At my thesis’s core is the transformation of the agricultural industry based on the framework of food regimes established by Philip McMichael and Harriet Friedmann. The framework of food regimes will guide the analysis of recent agricultural developments towards sustainability. Due to the local nature of the food production system, I focused my thesis on one county in the South of Germany, Schwäbisch Hall, which allows me to look at local developments and how they affect our broader global food system. I will begin the thesis by analysing the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on agricultural actors in Schwäbisch Hall. After that, I will thoroughly examine the term “sustainable agriculture” within the context of sustainability and how the term is perceived by agricultural actors in Schwäbisch Hall. I will then explore three crucial global sustainability issues in the agricultural sector and how these global issues are influencing and transforming the agricultural industry on a local level. The sustainability issues include Food Security, Environmental Issues and Climate Change, and Consumption Issues. The analysis will explore how these issues, along with the recent CAP reform, can shape and advance the agricultural industry in the future. To analyse the CAP and sustainable agriculture, the study will employ the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which will provide insights into the operational dynamics and interplay of networks within the industry as they mutually influence each other. I also use interviews with agricultural actors and news articles to get a more profound knowledge of opinions on the developments within the agricultural sector. After analysing current sustainability issues and the most recent CAP reform, I will discuss the agricultural sector's future in Germany and how the agricultural industry could develop further in the upcoming years. I will also look more into the possibilities of organic farming and its importance in establishing a more sustainable agricultural sector. At the end of my thesis, I will examine if, with the recent developments in the agricultural industry, there is a chance that a new fourth food regime can be established soon in the broader prospect of our global food system.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of preference formation in the European Union. Thus, the study aims to answer the following research question: How were Sweden’s preferences in the Council of the EU affected by the British exit from the EU? The study tracked Swedish preferences within two policy areas: labor market policy, which is assessed to have high salience, and the common agricultural policy, which is assessed to have lower salience. The method used was a quasi-experimental design, comparing the stance of the Swedish government in the time periods before, during and after Brexit. The main finding of the study was that the content of Swedish preferences remained the same within both policy areas. However, the preferences for national competency over labor market regulation was stronger after Brexit than before. Based on these results, the paper reaches the conclusion that there is no evidence of Sweden adapting national preferences to a changed composition of preferences in the council. Even without support from a large state, Sweden maintains outlier positions in issues of both high and low salience. Hence, the study’s empirical findings confirm the understanding of preferences as stable and independent from a changing international setting.

While the linguistic concept of politeness has been thoroughly analyzed, the same does not apply to its interpreting. The present theoretical-empirical work describes the means for expressing politeness grouped by G. Leechʼs maxims of politeness. The empirical part analyzes recordings of simultaneous interpretation from media and European Parliament settings. This is a quantitative study and the outcome is the number of means for expressing politeness which the interpreters conveyed into Czech. On average and in all of the material 65,7 % of means for expressing politeness were conveyed into Czech in compliance with the maxims. The means analyzed are prosody, non-verbal communication, modality, personal reference, etc. An equivalent interpretation of means of politeness was deemed desirable. The thesis verifies the hypothesis whether the level of politeness significantly increased in comparison with the original speeches. Key words: politeness, pragmatics, illocutionary act, maxims of politeness, face, modality, prosody, non- verbal communication, Czech, English, interpreting, equivalence, US presidential debate, Obama, Romney, Common Agricultural Policy, European Parliament, Catherine Ashton, forms of address

