EU policy. This case study examines and assesses the ability of the EU to exercise its normative power on Ukraine through the new conditions set up by the European Neighbourhood Policy, were a membership perspective neither is promised nor ruled out. The result show that the effective conditions for the conditionality are favourable and that a good progress on the areas of democracy, rule of law and human rights has been achieved. Although difficult to prove, I argue that this progress most probably is partly due to EU’s normative power on Ukraine.</p>

<p>This study deals with the phenomenon of European integration and its impact on national party programs in Poland, a current member state of the European Union. The author will argue that the question of European integration has left a mark on the political party programs of two mainstream domestic parties on opposite sides of the ideological dimension, in the form of a certain degree of convergence regarding the “European issue”. Relating the result of the analysis to the theoretical structure of Europeanization and sociological institutional change, the essay will attempt to show a possible link between them. Although this trend does not seem to indicate any dramatic effects of the membership per se in the programs (the national arena seems, in most cases, be of more value for party activities) there is an indirect effect in the form of the presence of Europarties and a pronounced incentive for social and economic adaptation.</p>

<p>The purpose of the essay is to examine the Swedish Social Democrats (SAP) and its relation to the EU. The specific area of interest is the SAP in its relation to the process of the constitutional/reform treaty. The process period researched in this essay stretches from 2000-april 2008. The research question is, How has the SAP evolved in relation to the EU during the time period 2000 till 2008 and are there signs of external EU pressure changing the party behaviour or position?</p><p>This case study has the methodological approach of a qualitative text analysis. The concept of Europeanization makes it possible to construct an analytical framework which measures possible impact from the EU on domestic political parties. This impact is measured in three different areas, first if the party is adapting its internal structure to ease its engagement with the EU, secondly if the party is adapting its policy because of the EU and thirdly in the area of patterns of party competition. With the analytical framework drawn from the concept of Europeanization it is possible to point at indicators that are signs of EU-impact. The SAP seems to have both a practical adaptation and a policy adaptation but it still remains somewhat EU-sceptical in the area of patterns of party competition. The conclusion is that there are quite massive amounts of evidence of possible EU-pressure on the SAP.</p>

This study analyses the possible impact of the European Union (EU) on the development of the relations between business interest groups and the government in Turkey, more precisely on the interventions of the business interest groups in domestic policy-making. Hence it deals with the links between the progress of the relationship between Turkey and the EU and the development of domestic interest group activity in Turkey. The progress of Turkey’s relations with the EU enhanced the visibility of the Turkish Peak Business Organizations (PBOs) in representing Turkish business interests in Brussels. Moreover, the evolution of the activities of the PBOs, provides a broader understanding of the developments of the general characteristics of the relations between the government and business interest groups in Turkey. Hence the investigation focuses on the major Turkish PBOs. We examine the relations of Turkish PBOs with the EU, essentially, on the basis of the observation of their transnational actions within the EU as well as their participation in financial and technical assistance programmes of the EU and in the joint institutional structures of the association regime between Turkey and the EU. By analysing these two dimensions we assess the repercussions of the socialization of the Turkish PBOs on their strategies of action in dealing with European Affairs, on discourses they adopted regarding domestic policy-making and on their organizational structure and policy agenda. We elaborate our topic with reference to the Europeanization concept, which covers the examination of the consequences of the European governance on national systems. Through the Europeanization concept we observe the correlation between the progress of the Turkey-EU relations and the ongoing process of change in the patterns of interventions of the Turkish business interest groups in domestic policy-making.