Cette thèse porte sur les relations entre le Maroc et l’Union européenne autour des questions migratoires depuis 1999, en particulier sur les négociations depuis 2003 d’un accord de réadmission, c’est-à-dire d’un accord organisant le retour forcé de migrants en situation irrégulière. À partir d’une approche postcoloniale, ce travail questionne l’eurocentrisme des analyses existantes des politiques extérieures de l’UE. L’objectif est de pluraliser les sujets des négociations internationales. Ceci passe d’abord par une étude de l’historicité et de la complexité institutionnelle des politiques migratoires marocaines. Ceci passe aussi par une analyse sociologique des pratiques de résistance des acteurs étatiques marocains aux pressions de l’Union européenne et des pays européens dans le domaine des politiques migratoires. Nous montrons ainsi que les négociations ne relèvent pas seulement du domaine des high politics, mais font aussi partie des pratiques quotidiennes d’acteurs administratifs engagés dans des luttes concurrentielles nationales et internationales. C’est dans ces luttes quotidiennes que transparaît la capacité d’action des acteurs marocains et la remise en cause de l’asymétrie des relations avec les pays européens. / This dissertation examines Morocco-EU negotiations on migrations since 1999, and specifically since 2003, when both partners started negotiating a readmission agreement. The purpose of such an agreement is to make it easier to deport undocumented migrants. Using a postcolonial approach, this work questions existing analyses of the EU’s external policy and their Eurocentric tendencies. The objective is to pluralize the subjects of international negotiations. The first step towards this objective is to study the historical and institutional complexity of Moroccan as well as European actors. A second important step is to offer a sociological analysis of resistance practices of Moroccan actors to pressures from the EU and European countries. I demonstrate in this work that negotiations, far from being limited to the realm of high politics, are part of the day-to-day practices of administrative actors who are engaged in national and international competition. It through the analysis of everyday contestations that one can understand the agency of Moroccan actors and the ways in which they constantly question the asymmetry of their relationships with European countries.

Background: The increasing global business competitiveness thoroughly intensifies the demand for improvements of communication and negotiation skills in order to adjust competence to successfully conduct the work of getting treaties of cooperation and business development to work everywhere. It is simply a matter of survival for an increasing amount of multinational companies operating in all kinds of different locations and businesses around the world. This state of nature also holds for Swedish and Spanish companies, that both heavily depend on foreign trade, and whose negotiating behavior is going to be the focus of this study. For every international company facing the challenges of developing new business in foreign cultures it should be of interest to find out what would improve their business interactions. The study is therefore investigating possible ways of how to deal with cultural implications that might appear in international business negotiations. Purpose: To study and analyze the presence of cultural impact on international business negotiations, with a special emphasis on Swedish-Spanish business negotiators. Method: Considering negotiations as a process-oriented phenomenon observed from empirical studies of individual cases and drawing conclusions thereof, the study takes a hermeneutic qualitative-inductive interaction approach. The frame of references are constitued by a thorough spectra of well established theories developed within the fields of communication, negotiation and intercultural studies. Result: The study proves that the behavior of negotiators are influencing the outcome of the negotiation, particularly in international contexts where the parties have different experiences, historical and cultural backgrounds as well as different perspectives on life.

This report asks the question how to balance thepreservation of cultural built heritage against other publicand private interests in local planning. The aim of the studyis to contribute to knowledge about how different actors valuethe built heritage and how they interact in planning. The studydiscusses how this knowledge can be taken into account inplanning practice. As society develops further into a knowledgesociety, the valuation of local environmental qualities seemsto be more complex than during previous decades. For thatreason the maintenance of cultural built heritage is moredifficult to handle than before. The planning process has bytradition been characterised by a strong public sectorinvolvement and by strict procedural links to the regulationsystem. However, private initiatives have come to play anincreasingly important role in the planning process. Thesechanges have led to a situation where decision-making becomesinformal. The question is if planning functions in such waythat all values represented by different interests areconsidered carefully when decisions are made for preservation,renewal or change of the builtenvironment. There are reasonsto question the notion of citizen representation by localpoliticians and experts of various kinds. The theoreticalfoundation for the study is economic valuation theory, andespecially environmental economics, in combination withnegotiation theory and planning theory. These theories are usedas a starting point for an analysis of different actors’understanding of the cultural built heritage, their incentivesfor participating in planning, and, hence, for understandingthe interaction which determines preservation practice.Empirical findings are based on a case study of planning andheritage management in the municipality of Umeå. Itincludes studies of five recently completed planning processesconcerning specific real estate properties, as well as, aquestionnaire directed to a random selection of 1000inhabitants in the municipality. The study concludes that theoutcome of planning to a substantial part is depending of theinteraction and relations between the stakeholders, and, hence,structured by what has developed as the intellectual traditionand context of the city. The study shows that the builtenvironment seen as a public good in general is not fullyacknowledged and understood. Consequently, the private goodcharacteristic of the built environment is stressed inplanning, not only by private actors, but also by the publicsector. Furthermore, the study concludes that one importantissue in the management of the cultural built heritage is todraw on the actors’incentives for preservation, hence,paying more attention to the question of future direct andindirect use of the built heritage. An actor who primarilyfocuses on existence value runs the risk of being situated inthe margin of planning, with no real influence on decisionsconcerning heritage management.

