<p>The object of this essay was, first, to study what advantages parliamentary members in the participating countries argue that their country gains when university students study abroad via ERASMUS, and, second, to study two factors that might affect what advantages that are emphasised by the parliamentary members in the participating countries. To achieve this object, two research questions were posed regarding what advantages of the ERASMUS Programme are mentioned in the parliamentary debate in three countries, United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany, and regarding whether the parliamentary debate is different between the countries as concerns what advantages are emphasised. Subsequently another two research questions were studied, regarding whether the countries’ different positions in Europe and the existence of euroscepticism in these countries affect what advantages of the ERASMUS Programme are emphasised in the parliamentary debate. The study was carried out using argumentation analysis, in which the arguments for participation in the ERASMUS Programme presented in the parliamentary debates were compiled and grouped together according to whether they refer to economic and professional advantages or to cultural and social advantages. The results of the study showed that there are differences between the countries regarding what advantages are emphasised in the parliamentary debate. After a discussion of the countries’ different positions in Europe and the existence of euroscepticism in these countries, the conclusion was that a country’s position in Europe does not affect what advantages of the ERASMUS Programme that are emphasised in the parliamentary debate, while the level of euroscepticism in a country does affect what advantages are emphasised.</p>

This master’s thesis offers a descriptive investigation of how public Euroscepticism has changed during the economic crisis. By regarding Eurosceptic opinions as positions on a scale as well as differentiating between opposition towards policy (concrete decisions and measures) and polity (the EU as a political system), the results show that overall, European citizens have not only become negative towards how the EU handled the crisis in terms of policy output. Policy opposition also tends to spill over into the polity area, entailing increasing preferences for reducing EU competences and for leaving the union all together. The policy-polity distinction is a perspective on Euroscepticism as opposition, that has largely been set aside in previous research. Furthermore, the paper describes how support for the EU polity and its policies has changed in different member states through a cross country analysis. The results show that there is great and unexpected variation between countries that would be assumed to display a similar development in the light of previous research. In addition, there are similarities between countries that were expected to develop differently. This indicates a limited understanding in this research field of how national factors influence public attitudes towards the European Union. A topic that needs to be investigated further.

The issue of Euroscepticism has been racking the European Union for many years, and the United Kingdom’s exit from the block came as a shock for many. Carried by a campaign on social media, the Leave campaign’s success has highlighted a number of issues that risk not only the EU, but democratic society itself. Focusing on public opinion formation on the EU and political polarisation, this paper explores the question of how a political entrepreneur can polarise a society in a desired fashion. Based on a content analysis performed on 1,100 tweets posted by the Leave campaign, the study attempts to map out topical and polarising tendencies of the campaign, together with a propensity to employ misinformation. The results show a focus on certain topics pertaining to public opinion formation on the EU and a tendency to tweet on them in a polarising manner across the board. Finally, false claims were found throughout the dataset, propelling an argument that there is a relationship between misinformation and polarisation which risks further polarising a given polity.

This thesis aims to understand, in the case of the Czech people living along the borders, the extent to which they are, and have become, more "internationally minded" in recent decades. Three theoretical approaches to understand the attitudes of those living along the boundaries are identified as the Realist Securitisation, Liberal Openness and Bordering as a Process paradigms. Descriptions are presented of the historical and demographic nature of the Czech borderlands as well as developments in Czech politics and attitudes to foreigners in the last two decades. Detailed regression analysis at the level of 6,300 individual municipalities is undertaken to empirically test the theoretical paradigms and to control for other factors so as to understand the specific impact of the boundary on the attitudes of those living alongside it. The formation of attitudes is a complex process in which history still seems important and not all interactions with foreigners are seen as improving attitudes towards them. However, against a backdrop of lower support for EU integration and greater concern over immigration in the Czech Republic as a whole, open borders since accession to the EU have coincided with border dwellers becoming in many, but not all, cases less Eurosceptic and less opposed to migrants than is...

The current discussion about party-based Euroscepticism forms in the Federal Republic of Germany is usually limited to the Alternative für Deutschland issue and neglect inside-parties forms before its formation. This master thesis examines this type of Euroscepticism in Germany in relevant political parties between 1990 and 2013. This period is defined by the time between German reunification and the formation of the AfD. The term 'Euroscepticism' is conceptualized in the theoretical section, and theories defined by selected scholars are reflected. Subsequently, the theoretical section reflects the perception of Euroscepticism as a thin- centered ideology, its applications in the left-right dimension, and focus on 'new cleavages' GAL/TAN theory. This section emphasizes a deficiency of 'classic' hard-soft Euroscepticism theory and reveals empirical limits of any typologies. The author uses the methodology of content analysis of program papers (PDS/Die Linke, Die Grünen, SPD, and CSU) in the empirical section. Its corpus is defined by the program thesis for Bundestag and European Parliament elections. The coding divides analyzing statements into logical topic groups, which correspond to a subject of research. The synthesis of this coding introduces a clear image of EU attitudes by every single party,...

