The subject of this thesis is Poland's first post communist government (September 1989 - December 1990), formed under the premiership of the veteran 'Solidarity' activist Tadousz Mazowiecki. The threat of economic collapse and social disorder had prompted the communist authorities to grant the non-communist elements organised around the 'Solidarity' movement limited access to the Polish parliament through partially free elections. In June 1989 the results of these elections delivered a fatal blow to communist rule in Poland. 'Solidarity' triumphed in practically all the parliamentary seats the communist authorities had permitted it to contest. Bereft of ideological confidence and Soviet support, the Polish Communist Party rapidly disintegrated and the task of forming an administration fell to 'Solidarity'. The new government, led by Mazowiecki and dominated by representatives of Solidarity's intellectual elite, was appointed in September 1989. In the months that followed, the new government took advantage of strong social support and popularity to introduce comprehensive political and economic reforms. The reforms introduced irrevocably dismantled the country's disastrous command economy and introduced a radical shift to market based criteria. Although they entailed austerity for much of Polish society, at least initially, the personal prestige of the new elite and its promise of the future benefits which would flow from the introduction of market rules seemed to guarantee an ongoing state of acquiescence. The political reform process was admittedly slower but the removal of the last vestiges of communist power from the system progressed steadily. Within nine months the government had taken great strides in ending communist control of the police and military and was tackling the continued influence of the nomenklatura in the state bureaucracy. State control of the media and previous prohibitions on freedom of conscience, association and speech were ended. Completely free parliamentary and presidential elections were planned for the near future. It seemed that for the duration of the transition Poland would be led to a 'Western style' liberal-democratic polity and free market economy by a government composed of Solidarity's 'best and brightest'. Apolitical intellectuals would patriotically put the higher needs of the nation before the distractions of everyday political competitiveness. They would be supported in this by the Solidarity movement which would also act as a nursery for fledgling political parties. Over time these organisations would gather the societal support and organisational strength necessary to form a conventional, stable political system.

Conventional wisdom holds that ethnic nationalism is incompatible with politics of compromise and reconciliation in conflict-ridden societies. This dissertation provides empirical evidence to the contrary by examining the revision of Greek unionist nationalism in Cyprus, under the transformative leadership of former Cypriot president Glafkos Clerides. The first part of the dissertation focuses on the development of various manifestations of nationalism in the Greek Cypriot community, highlighting particularly the limitations hindering the development of a civic form of nationalism in the island. The second part of the dissertation focuses on Clerides’ liberal brand of ethnic nationalism and argues that the former Cypriot leader provides an insightful example of how liberal nationalism can be combined with policies of compromise and peace building, informing relevant literature, which has provided considerable theoretical insight but lacks sufficient empirical evidence. Based on the work of Yack (2012) and others (Beissinger 2008; Kymlicka 1996), this dissertation argues that while several myths and certain significant limitations hindered the development of Cypriotism, Clerides’ liberal brand of ethnic nationalism was able to facilitate reconciliation and accommodate federalism in Cyprus. To support this argument, the dissertation relies on the hitherto unpublished archive of Democratic Rally and personal interviews with Clerides and several of his associates and critics. Specifically, it demonstrates how Clerides’ transformative leadership led to the revision of Greek unionist nationalism in the post-1974 era. Coming to terms with the intransigent ethnic ‘unionist’ legacy of the Right, historically associated with the goal of union with Greece, Clerides led the way to the revision of Greek nationalism and was the first to endorse federalism in the Greek Cypriot community. Yet Clerides’ political transformation did not aim at abandoning nationalist sentiments and symbols. His perception of a federal state as a multinational entity, allowed him not to undermine the two national communities of the island in its effort to promote a single Cypriot polity. In this context, the linkage of a federal solution with the accession of Cyprus to a federal Europe became a key component of his policy for the solution of the Cyprus problem. In view of current negotiations, the political legacy of Clerides can be informative for stakeholders, both inside and outside the island.

This thesis examines the European Union’s Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in the field of cultural policy. The OMC, a method of intergovernmental policy coordination that is centrally coordinated by the European Commission, was introduced in the cultural field in 2008. Using a case study of Policy Priority A in the 2011-2014 Work Plan for Culture, this thesis examines how the OMC operates as well as what outcomes it produces. It does so using a sociological institutionalism theoretical framework, supplemented with insights from the literatures on multi-level governance and policy learning. It uses a combination of research methods including document analysis, interviews with key actors, and participant observation, ultimately leading to new insights into the processes and practices of EU policy coordination. Findings on the processes of coordination reveal insights into the EU’s inter-institutional dynamics and demonstrate that the European Commission is a key player in the culture OMC. They also indicate considerable heterogeneity in how Member States ‘approach’ participation in the OMC and indicate that ultimately there is a weak connection between the OMC and national-level politics. Findings also show that the outcomes of coordination are multifaceted; while few examples of direct political and programmatic change were found, there is a complex set of other outcomes, including increased vertical coordination, socialisation and networking, and heuristic learning and concept usage. The thesis’ findings make contributions to several multi-disciplinary areas of academic research. They add most directly to the literatures on EU cultural policy, specifically on the processes and outcomes of policy coordination in the field, and contribute a new sectoral case study to the existing literature on the Open Method of Coordination as well. They also make broader contributions to the study of cultural policy (in particular cultural policy approached from a political science/public policy perspective), policy learning, and European governance and integration.

The European Union has long been argued to suffer from a deficit of democratic legitimacy. One recent innovation introduced with the intention of addressing this deficit is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), a means by which 1 million EU citizens can ask the European Commission to propose new legislation. In 2015, three years following its introduction, opinions on the performance of the ECI amongst EU politicians, journalists and campaigners are tinged with disappointment and disaffection. This thesis asks to what extent the sceptics are warranted in their frustrations towards the ECI or whether it is able to live up to the high expectations of the EU institutions at the time of its introduction. By drawing analytic criteria directly from the theory of democratic legitimacy and applying them in a systemic manner, I address how the ECI can, in principle, and has thus far, in practice, affected the EU in terms of inclusion in policy making, impacts on policy outcomes, and the pursuit of normatively justifiable and salient issues. Using case studies of the first four ECI campaigns registered by the Commission, I argue that the ECI has the potential to contribute to the inclusion of EU policy making through the activation and formation of multiple, issue-specific demoi in the EU, which can form the basis of democratic legitimacy. I also find the ECI capable of producing tangible impacts on EU, national and local policy, though mostly in ways unintended by the Regulation underpinning the instrument. Effects on inclusion and impacts are, furthermore, affected by the salience of the issues the ECI is used to pursue, and the normative justifiability of the issue in terms of how it upholds the political equality of the people can directly enhance the EU’s democratic legitimacy. Given these findings, it is concluded that the ECI, despite the current disappointment of many commentators, has scope for unanticipated positive, though limited, impact on the EU’s democratic legitimacy.

Since the beginning of the economic and financial crisis of 2007/8 national-level contextual factors matter in different ways for individuals in EU member states when assessing support for the EU. Individuals hypothesise that EU member states economic affluence and quality of governance creates the salience of issues. This influences the criteria adopted by them when determining attitudinal factors towards the EU. When applied to individuals in less affluent EU member states individuals evaluate the EU on the basis of economic prospects, while in more affluent EU member states individuals rely on political criteria to evaluate the EU. In the least affluent EU member states individuals generalise their perceptions of national and personal economic conditions to the EU level believing that the EU does not represent their economic interests. In the most affluent EU member states individuals are equally critical of the EU but centre their judgements on the comparative quality of national governments and EU institutions. For individuals the assumption remains that further EU expansion implies continued market liberalisation. However since the beginning of the economic and financial crisis what individuals regard as excessive inequality may have little to do with inequality per se but whether the liberal-market economy as a whole provides high living standards and dynamic economic development. Inequality as a macro-political and economic determinant bridges the gap between economic and political systems at the national and EU level. Using data from European Election Study (EES) 2009 and Standard Eurobarometer data from 2009-2013 this inquiry examines individual-level effects on perceptions of inequality and how this plays a significant role when analysing mass public opinion support for the EU. By using a Binary Logit Regression model, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Multiple Regression analysis and Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) the analysis demonstrates two predominant findings. Firstly, individuals believe that the EU has a positive role to play in addressing inequality since the onset of the economic crisis. Secondly, the role to be played by the EU in addressing inequality supersedes that of the EU member states’ governments and reinforces support for the European integration project. Overall, this demonstrates that individuals in the EU believe that the EU is best placed to address market-generated inequality since the onset of the economic and financial crisis of 2007/8 and as a result this produces increased support for the EU. These findings demonstrate a strong case for the inclusion of inequality as a determinant of mass public opinion support for the EU since the economic and financial crisis began in 2007/8.

The British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) remains one of the most obscure and elusive government agencies. Despite its rich and often tangled past, the SIS withstood various challenges in the twentieth century to become a vital instrument in Britain’s foreign policy, offering both traditional intelligence gathering, and a covert action capability. Despite recent revelations about its Cold War history, knowledge about this organisation is uneven at best, and this is particularly so in Asia. Despite Britain’s imperial history, which anchored informal intelligence gathering networks on a global scale, SIS’s presence in Asia is largely undiscovered. This thesis asks why this lacuna exists in SIS’s history; what was SIS activity in this region during the Cold War? Moreover, what was the value of this activity? Utilising a primarily archival methodology, this thesis sheds light on British intelligence activity in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Hanoi in the late 1960s. The strategic aims are twofold. Firstly, it explores the kinds of intelligence gathered, and the difficulties encountered from operating within the heart of a secure communist state in order to gauge an ‘enemy society’. In doing so, it challenges conventional definitions of intelligence, pointing to the notion of a dual identity diplomat-intelligence officer, that provided alternative means of acquiring intelligence within denied areas. In this way, it opens a window into a new dimension of SIS history, and, by extension, GCHQ, both of whom operated from the grey space between diplomacy and intelligence. Secondly, it examines this intelligence through the broader framework of the Anglo-American Special Relationship, given that these three case study countries were areas where the SIS operated, but where the CIA encountered real hindrances due to a lack of diplomatic premises. By tracing the path of British intelligence material, and analysing its reception by its American audience, it ultimately assesses the value of such intelligence. It argues that the granular detail afforded, and the insight on broader strategic relationships it provided, inverted the Special Relationship, rendering Britain a valued partner when it came to intelligence collection in this region and off-setting imbalances elsewhere.

The degree to which European Union (EU) policy-making is representative of citizens’ preferences is a central contested issue in the debate over the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’. Previous studies have demonstrated that in many cases political representatives share their voters’ attitudes to the EU. However, this research has rarely considered the substance of actual legislative policy-making in the EU institutions. Scrutinising the popular image that EU policy-making is unresponsive to public demands, the thesis investigates EU-level representation along the ‘domestic route’, on which citizens’ preferences intrude policymaking through their national governments in the Council of the EU. Using a range of original and existing datasets, the four papers investigate three classic assessment criteria of representation (mandate fulfilment, responsiveness, congruence) with methods ranging from mixed effects regressions to quantitative text analysis. Three central findings emerge: first, national governments are responsive to their domestic public opinion when negotiating and voting on legislative acts in the EU. Regarding legislative conflicts over left-right issues, responsiveness is stronger with majoritarian than proportional electoral systems and peaks when national elections are imminent. When it comes to pro-anti integration conflicts, responsiveness is conditional on the salience of EU issues in national political arenas. Second, executive coordination and parliamentary oversight in EU affairs limit the discretion of national ministers in EU negotiations and help governments to deliver their electoral mandates. Third, final EU policy output is most responsive to and congruent with the views of those national publics that have clear-cut opinions on a policy issue and care intensely about it. These findings are evidence of surprising patterns of citizen representation in EU policy-making. They suggest that politicisation of the EU and the diffusion of executive coordination and parliamentary oversight in EU affairs could strengthen representation. Yet, evidence remains scarce that better representation will end the EU’s legitimacy crisis.