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in Sweden and in the Western world. Despite this, stroke with focus on elderly is a field where few studies have been conducted from a gender and socioeconomic perspective. The objectives in this thesis were to analyse from a gender, age and socioeconomic perspective how women were affected by stroke compared with men. The focus was on what it meant for elderly women and men to live with stroke and to explore various gender constructions among men and women. The study also included aspects such as incidence, medical treatment and case fatality after stroke. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. During a two-year period (15 October 2000–14 October 2002), uniform information was collected for all cases of first-ever and recurrent (>28 days) stroke occurring in people of all ages living the region of Umeå, admitted to the University Hospital. Five different registers were used to achieve maximum coverage; the Riks-Stroke (RS) register, the Hospital Discharge Register (HDR), the Cause of Death Register, the northern Sweden WHO MONICA study, and one case-finding study in nursing homes and homes for elderly performed for this thesis. For the qualitative study a maximum variation sampling procedure was used to retrieve participants for in-depth interviews in a follow-up study. Nine women and seven men were interviewed about their experiences of treatment and care after suffering a stroke, as well as about their perceptions and experiences of help from others (health care personnel, relatives and home help personnel). The first-ever incidence of stroke was higher among low-educated than high educated men and women. Our study showed that there was an education-related age-dependent difference in stroke incidence, where elderly women had the highest incidence of stroke. The 28-day case fatality was shown to be associated with low educational level in patients above 75 years, after controlling for sex, risk factors and acute care variables. The elderly stroke patients experienced subordination in their contacts with health care personnel and the medical context. The participants used different ways to negotiate in the subordinate position, and some of these negotiations were interpreted as being gendered. We have also shown how the elderly stroke patients minimized their own needs of help, strove for independence and accepted help. The men and the women differed in their perceptions and experiences of help from others. Also, the participants expressed multiple types of needs. The elderly stroke patients’ perceptions and experiences of help from others must be studied in relation to their life circumstances and expectations from society. Further analyses of the patients’ perceptions and experiences of help from others were interpreted as being different examples of constructions of masculinities and femininities. Stroke with a focus on the elderly is a field where few studies have been conducted from a gender and socioeconomic perspective. With further community-based stroke incidence studies including elderly men and women and with the development of appropriately targeted interventions, the burden of stroke in the population could be reduced. More research is needed where both qualitative and quantitative methods are used, as this can provide a richer and perhaps more authentic description of the issue under investigation.

The purpose of this thesis is to document and analyse the development of the 1985 Clyde River - Broughton Island Memorandum of Understanding on Polar Bears. Based on a population estimate of 400 to 600 polar bears on Northeast Baffin Island, the quotas for Clyde River were reduced from 45 to 15, and the quotas for Broughton Island were reduced from 22 to 10. The case study approach to the analysis is organised according to various scales of analysis (from the individual to the global level) for the political, ecological, and cultural variables in the analysis. Three chapters are dedicated to a presentation of the three variables of analysis identified in the case study. The ecological variable is concerned with evaluating the biological data that were used to calculate a reduction in quotas. The political variable evaluates the structure and proceedings of the negotiation meetings, and the cultural variable evaluates the role that cultural meaning may have played in the creation of the agreement. The major finding is that a comanagement approach to wildlife management does not guarantee that decision-making power is equally distributed amongst user groups and territorial agencies.

Throughout the history of the North West, Metis people frequently used their knowledge of European, Indian, and Metis culture to mediate Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal social, diplomatic, and economic encounters. Though acknowledged in Metis historiography, this aspect of Metis identity has not been the focus of scholarly analysis, which has primarily centred on Louis Riel, Metis resistance, and ethnogenesis. By closely examining the primary documents, it is evident that the Metis interpreters present at Treaties 1 through 7 were more than merely translators. Prior to negotiations these Metis had interacted with First Nations in a variety of ways, whether in the fur trade or in missionary endeavours. Metis people were well versed in Aboriginal language and cultural traditions, skills they had employed successfully in Rupert's Land prior to 1870.<p> In drawing upon this amicable relationship between Metis and First Nations, Canadian officials in the North West recognized the positive effect of personal diplomacy on securing First Nations signatures to the treaty documents. In this thesis many examples will demonstrate that the actions of Metis people were critical in preventing violence between groups, thereby enabling the treaty process to begin. These Metis individuals moved within a middle ground of context that developed in the era prior to the 1870's, thus indicating a measure of continuity between the pre- and post transition period in the Canadian West.