Agrarmärkte sind oft durch Unsicherheit gekennzeichnet - hervorgerufen vor allem durch Zufallsschwankungen in Angebot und Nachfrage. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Studie besteht darin, die Konsequenzen solcher Unsicherheiten für die Bewertung und Gestaltung der vor einer grundlegenden Neuausrichtung stehenden EU-Milchmarktpolitik zu untersuchen. Zunächst legen empirische Betrachtungen anhand der Zeitreihen verschiedener Marktgrößen nahe, dass Unsicherheit für die Akteure auf dem EU-Milchmarkt tatsächlich ein relevantes Phänomen ist. So sind etwa Preisschwankungen trotz der auf eine Marktstabilisierung ausgerichteten staatlichen Eingriffe zu beobachten. Anhaltspunkte konnten auch zu den Ursachen der Marktunsicherheiten gewonnen werden. Während Angebot und Nachfrage in der EU eine eher stabile Entwicklung aufweisen, neigen die internationalen Milchproduktmärkte zu Fluktuationen. Zur Analyse der Auswirkungen staatlicher Eingriffe auf dem Milchmarkt bei Unsicherheit dient ein stochastisches partielles Marktgleichgewichtsmodell. Das Modell bildet die spezifischen Strukturen des Milchmarkts mit dem Rohmilchangebot, der Milchverarbeitung und der Nachfrage nach den verschiedenen Milchprodukten ab. Zur Integration von Unsicherheit wird die Modellstruktur um stochastische Variablen in den Angebots- und Nachfragefunktionen erweitert. Mit Quotenregelung, Zöllen und Exporterstattungen lassen sich wesentliche Politikinstrumente untersuchen. Gegenstand der Betrachtungen sind mögliche Auswirkungen einer neuen multilateralen Handelsvereinbarung im Rahmen der Welthandelsorganisation (WTO) sowie die Effekte dreier für den Milchmarkt formulierter Politikszenarien. Diese Politikoptionen sind die im Juni 2003 in Luxemburg beschlossene Agrarreform, eine in der Fachöffentlichkeit oft diskutierte Quotenkürzung und eine vollständige Liberalisierung des Milchmarkts samt Quotenabschaffung. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass veränderte Preis- und Mengeneingriffe nicht nur zu Verschiebungen im Niveau von Zielgrößen, wie beispielsweise von Erzeugerpreisen und Erlösen in der EU und auf Drittlandsmärkten führen, sondern ebenso zu veränderten Streuungen. Zusätzliche Einsichten vermitteln die Ergebnisse darüber hinaus bezüglich der Unsicherheit in der Planung der öffentlichen Ausgaben am Milchmarkt und in der Vorhersage der Wohlfahrtseffekte von Politikänderungen. Gegenüber einer deterministischen Betrachtung wird eine Politikanalyse am Milchmarkt unter expliziter Berücksichtigung von Unsicherheit damit komplexer und die Beurteilung von Politikoptionen differenzierter.

The thesis is aimed at an analysis of marketing organizations within the frame ot the Common Agricultural Policy. Marketing organizations are one ot the forms of co-operation and these are usually horizontal co-operation, i.e. at the same level ot the logistics chain. This form of co-operation is called marketing organizations or marketing co-operatives in the agrarian sector. Voluntary grouping of farmers into marketing organizations is common both in the Czech Republic and within the whole European Union. To conclud the thesis, it can be said that the existence of co-operation is very important for functioning of agriculture and that agribusiness without any membership in any co-operative association is often very difficult.

Modern agriculture is causing a wide range of environmental problems. By regulating the agricultural sector, human societies try to find a balance between enabling the production of food and public goods and preventing negative consequences for the environment. In the European Union this is mainly achieved through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Since many of the environmental indicators are still showing negative trends, an ongoing evaluation and adaptation of the policy instruments included in the CAP is asked for. At the same time, the field of policy evaluation is more and more incorporating a behavioral economic perspective on human behavior, one that deviates from the homo oeconomicus model that has long dominated research in this area. This thesis presents a study on “Behavioral Economics of Agri-Environmental Policies” by combining themes from agricultural and environmental economics with methods and perspectives from behavioral and experimental economics. It thereby contributes to the emerging field of behavioral agricultural economics. Specifically, it aims to shed light on the behavioral drivers of pro-environmental decisions of farmers and how these insights can be used to evaluate and adapt the CAP. With a lab-in-the-field experiment with farmers from Lower Saxony in Germany, an influence of the framing of the farmers’ societal role, their self-identity, as well as control aversion and feelings of warm glow on farmers’ behavior was uncovered. From a policy perspective, the results of this thesis provide a case for the continued use of both mandatory and voluntary policy instruments. Furthermore, with a Principal Components and Cluster Analysis, a multi-facetted picture of different farmer self-identities prevalent in the sample population was revealed. Based on a literature review, the thesis also provides an analysis of how behaviorally-informed interventions might increase the environmental performance of the CAP in the future.

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