This thesis investigates the promotion of intercultural dialogue (ICD) in the framework of EU external action on the Mediterranean between 1990 and 2014. ICD is understood as a cultural foreign policy instrument that the EU has promoted in a changing, vague and contradictory manner to engage the civil societies of Europe and of the Mediterranean into a common effort to attenuate the tensions that derive from the socio-cultural divergences among the people and governments of this whole area. With the goal of shedding light on this obscure aspect of EU policy-making in the Mediterranean, this thesis aims primarily to analyse why the approach of the EU to ICD has changed during the time frame in reference, and how the EU has modified the formulation, implementation and role of this policy instrument. Guided by the conceptual lens of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), the research examines ICD within a broader analysis of the evolution of EU foreign policy in the area. It argues that the EU commitment to advance ICD within its Mediterranean policies can be divided into three distinct phases: a ‘phase of emergence’ (1990-2001), a ‘phase of consolidation’ (2001-2010) and a ‘phase of professionalisation’ (2010-2014). The main factor that shaped this three-phase evolution is identified in how EU policy-makers assessed the potential contribution of ICD to address the changing socio-cultural divide in the Euro-Mediterranean space following three major events: a) the conclusion of the Cold War in 1990; b) the terror attacks of 9/11 2001; and c) the outbreak of the Arab uprisings in December 2010.

The aim of my thesis is to investigate the reasons for the appointment of technocratic governments in Europe. In order to do this, I conceptualise what technocratic governments are, both in terms of their own characteristics and in comparison with party governments. I problematize classic elements, such as independence, neutrality and expertise of ministers, and add further ones including the relation to electoral outcomes, their particular type of agenda, and the echo they have in the media. Having established that technocratic governments require a shift in politicians’ preferences away from typical office-seeking behaviour, I proceed to enquire as to the situations that make their appointment more likely. Through a statistical analysis on all European cabinets from 1977 to 2013, I identify situations of economic and political crises – in particular scandals - as the main variables influencing the likelihood of technocratic government appointments. I further examine how these crises have lead to these appointments by exploring cases of over 25 technocratic governments in a range of countries and years. The qualitative illustrative evidence highlights the importance of institutional characteristics of the given political system in which such governments were appointed. The status of the party system, the role of the Head of State and external pressures coming from international or supranational institutionas are thus shown to be important in technocratic cabinet appointments. Finally, I assess whether technocratic governments fit within the European democratic standards and conclude that technocratic governments are symptoms of the decline of party democracy, identifiable in the loosening of delegation and accountability ties between parties and cabinets, increasing external pressures on domestic political actors, and the weakening of partisan ideology-based politics. The thesis adds further elements to reinforce the already vast literature on the crisis of – especially party – democracy in Europe.

This study analyses the nature of Germany's role in the EU after unification. The thesis posits a two tier approach, first examining Germany's relationship in the EU at a 'high' politics, and then utilising a sectoral approach to Germany's role in the EU, focusing on two key policy areas: migration and agriculture. The thesis reviews theories of European integration assessing their applicability to Germany's specific case. It is argued that it is an oversimplification to characterise Germany as either an 'assertive' or 'compliant' actor. In the broader context, the thesis notes a continuity in Germany's pro-European position after unification. However, the thesis also concludes that Germany has acquired a stronger role. Unification has presented Germany with a number of challenges in the domestic arena. Borrowing from the ideas of Lowi, the thesis argues that Germany's role in the EU is policy specific and differs in contrasting policy sectors. The thesis also specifies the characteristics within the policy sector that shape Germany's actions in the EU. Furthermore, it is argued that the EU serves as an important arena for solving important domestic concerns. The thesis attempts to develop a taxonomic model comprising three characteristics: dynamics of the policy sector, policy circumstance and policy-making structures to test these hypotheses. The two policy sectors analysed illustrate how Germany's role can vary according to the issue in question. Germany's attitude towards migration gravitated towards an attempt to seek European solutions and Europeanise policy in an issue which represented a major domestic challenge after unification. Conversely, agriculture continued to be dominated by the Germans seeking wholly 'German' outcomes in the EU institutions. The thesis highlights the utility of European frameworks in particular policy sectors. In the case of migration, domestic and European policy making structures acted as a formidable constraint for policy solutions. On the contrary, in agriculture the nature of policy making at the domestic and European level enhanced the position of farmers and the agricultural sector in general.