Bilateral incomplete-information negotiations of multiple issues present a difficult yet common negotiation problem that is complicated to solve from a mechanism design perspective. Unlike multilateral situations, where the individual aspirations of multiple agents can potentially be used against one another to achieve socially desirable outcomes, bilateral negotiations only involve two agents; this makes the negotiations appear to be a zero-sum game pitting agent against agent. While this is essentially true, the gain of one agent is the loss of the other, with multiple issues, it is not unusual that issues are valued asymmetrically such that agents can gain on issues important to them but suffer losses on issues of less importance. Being able to make trade-offs amongst the issues to take advantage of this asymmetry allows both agents to experience overall benefit. The major complication is negotiating under the uncertainty of incomplete information, where agents do not know each other's preferences and neither agent wants to be taken advantage of by revealing its private information to the other agent, or by being too generous in its negotiating. This leaves agents stumbling in the dark trying to find appropriate trade-offs amongst issues. In this work, we introduce the Bilateral Automated Mediation (BAM) framework. The BAM framework is aimed at helping agents alleviate the difficulties of negotiating under uncertainty by formulating a negotiation environment that is suitable for creating agreements that benefit both agents jointly. Our mediator is a composition of many different negotiation ideas and methods put together in a novel third-party framework that guides agents through the agreement space of the negotiation, but instead of arbitrating a final agreement, it allows the agents themselves to ratify the final agreement.

Bilateral incomplete-information negotiations of multiple issues present a difficult yet common negotiation problem that is complicated to solve from a mechanism design perspective. Unlike multilateral situations, where the individual aspirations of multiple agents can potentially be used against one another to achieve socially desirable outcomes, bilateral negotiations only involve two agents; this makes the negotiations appear to be a zero-sum game pitting agent against agent. While this is essentially true, the gain of one agent is the loss of the other, with multiple issues, it is not unusual that issues are valued asymmetrically such that agents can gain on issues important to them but suffer losses on issues of less importance. Being able to make trade-offs amongst the issues to take advantage of this asymmetry allows both agents to experience overall benefit. The major complication is negotiating under the uncertainty of incomplete information, where agents do not know each other's preferences and neither agent wants to be taken advantage of by revealing its private information to the other agent, or by being too generous in its negotiating. This leaves agents stumbling in the dark trying to find appropriate trade-offs amongst issues. In this work, we introduce the Bilateral Automated Mediation (BAM) framework. The BAM framework is aimed at helping agents alleviate the difficulties of negotiating under uncertainty by formulating a negotiation environment that is suitable for creating agreements that benefit both agents jointly. Our mediator is a composition of many different negotiation ideas and methods put together in a novel third-party framework that guides agents through the agreement space of the negotiation, but instead of arbitrating a final agreement, it allows the agents themselves to ratify the final agreement.

Throughout the history of the North West, Metis people frequently used their knowledge of European, Indian, and Metis culture to mediate Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal social, diplomatic, and economic encounters. Though acknowledged in Metis historiography, this aspect of Metis identity has not been the focus of scholarly analysis, which has primarily centred on Louis Riel, Metis resistance, and ethnogenesis. By closely examining the primary documents, it is evident that the Metis interpreters present at Treaties 1 through 7 were more than merely translators. Prior to negotiations these Metis had interacted with First Nations in a variety of ways, whether in the fur trade or in missionary endeavours. Metis people were well versed in Aboriginal language and cultural traditions, skills they had employed successfully in Rupert's Land prior to 1870.<p> In drawing upon this amicable relationship between Metis and First Nations, Canadian officials in the North West recognized the positive effect of personal diplomacy on securing First Nations signatures to the treaty documents. In this thesis many examples will demonstrate that the actions of Metis people were critical in preventing violence between groups, thereby enabling the treaty process to begin. These Metis individuals moved within a middle ground of context that developed in the era prior to the 1870's, thus indicating a measure of continuity between the pre- and post transition period in the Canadian West.

The purpose of this thesis is to document and analyse the development of the 1985 Clyde River - Broughton Island Memorandum of Understanding on Polar Bears. Based on a population estimate of 400 to 600 polar bears on Northeast Baffin Island, the quotas for Clyde River were reduced from 45 to 15, and the quotas for Broughton Island were reduced from 22 to 10. The case study approach to the analysis is organised according to various scales of analysis (from the individual to the global level) for the political, ecological, and cultural variables in the analysis. Three chapters are dedicated to a presentation of the three variables of analysis identified in the case study. The ecological variable is concerned with evaluating the biological data that were used to calculate a reduction in quotas. The political variable evaluates the structure and proceedings of the negotiation meetings, and the cultural variable evaluates the role that cultural meaning may have played in the creation of the agreement. The major finding is that a comanagement approach to wildlife management does not guarantee that decision-making power is equally distributed amongst user groups and territorial agencies.