For more than 10 years, from the launch of the Single Currency to the global financial crisis, the process of deepening European integration stagnated, while emphasis was on widening the borders of the Union. In the wake of the Eurocrisis, however, two phenomena have captured the attention of political economists interested in European integration: the outstanding amount of new institutions, policies, and legislation which have been set in place to counter the crisis, and the rising popular rejection of the very concept of European unity. The old functionalist adage that “integration advances through crises” appears to be, prima facie, corroborated; nevertheless, the dynamics of (political) fragmentation seems to follow a similar pattern, as Postfunctionalists would expect. Two interrelated questions emerge: is the Eurocrisis a true functional crisis? Did the Eurocrisis trigger a new, “transformative” cycle of integration, embodied in its Postfunctional dynamics? In the attempt to address this research puzzle, this doctoral dissertation attempts to operationalize the research problem through six standalone papers clustered in two parts. In addition, Chapter 1 reconstructs the key elements of systemic functionalism, guiding the reader through the theoretical pillars of this work presenting its overall logic – questions, methodologies, and chapter connections. Part One of the dissertation (Chapters 1-4) deals with the fundamental question concerning the Neofunctional nature of the Eurocrisis, attempting to clarify to what extent the Eurocrisis can be really qualified as a “functional crisis”. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive historical account of functional crises through the first 60 years of European Integration; Chapter 3 provides an econometric test of the endogenous nature of the Eurocrisis; Chapter 4 provides a qualitative assessment of the functional nature of the institutions introduced during the crisis. Part Two of the dissertation (Chapters 5-7) dives into the possible Postfunctional implications of the Eurocrisis, analyzing to what extent the crisis is contributing to create a mobilized European public sphere. In particular, Chapter 5 provides a theoretical analysis of how the crisis is changing the legitimacy of the EU; Chapter 6 provides an econometric assessment of the crisis’ impact on citizens’ preferences for further economic integration; finally, Chapter 7 provides an analysis of the crisis’ impact on the performance of extreme Eurosceptic parties.

The Eurozone crisis and the migration crisis generated a set of decisions at the EU level that aims to jointly mitigate the adverse consequences of economic and political turmoil. However, electoral successes by Eurosceptics at both EU and national levels and shrinking public support for the EU, as evidenced by Eurobarometer surveys, have shown that Euroscepticism has been surging in parallel with tighter cooperation of member states in crisis-ridden policy areas. Consequently, EU institutions have embraced the connecting potential of social media by implementing a series of online communication strategies aimed at selflegitimation and strengthening of public support for European integration. This study addresses the nature of Euroscepticism as reflected in online discussions via conducting a qualitative content analysis of Facebook debates unfolding on the pages of the European Parliament and the European Commission during the peak moments of the Eurozone crisis and the migration crisis. Moreover, the study identifies the public interpretations of different aspects of the two crises framed as existential for the process of European integration. The rhetorical analysis of the Facebook posts reveals how EU institutions utilize social media in order to respond to and normalise public discontent, whereas elite interviews triangulate the findings. The analysis of EU-focused transnational discussions complements the existing studies drawing on public opinion polls regarding public attitudes towards European integration, and re-conceptualises the common explanations for public Euroscepticism, mainly based on utilitarian or cultural hypotheses. The findings stemming from the rhetorical analysis and interviews demonstrate that EU crisis communication perpetuates the ingrained neo-functionalist and elitist modes of interaction despite the novel online communication setting.

The political landscape of the world is constituted by states of varying degrees of influence and capability. Major powers have immense resources at their disposal, while minor powers are often constrained in terms of structure and material. Thus, for minor powers, engaging in conventional wars against much larger and more powerful states is potentially ruinous to their economies and endangers their political survival. While researchers have explored interstate asymmetric conflicts involving major and middle powers, this project specifically analyzes asymmetric conflicts between minor and major powers, focusing on the former, and the post Cold-war period. This research aims to analyze conditions, highlighted by theories on war, under which minor powers go to war challenging major powers. This research employs multiple theories, thereby establishing an innovative, pluri-theoretical framework. This theoretical framework works well with a mixed-methods approach, a medium-N research design (crisp set methodology in Qualitative Comparative Analysis), and three comparative case studies: Iraq (1990), Moldova (1992) and Serbia (1999). This dissertation finds that by looking through the lenses of multiple theories, one can observe a more nuanced relationship between conditions faced by minor powers in militarized disputes and their decisions to go to war against a major power. First, different combinations of conditions can result in conflict. Second, domestic crisis, not external threat, tends to be of primary concern to minor powers. Third, minor powers enter a war to win based on very modest expectations. Fourth, minor powers of autocratic regime type can also misperceive the situation through anomalous beliefs. The importance of the study stems from the observation that minor powers still fight conventional asymmetric wars, despite growing military capabilities of major powers. Understanding the risks, minor powers gamble, hoping to keep their political benefits. This study enhances our understanding of conditions shaping the occurrence of asymmetric conflict.

The rapid proliferation of North-South preferential trade agreements (PTAs) during the last quarter century has had broad implications for developing and emerging economies. As a result of North-South power asymmetries and the aggressive trade policy that has been characterized as ‘competitive liberalization,’ it has been argued that these agreements have produced asymmetric results in favor of Northern countries. This thesis advances a novel approach in the assessment of North-South preferential trade relations that goes beyond the simplistic interpretation of North-South trade politics as a phenomenon largely dominated by North-South power asymmetries. By acknowledging that not all North-South PTAs have the same characteristics, this thesis divides North-South PTAs into two sequential categories: first-order, i.e., Southern countries’ first North-South PTAs and second-order, i.e., Southern countries’ subsequent North-South PTAs. The thesis argues that, while first-order North-South PTA negotiations can produce asymmetric outcomes in favor of Northern countries because they have the ability to exert discriminative pressure on Southern countries, second-order North-South PTA negotiations follow a different logic. Having secured preferential access to Northern markets through first-order PTAs, Southern countries become immune to competitive pressures and can themselves exert discriminative pressure on Northern countries during second-order negotiations. The thesis examines the North-South PTA negotiations of Mexico, Chile, Korea, Colombia, and Peru, five countries of the Global South that have been especially active in North-South preferential trade. Based on the author’s personal interviews with EU and US trade officials and primary and secondary sources, this thesis conducts process tracing to account for the process of the five Southern countries’ first-order and second-order North-South PTA negotiations and reveal the impact of first-order North-South PTAs on the bargaining powers of Southern countries in second-order negotiations and hence the outcomes of second-order agreements. The thesis concludes that, albeit to varying extents, first-order agreements improve the bargaining powers of Southern countries in second-order North-South trade negotiations.

Political inclusion of migrants is at the heart of contested scholarly and political debate. The increasing diversity of European democracies and the exclusion of a large part of the resident population from the political process raise questions about social cohesion and the quality of democracy. In the absence of voting rights for migrant residents, associations are often considered as an alternative for voice, representing migrants and defending their interest in the political process. Yet, little is known about the conditions favoring the political inclusion of migrant associations. Studies on migrants associations tend to consider migrant organizations as discrete units acting independently from each other. Yet, migrant associations do not act in a vacuum and are embedded in webs of relations as well as in a wider political context. Social movement scholars implicitly acknowledge an interaction between institutional and relational context in affecting collective action, but studies analyzing this interaction are scarce. Considering only one of the two structures in which associations are embedded might lead to wrong conclusions as to what fosters political inclusion. Thus, the objective of this study is twofold. First it attempts to link two traditions in the social movement literature: the political opportunity theory and the relational approach. Second, it aims at furthering our knowledge on the mechanisms linking the embeddedness of migrants associations in an institutional and a relational context and their political inclusion. Empirically, this study analyzes network structures in the field of immigration and the political inclusion of migrant organizations in Lyon and in Zurich. To analyze network structures the study draws on a relational approach to social movements that provides useful tools for comparing networks across contexts by defining a typology of modes of coordination of collective action. Modes of coordination are the mechanisms through which resources are allocated within collectivities but also how collective representation are elaborated as well as collective identities. The specific opportunities in the field of immigration draw on the citizenship approaches of nation-states to define the opportunities in the field. Two dimensions of political opportunty structures are defined. An institutional dimension, which refers to the rights and duties offered to immigrants as well as the institutional channels available to them, but also resources to actors acting in the field. The cultural dimension refers to the notions of citizenship and national identity that act as discursive opportunities and provide public recognition of different identities in the field. The main argument of this study is that the specific institutional and discursive opportunities in the field of immigration affect the network structure of migrant organizations and that the political inclusion of migrant organizations is affected by the interaction of both structures. Drawing on the social movement literature, this study analyzes the effect of the specific opportunity structure in the field of immigration on network structure and the political inclusion of migrant organizations. The results show that migrant organizations adapt to the specific opportunities when creating alliances, and the networks that emerge vary between the cities under study. Indeed, associations tend to create alliances on the basis of their access to institutional channels, and the publicly recognized identities in the field. Moreover, it shows that the interaction of the opportunity structure and the network structure affects political inclusion of migrant associations. Indeed, the embeddedness of associations in similar relational structures has different outcomes for political inclusion according to the context. The study concludes by stating that analyzing the interaction of specific political opportunity structures and network structures is necessary to get a better understanding of the conditions favoring or hindering the political inclusion of migrant organizations.

La tesi si propone di individuare un nesso significativo fra regolazione globale e ordine internazionale, così da raccordare il dominio tendenzialmente tecnocratico delle attività di standardizzazione, ottimizzazione e controllo delle pratiche alle questioni politicamente determinate della giustizia internazionale. A tal fine, prendiamo in esame le logiche liberali che sottendono l'azione di tre soggetti che partecipano al regime regolativo del mercato finanziario globale (OECD, IASB, Credit Rating Agencies). La tesi conclude che tale nesso non può essere fornito né dalle soluzioni normative del liberalismo progressista né da quelle del neoliberalismo, bensì dalla tensione concettuale fra le due tradizioni, che genera a sua volta uno spazio internazionale di autentica “pratica politica”. / The thesis sets out to identify a connection between global regulation and international order, so as to relate the quasi-technocratic realm of standardization, optimization and audit to to the politically determined issues of international justice. For this purpose, we consider the rationales underlying the activity of three subjects participating to the regulatory regime of the global financial market .(OECD, IASB, Credit Rating Agencies). The thesis infers that such nexus cannot be provided either by progressive liberalism's normative solutions, nor by neoliberalim's, but rather by the conceptual and practical tension between the two traditions of thought, which in turn generates a international locus of authentic "political practice"

A partire dai primi anni Novanta il mondo ha assistito allo sviluppo ed al consolidamento di importanti organizzazioni e/o accordi a carattere regionale. Da allora il fenomeno dell' integrazione regionale si è notevolmente consolidato contribuendo allo sviluppo di un rinnovato interesse teorico verso il Regionalismo e, più in generale, verso i processi di integrazione regionale. Oggigiorno il Regionalismo è un tema centrale in diverse scienze sociali, ed in particolar modo nell’ambito dell’Economia Internazionale e delle Relazioni Internazionali. Concentrandosi su un ampio gruppo di accordi regionali caratterizzati dallo stretto rapporto tra il perseguimento dell’integrazione economica, da una parte, ed il raggiungimento di importanti fini geo-politici e nell’ambito della sicurezza dall'altra, lo scopo di questa ricerca è di dimostrare che un approccio multi-disciplinare è utile per un’analisi più completa ed approfondita di tali accordi, e nel caso specifico del Partenariato Euro-Mediterraneo. A tal proposito, i principali obiettivi del presente lavoro sono due: da una parte, analizzare se il Partenariato Euro-Mediterraneo ha effettivamente favorito lo sviluppo di un processo di integrazione regionale tra i Paesi del Bacino Mediterraneo; dall’altra, analizzare questa iniziativa alla luce dei principali contributi teorici dell’Economia Internazionale e delle Relazioni Internazionali. / Starting in the early 1990s the world witnessed the development and the strengthening of important regional organizations and arrangements. Since then many changes have occurred and the phenomenon of regional integration has strengthened. The recent upsurge in regional agreements has led to a renewed theoretical interest in Regionalism and regional integration processes. As a matter of fact, today Regionalism is a relevant issue for many social sciences; in particular, in the field of International Economics and International Relations. By focusing on a large group of regional agreements, which are characterised by a strong binomial relationship between economic integration and the achievement of geo-political and security goals, the purpose of the research is to demonstrate that a multi-disciplinary approach drawing from both International Economics and International Relations is necessary for a deeper understanding of such agreements. In order to test this line of reasoning, the present research will analyse a recent regional agreement: the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. On the basis of the theoretical contributions on Regionalism and RIAs, the research will have two main aims: the first one is to analyse whether the Partnership has effectively contributed to the establishment of an integration process in the Mediterranean Basin, both in the political and in the economic spheres; the second one is to analyse the same initiative according to International Relations and the International Economics theories.

Il presente lavoro di ricerca indaga i rapporti tra la disciplina delle Relazioni Internazionali (RI) e la tradizione filosofica americana del Pragmatismo (PP), focalizzandosi sui possibili contributi che quest’ultimo può fornire alle RI, guardando sia allo sviluppo del dibattito paradigmatico della disciplina sia alla dimensione delle politiche. In particolare, dopo aver fornito un quadro generale dei principi fondamentali del pragmatismo e averne evidenziato la positiva influenza sullo sviluppo della disciplina delle Relazioni Internazionali, il lavoro di ricerca si concentra sul tema del pragmatismo applicato alla dimensione della politica estera, qui concepita come sottolivello delle RI multifattoriale, multidisciplinare e nel quale l’agente/attore specifico assume un ruolo centrale. In linea con questa impostazione, la ricerca si concentra sull’elaborazione della politica estera del 44° Presidente americano, Barack Obama, mettendone in luce gli explanans, la cui applicazione viene poi testata nell’ambito di due casi-studio particolari: le relazioni degli Stati Uniti con Cuba, da un lato, e Israele, dall’altro. Attraverso l’analisi della letteratura esistente, in gran parte piuttosto recente, di documenti ufficiali rilasciati dall’Amministrazione Obama e dai discorsi ufficiali del Presidente stesso, il lavoro mira a dimostrare l’effettiva importanza del Pragmatismo sia per gli studiosi delle RI che per i policy-makers. / This research work aims at addressing the relations between the discipline of International Relations (IR) and the American philosophical tradition of Pragmatism (PP), investigating the possible contributions PP can provide IR with, both at a theoretical and a policy level. In particular, once given an overview of the basic principles of PP and the positive inputs it can provide to the discipline of the IR, the research work addresses the issue of whether pragmatism can direct and explain the formulation of a foreign policy (FP) – conceived as the sublevel of IR which is actor-specific, agent-oriented, multifactorial, multilevel, and multidisciplinary. In order to do so, an interpretative actor perspective is adopted, and the foreign policy of former U.S. President Barack Obama is analyzed, focusing on the explanans of his foreign policy making and vision. Their application is then tested on two case-studies: U.S.-Cuba relations and U.S.-Israel relations, in the timeframe of the Obama Presidency. Through the analysis of the existing literature – some of which quite recent, official documents released by the Obama Administrations and speeches given by the President, the research work tries to demonstrate that PP can indeed constitute a useful tool-kit for both IR scholars and policy-makers.

European democracies have witnessed the progressive affirmation of populist parties in the last two decades. This thesis draws from the suggestions of the theoretical literature on populism to study why European citizens support populist parties. In doing so, the aim of this thesis is twofold: on the one hand, it applies the ideational approach to populism to investigate support for populism from a comparative perspective; on the other hand, it seeks to understand how demand-side and supply-side factors contribute to explaining the cross-country and temporal heterogeneity in their electoral performances. This thesis focuses on two demand-side factors (i.e., social marginalisation and sociotropic concerns about economy) and two factors of the supply-side (i.e., liberal institutional arrangements and party competition). The results show that, first, populist parties attract significant support from citizens perceiving socially marginalised, especially in wealthy and globalised contexts; whereas sociotropic concerns about economy do not lead to higher support for populism. Second, liberal institutional arrangements increase the anti-institutional appeal of populist parties; whereas party competition on a core element of the far-right populist ideology (nativism) does not affect support for far-right populism to a great extent. This thesis shows that an approach that integrates both demand and supply side perspectives is beneficial to understand the reasons underlying support for populism.

In this thesis I investigate the impact of donor organizations on NGOs’ efforts to foster local community participation in environmental projects, by analyzing how conditions on project funding affect a sample of South African NGOs. Numerous NGOs take environmental justice as a key tenet of their work. Yet, promoting environmental justice is not an easy task to perform. Aside from cultural, political and social contingencies peculiar to specific contexts, there are external constraints that can help or hinder NGOs’ efforts, among which resource-dependency dynamics stand out as particularly relevant. In fact, donors hold power over NGOs, who must stick to specific conditions to secure their support. My aim is to understand what conditions and what type of donors facilitate or hinder community participation —a basic condition for achieving environmental justice— in environmental projects, where hindrances are exemplified by the presence of NGOization dynamics. I analyze donors’ guiding principles, eligibility criteria and monitoring and evaluation standards, delving into the provisions of five different funders that financially support local environmental projects in South Africa, classified according to their core values and organizational settings. Data are collected, coded, and analyzed with the help of NVIVO through a content analysis of calls for grants, project proposals, project reports, and semi-structured interviews to donors and NGO professionals. In this study, I argue that donor organizations can facilitate community participation and avoid NGOization dynamics by acknowledging the existence of unequal power relations between them and the NGOs they fund and by taking measures to respond to NGOs demands. This study highlights the importance of long-term engagement and a relationship based on trust between donors and NGOs as key to creating alternative funding models that help secure the goals that local communities define. Moreover, this study also claims that donors’ upward accountability has a weight in determining conditions on funds and eligibility criteria, and that many of the donors’ virtuous practices originate from their independence from upward accountability measures.