There is an increasing recognition of the international presence and regulatory influence of the EU in competition policy. Despite a scholarly focus on its international dimension, the issue of nationality-based (non-) discrimination has insufficiently been investigated in the existing literature on EU competition policy. Thus, this research aims to fill this gap in the literature by examining whether the EU internally and externally utilizes its competition rules for the objective of promoting (potential) national and European champions, while disadvantaging non-EU based companies operating inside and outside the European internal market. Empirical findings validate two hypotheses of this research: that the supranational institutional setting of the EU in competition policy constrains the ability of member states to use their competition policies for neomercantilist, and even for protectionist purposes; and that the institutional setup assures nationality-blind enforcement by EU competition regulators, even vis-à-vis non-EU based companies. The research also identifies key systemic factors which either constrain or empower the EU as a regulatory power in the competition policy domain. The empirical analysis draws on both quantitative data and in-depth studies of recent major cases. Most cases are from the period between September 1990 and August 2015, involving American and Japanese companies, which have a strong presence in European economies.EU competition policy is highly supranational and has a distinctive goal of market integration. In order to understand better how these features shape EU competition policy, this research proposes an original model of ‘stringent competition policy’, drawing on the theory of regulatory states. This model is more useful than the essentially neomercantilist model of strategic competition policy in explaining the EU’s enforcement without regard to the nationality of firms. Internally, the supranational institutional setting significantly constrains the ability of the member states to utilize their competition policies for neomercantilist and protectionist purposes. Regarding external consequences of this policy, the EU stringently enforces its competition rules regardless the nationality of firms involved in law infringements, though some cases involving non-EU firms were highly politicized and contested. To ensure that its stringent competition policy does not deteriorate the international competitiveness of European firms, the EU has been promoting competition policy externally, especially since the 1990s. However, the EU’s ability to play a leadership role in global multilateral fora is limited, despite its dedication and ambitions. This is because the EU’s regulatory power is fundamentally constrained by systemic factors such as a sharp increase in the number and heterogeneity of competition policies around the world, the deadlock of WTO negotiations on world competition law, and the emergence of transgovernmental networks such as the ICN. At the same time, these systemic factors have created the demand of younger competition authorities for reference points, if not models, and this opened up a window of opportunity for the EU to promote its competition policy rules and norms more extensively in third states. Overall, this research contributes to the EU competition policy literature by firmly placing it in a wider debate on competition and/versus competitiveness in the study of global political economy. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis discusses how ideas, as domestic factors, have decided the formation of China’smultilateralist foreign policy. It tries to provide an profound understanding of China's foreignpolicy development with the theoretical tools provided by discursive institutionalism andhistorical institutionalism.Three empirical cases are studied: the case of WTO, the case of ASEAN+3 and the case ofShanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). These three cases have represented China'sinvolvement of multilateral institutions at different time and level.The findings show that China has gradually turned to an active participants of multilateralinstitutions, and it is trying to constructing a new type of multilateralism: competitivemultilateralism. Whether it can be compatible with existing institutions is an open question. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La question de la parité et singulièrement de la répartition sexuée du travail a été toujours au cœurde débats passionnants.En R. D. Congo l’opposition entre les sexes masculin et féminin dans le monde du travail esttoujours d’actualité.Cette opposition entraine par voie de conséquence de la discrimination, de l’exclusion et par de là,des inégalités sociales.Dans cette étude, nous voulons montrer le fait que ces irrégularités est une suite logique desreprésentations sociales en dépourvu de l’un ou de l’autre sexe. Car elles prennent pour point dedépart les traditions et les coutumes souvent immuables. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Since the early 1990s, increasing academic attention has been devoted to party membership. Numerous studies have evidenced a long-term declining trend affecting almost all traditional parties in Western Europe (Mair and Van Biezen, 2001; Van Biezen et al. 2012b). Yet, in recent years, there have been some signs of a revival of party membership (Whiteley et al. 2019). What are the main factors accounting for fluctuations in party membership levels across Western Europe from the 1990s until 2014? This is the main question this dissertation seeks to answer. The main objective of this dissertation is to identify the factors that significantly affect the ability of political parties to recruit members in Western Europe. So far, the academic literature has mainly focused on micro- and macro-level determinants of membership fluctuations and have involved long-term explanations of shifts in party membership. Their general focus has been to ask why citizens join political and not so much why and in which conditions political parties are able to recruit members. The impact of meso-level and short-term factors on party membership variations has been largely underexplored. To shed new light on these issues, this study proposes to apply theoretical perspectives and empirical tools developed by sociological and economical organization studies. Four main theoretical perspectives have been developed by organizational theories to explain variations in organizations’ size and structure: the evolutionary system perspective (ES), the sociological neo-institutionalism (SI), transaction cost theory (TCT) and the resource-based view (RBV). Explanatory insights from each of these perspectives were identified and explored in each of the four empirical chapters of this dissertation. Overall, this dissertation evidences several transformations in party membership. By diversifying temporal perspectives, units of analysis and levels of observation, it shows that the decline of party membership levels is not as universal and as linear as it is often assumed. Membership levels are affected by electoral and organizational lifecycles. Not all parties have been affected by the general decrease in membership levels and some new parties have managed to attract an increasing number of members. Besides, parties that have given their members a greater say in their internal decision making have generally managed to attract new members. By looking at infra-national dynamics of party membership, this dissertation also shows the importance of regional and local context and the heterogeneity of membership trajectories within the same party. It underlines the importance of electoral mobilization at the local level and the importance of individual recruiters for the composition of the membership. By reflecting on the causes of party membership fluctuations, this dissertation sheds light on some important challenges for the future of our representative democracies. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse analyse l’institutionnalisation du Haut représentant de l’UE dans les négociations sur le programme nucléaire iranien entre 2003 et 2015. Si au départ le rôle qu’occupe le Haut représentant dans le dossier iranien est codifié dans les traités européens, à partir de 2006, ce sont notamment les résolutions du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU qui le définissent. Ainsi mandaté par deux groupes d’acteurs distincts – les acteurs institutionnels de l’UE et les six puissances impliquées dans les négociations avec l’Iran – le diplomate en chef de l’UE est amené à endosser deux rôles contradictoires, celui du Haut représentant de l’UE et celui du Haut représentant des E3+3.En combinant la sociologie de l’UE avec la sociologie des RI, cette thèse interroge les dynamiques qui ont amené le Haut représentant à être reconnu comme légitime par l’ensemble des acteurs de la configuration du dossier nucléaire iranien. À partir de ce questionnement, ce travail propose un cadre d’analyse pour étudier l’institutionnalisation de l’Europe de la politique étrangère.La littérature sur l’institutionnalisation de l’action extérieure commune est divisée entre des travaux qui s’intéressent aux interactions entre des acteurs européens, d’un côté, et des travaux qui étudient l’institutionnalisation de l’UE sur la scène internationale, de l’autre. Ainsi, ils omettent que la construction de l’action extérieure commune est le produit de l’enchevêtrement des dynamiques globales et européennes. Cette thèse surmonte ce clivage en ce qu’elle met l’enjeu des dimensions interne et externe de l’institutionnalisation de l’UE au cœur de l’analyse. En m’appuyant sur l’hypothèse de la différenciation des espaces sociaux, je prendrai en compte les logiques distinctes structurant l’arène globale de la négociation nucléaire et l’arène de la PESC, tout en les appréhendant comme des arènes enchevêtrées. L’enquête empirique qui s’appuie sur des entretiens et des archives, met en exergue que le Haut représentant s’autonomise davantage de ses obligations du Haut représentant de l’UE pour endosser exclusivement le rôle de Haut représentant des E3+3. En outre, l’institutionnalisation de ces rôles est le produit d’une multitude d’interactions individuelles au sein et à l’intersection des espaces sociaux européens et globaux.À partir de l’analyse de l’institutionnalisation du rôle du Haut représentant dans le dossier nucléaire et en s’inspirant de la sociologie de Michel Dobry, ce travail permet de concevoir la variation de l’emprise des différents espaces sociaux sur l’institutionnalisation de l’action extérieure commune. Plutôt que de privilégier l’analyse d’une dimension sur l’autre, il est nécessaire de saisir la trajectoire de leur rapport afin d’appréhender le caractère aléatoire de la construction de l’Europe de la politique étrangère dans toute sa complexité. Au-delà de cela, l’étude de cas questionne l’idée de l’institutionnalisation de l’UE en tant que processus d’intégration. En effet, l’inscription de l’UE dans l’espace global de la diplomatie internationale nous permet de voir qu’il s’agit aussi bien d’une dynamique d’autonomisation, de différenciation et d’exclusion. / This thesis analyses the institutionalisation of the EU High Representative in the negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme between 2003 and 2015. Although initially the role of the High Representative in the Iranian dossier was codified in the European treaties, from 2006 onwards, it was notably the UN Security Council resolutions that defined it. Thus mandated by two distinct groups of actors - the EU's institutional actors and the six powers involved in the negotiations with Iran - the EU's chief diplomat