Europe stands at the face of transformative changes, where the study of EU integration becomes crucial in comprehending the complex dynamics between member states and EU institutions, as well envisioning its future. Since its origin, the parliament has played a fundamental role in advancing political integration across national borders by representing EU citizens.  However, recent years have witnessed shifts that seem to alter the European Parliaments role and its leaning towards integration, indicating a move towards increased intergovernmentalism within the EU.  By examining its historical progress and stances towards integration, we can gain deeper insights into how its role has shifted and how it affects the EU's future, done by comparing two different periods, 2004-2009 and current election period 2019-2024. By using competing theories of European integration, this paper purposes to map out implications for the European union future. This study seeks to seal a significant research gap by investigating the European Parliament's role in integration. By analyzing parliamentary materials with debates longitudinally, this research aims to identify shifts in attitudes towards European integration. Results were shown that indicated the European parliament’s attitude towards integration had its changes in recent decades. From previously being a strong advocate for deeper integration, the European parliament has now a more nuances view of supranationality and intergovernmental collaboration. Future directions for European integration suggest a more cautious and gradual approach, continuing to cooperate without transferring excessive power to central EU bodies. This could have reaching implications for the future of the union and for the role of the European parliament in the continued integration process.  This study on the role of the European Parliament and its integration is of great importance to political science, since of its ability to surround various aspects of the EU’s political landscape. Understanding these dynamics is essential for predicting future developments and shaping policies that foster a solid and strong European union.

Euroscepticism is considered as a stream of thoughts whch is typical of the EU distrust or of the European integration and its goals as such. The most common objections to joining the integration proces are loss of national sovereignty, not paying enough attention to national interests or too strict policy unification that does not allow for national particularities. This master thesis will focus on euroscepticism as a concept, il will analyze its ideological roots and the most frequent arguments in favour of this concept. Furthermore, it will analyze various classifications of euroscepticism as well as its potential to be called a new cleavage or even ideology as I suggest that there is no widely-accepted definition. Great Britain - a representative of traditionally very sceptical approach towards European integration project has been chosen as a model case. In this case study firstly, the development of potential eurosceptical thinking within the Conservative Party and the Labour Party will be explored. More importantly, it will concentrate on the (in)consistency of their European policies in time, analysis of their attitudes in the 21st century and finally it will try to derive the future development of their possible eurosceptical opinions from their current manifestos and public speeches. The...

The purpose of this study is to describe and compare eurosceptic elements of the Swedish Left-Party and the Sweden Democrats leading up to the European Parliament elecetions of 2014 and 2019. Previous research has focused on many different aspects of eurocepticism; the definition and meaning of euroscepticism, eurosceptic voting among citizens and euroscepticism in democratic party-systems. Hence, this case-study aims at explaining euroscepticism in a Swedish context among the two clearly eurosceptic parties in the Swedish party-system. The two parties both have eurosceptic sentiments, although they have different ideological starting points and values. The Sweden Democrats consider themselves social conservatives with a nationalistic basic view. On the other hand, the Swedish Left-Party consider themselves as socialists and feminists with an ecological basic view. In order to find and compare these eurosceptic sentiments, a text analysis is combined with an analysis of arguments used in the two party’s election platforms leading up to the European Parliament elections. The empirical evidence is consequently interconnected with Taggart and Szczerbiak theory of soft and hard euroscepticism. This theory, or model of analysis, is used the catogorize parties based on their ”resistance” against different aspects of the European Union or the European process of integration as a whole. The study finds that the euroscepticism of the Swedish Left-Party and the Sweden Democrats have somewhat changed from the elections of 2014 and 2019. The resistance has mitigated to some degree leading up to the 2019 elections, in comparison to the elections of 2014. Although netither party could be categorized as soft or hard eurosceptics, they both lean more towards the features of soft euroscepticism.

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.

The focus of this study was to examine what euroskepticism stands for and what it is. Euroskepticism has been a marginal phenomenon under some long time but in the later years the definition of euroskepticism has become a mainstream definition. This definition has become in a longer extent a way to describe the dissatisfaction of the EU´s problems and crisis by the citizens of the European nation’s states. The studies approach point was to understand how Brexit went down, and what were the consequences that made this referendum a vote for the discontent of the elites in Brussels by the common man in United Kingdom. And if so, were the consequences something that could apply to euroskepticism, were the incitements of eurosceptic origin. When the study cleared this chapter about the timeline of Brexit then the study aimed for the consequences Brexit could have on euroscepticism and if euroscepticism would grow because of Brexit. This could only be explained by which deal UK would get from the European union. The results of the study demonstrate that in the end Brexit and the referendum was infused by the discontent of the lower classes in the community and by a notion that expressed itself in a way that was eurosceptic. The results demonstrated moreover that the eurosceptic as a definition has been a way to show the establishment that the losers of globalisations are there and their voices are going to get heard, and the voices are getting heard now through eurosceptic incitements and euroscepticism has become a banner of the common people.