is led to assume two contradictory roles, that of the EU High Representative and that of the E3+3 High Representative.By combining sociology of the EU with sociology of IR, this thesis examines the dynamics that led the High Representative to be recognised as legitimate by all those involved in the configuration of the Iranian nuclear dossier. Based on this guiding question, this work proposes an analytical framework for studying the institutionalisation of Europe's foreign policy.The literature on the institutionalisation of common external action is divided between work that looks at the interactions between European actors, on the one hand, and work that studies the institutionalisation of the EU on the international scene, on the other. Thus this bifurcation in the scholarly literature precludes a vision of European integration as the product of the tangle of global and European dynamics. This thesis overcomes this divide in that it puts the internal and external dimensions of the institutionalisation of the EU at the heart of the analysis. Based on the hypothesis of the differentiation of social spaces, I will take into account the distinct logics structuring the global arena of nuclear negotiation and the arena of the CFSP, while apprehending them as entangled arenas. The empirical survey, which is based on interviews and archives, highlights that the High Representative is becoming more autonomous from his obligations as EU High Representative to assume the role of High Representative of the E3+3. Moreover, the institutionalisation of these roles is the product of a multitude of individual interactions within and at the intersection of European and global social spaces.Based on an analysis of the construction of the role of the High Representative in the nuclear dossier and drawing inspiration from the sociology of Michel Dobry, this work makes it possible to conceive the variation of the influence of various social spaces on the institutionalisation of common external action. Rather than focusing on the analysis of one dimension over the other, it is necessary to grasp the trajectory of their relationship in order to grasp the random nature of the construction of Europe's foreign policy in all its complexity. Beyond this, the case study questions the idea of the institutionalisation of the EU as an integration process. Indeed, the EU's inclusion in the global space of international diplomacy allows us to see that it is also a dynamic of empowerment, differentiation and exclusion. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This dissertation investigates how legal and policy professionals have legally constructed the economic policy and governance of the EU since the beginning of the Eurozone crisis onwards. It follows the legal and policy professionals who received the mandate to enable and consolidate solutions, as well as defend these solutions in court. By tracing the practices and trajectories of these agents, I show how, during an unfolding crisis, economic policy and governance becomes legally constructed and changes the terms of legitimation for EU economic governance. The stakes involved for the professionals involved also change. In this way, the dissertation speaks to the question of how intrusive political power has been legitimated during the Eurozone crisis and what this means for the legitimacy of European governance. Theoretically, this thesis develops a Bourdieusian field approach that is adapted to the transnational and diachronic context of the Eurozone crisis, as it unfolded from the end of 2009 until the adjudication of key high-profile court cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Drawing on boundary work, bricolage, and network interactions to analyse the practices of legal and policy professionals, the process of enabling and consolidating solutions is elaborated. Attention is given to how this process engenders stakes for the professionals in this emerging euro-crisis law field, and what this means for emerging legal terms of legitimation for economic governance.Methodologically, field-based and social network analysis are combined in two distinct ways. First, by employing a temporally-focussed network analysis, which caters for change by measuring the shifting centrality of legal and policy professionals over time, I show which professionals have had a high-level of involvement in dealing with crisis issues. This then permits the construction of a referral network based on how these professionals refer to their peers. The involvement of the professionals is further articulated as their accumulated symbolic capital: i.e. their involvement together with being perceived to know well. From this, I infer a species of symbolic capital unique to being part of the Eurozone crisis policy response: juridical capital.This dissertation adds to scholarship on the Eurozone crisis by creating a theoretical framework based on Bourdieusian fields, which utilises a network analytical approach to show how the practices and interactions of legal and policy professionals reconfigure the transnational contexts that are implicated in the crisis policy response. Moreover, it is shown how these professionals’ practices enable solutions that are contested before the Court of Justice of the European Union, putting the Court in a position where it has to bring the definitional power of the law to bear on the actions of EU institutions and the Eurogroup. The Court must decide how responsibility should be attributed. The dissertation shows how legal and policy professionals developed practices, using jurisdictional and constitutionalising logics, and deployed at different times during the crisis, enabled and consolidated processes of legal integration and differentiation. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This research explains how does the interaction between foreign and domestic policy domains take place and how it influences domestic political change. For this purpose, the cases of Armenia, Georgia and Moldova are analysed with specific focus on the external influence of Russia and the European Union. Consequently, this study traces the interaction between domestic and international actors at the light of the broader regional context, including the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union. The research uses the analytical tool defined by Morlino (2011), with theoretical contributions from social constructivism and historical institutionalism in order to emphasize the need to contextualise the actions, preferences and identities of domestic actors in a broader historical perspective, which acknowledges the relevance of past legacies. Following the analytical tool, suggested by Morlino (2011), the research focuses on institutional reforms in Rule of Law, Inter-Institutional and Electoral Accountability, in addition to Participation and Competition as horizontal dimensions. A combination of process- tracing and network analysis provides insight on the strategies of domestic and international actors intervening in the reform processes.The research argues that the increased competition between the European Union and Russia is used by different domestic elite groups to strengthen their power positions and as an opportunity to diversify the foreign policy relations in the case of relatively small economic partners as Armenia, Georgia and Moldova. Such strategy is pursued through the development of focused relations with each international partner, while avoiding an exclusive geopolitical choice. Therefore, the EU is a preferred partner in democracy support, development of institutional capacities and trade; while Russia’s collaboration is sought in fields as trade, energy, etc). In addition, the EU and Russia have developed more flexible approaches in the relations with their neighbours. The EU seeks a more pragmatic geopolitically-informed approach in addition to its traditional normative role. On the other hand, Russia adopts a mimicking strategy of Western normative policies in support of its identity-based approach towards Russian-speaking communities in addition to its traditional geopolitical use of regional interdependencies for influencing the choices of the its neighbours. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

It is often said that European Immigration Policy has been converged to civic integration policy, which requires immigrants to learn the culture, history, and language etc. of the host country. That trend of convergence is sometimes regarded as the European retreat from multiculturalism, and sometimes even as convergence to the assimilationism, and so called 'fortress Europe.' This doctoral thesis is aiming at attaining more sophisticated understanding of this phenomena, by conducting analyses both at the national level and European level. At national level, it challenges the common wisdom that civic integration basically aims at restricting migrants and tries to revalorize national citizenship, through comparative analysis of the Dutch and the German party politics at the stage of legislating key national civic integration policy. By doing so, it found that the diversity of national civic integration policy from liberal to restrictive. At the EU level, it challenges the assumption that the EU played a role in uploading national interests and promoted European convergence towards restrictive immigration policy. Through the analysis of each EU institution's attitude and their influence over national immigration policy. It tries to figure out the processes of negative Europeanization where the effects of EU laws and soft governance tools of the commission actually pre-emptively guide the national policy towards rather modest civic integration, and even prohibited national member states from adopting very restrictive policy at national level. From the combination of those findings, the thesis tries to propose new model of immigrant integration and citizenship acquisition, that is, 'phased integration model'. It interprets the convergence towards civic integration as institutionalization of immigrant integration path in each member states. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette thèse interroge la performativité de l’instrumentation au cœur du processus de prise de décision de l’union européenne en étudiant la procédure d’analyse d’impact de la Commission européenne (AI-CE), et son application en particulier aux politiques environnementales. Mise en place en 2002 afin d’évaluer les impacts économiques, sociaux et environnementaux des propositions émises par la CE, la procédure d’AI est formellement l’instrument de la stratégie de développement durable (SDD), mais elle est aussi un pilier de la politique de ‘Better Regulation’ (BR) (« Mieux légiférer ») et penche progressivement dans le sens de ce second agenda avec une préférence pour l’analyse coûts-bénéfices et le choix d’instruments non légaux. En réponse à la question de la rationalité et de la performativité de l’AI-CE, la thèse défendue dans cette recherche conçoit l’analyse d’impact de la CE comme une technique de la gouvernementalité néolibérale placée au cœur de la fabrique des politiques environnementales de l’UE, en appui notamment sur l’opération de monétarisation des impacts. L’hypothèse est celle du renforcement du discours de la modernisation écologique, avec pour effet de contribuer au phénomène d’économicisation des problématiques environnementales dans le sens d’un nécessaire alignement sur l’étalon d’une utilité économique. Pour mener à bien ce projet, la thèse déploie une analyse du discours de la CE et combine analyse de documents, entretiens et analyse lexicométrique. A la suite de nos investigations, il s’avère que les résultats sont partiellement congruents par rapport à l’hypothèse introduite supra. En effet, la mise en œuvre du dispositif n’entraine, pour les cas spécifiques étudiés, ni la monétarisation systématique, ni même la quantification systématique des impacts environnementaux d’une part, ou le choix systématique d’instruments volontaires ou de marché d’autre part. De plus, l’analyse lexicométrique nous permet de mettre en évidence la cohabitation de deux types de gouvernementalités distinctes, bien que se chevauchant partiellement, au travers des discours de la modernisation écologique et de la gouvernementalité verte. Cependant, nous constatons également le poids et la force structurante du terme et de la notion de « coût » et le recours systématique à un registre de justification économique de l’action environnementale au travers de ressorts typiques du discours de la modernisation écologique, avatar de la gouvernementalité néolibérale. En dépit de l’incomplétude de la réalisation des engagements pris par la CE, ou de ce fait même, nous constatons que la mise en œuvre de l’AI-CE contribue à l’économicisation de la fabrique des politiques environnementales comme insertion des problématiques environnementales dans une logique d’utilité économique et à la subordination de l’évaluation des impacts « économiques, sociaux et environnementaux » à la question du coût de l’intervention et aux critères de comparaison favorables à la dimension économique. / This PhD thesis questions the performativity of the European Commission Impact Assessment (EC-IA) as decision-support instrument at the heart of the European policy process in the case of European environmental policy-making.Adopted in 2002, the EC-IA is meant to address “all” significant economic, social and environmental impacts of the EC proposals. It is an instrument of the Sustainable Development strategy, as well as of the Better Regulation agenda. It will progressively mainly contribute to this second agenda, with a focus of the guidelines on cost-benefit analysis and non-legal instruments.Questioning the EC-IA rational and performativity, the thesis conceives the EC-IA as a neoliberal governmentality technique within the European environmental policy-making process, among other leaning on the monetisation of impacts. The hypothesis is the reinforcement of the ecological modernisation discourse, contributing to the economicisation of environmental issues, with economic utility as yardstick.Following our investigations (made of discourse analysis, combining document analysis, interviews and lexicometry), it turns out that results are only partially congruent with our research hypothesis. As a matter of fact, the implementation of the EC-IA does not involve, for the case studied, systematic monetisation, nor quantification of environmental impacts or the systematic proposal of voluntary or market instruments. Moreover, the lexicometric analysis highlights two parallel types of governmentalities, partially overlapping, with the ecological modernization and green governmentality discourses.However, we also highlights the important weight and structuring strength of the word and concept of “cost”, and the systematic economic justification of environmental action, a.o. through storyline elements typical of the modernization discourse, avatar of neoliberal governmentality. In spite of the partial implementation of the EC-IA guidelines, or du to this incompleteness, we observe that EC-IA implementation contributes to the economicisation of the making of European environmental policies through the embedding of environmental issues in an economic utility logic, and through the subordination of the assessment of “economic, social and environmental” impacts to the question of the cost of action and to comparison criteria in line with the economic dimension. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis investigates what it means to view disruptive innovation as a political problem. I take my point of departure in the tendency for controversial disruptions in heavily regulated sectors, such as electronic cigarettes or hydraulic fracturing, to open regulatory spaces by challenging established expectations about how they ought to be governed. In the wake of such disruption, policy actors with a stake in the matter engage in sensemaking and discursive contests to control the meaning of the innovations in order to close the regulatory spaces by aligning them with one set of laws instead of another. I study these contests in two recent legislative initiatives of the European Union to address the disruptive potential of e-cigarettes and fracking: the 2014 revision of the Tobacco Products Directive and the 2014 Commission recommendations on unconventional fossil fuels. The research draws on 51 interviews carried out with key policy actors during and after the policy debates. I bolster this with an analysis of policy documents, press releases and scientific studies, as well as a content and network analysis of position statements in newspaper articles. I find that the strategic use of rhetoric and framing plays an important part in creating, maintaining, and entrenching opposed coalitions in both policy debates. In both case studies, the policy solution is accompanied by deteriorating levels of trust among participants, leading coalitions to engage in strategies of venue-shopping to circumvent their opponents. This underscores the significant challenges there are for policymakers to address disruptions while maintaining legitimacy. The original contribution of the thesis lies in its novel conceptualization of disruptive innovation as a political problem, its application of micro-sociological approaches to the politics of expertise and European public policy, and its practical and theoretical suggestions for how to better study periods of disruption and govern through them. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished