<p>Uppsatsen är en jämförande kvantitativ pilotstudie om och hur Ungerns politiska kultur och postmaterialistiska värderingar har förändrats sedan staten blev medlem i EU.</p><p>Syftet är att se om det har skett några förändringar i den politiska kulturen och om EU har varit en bidragande faktor för förändringen. Primärkällor jag har använt mig av är World Values Survey och European Social Survey, och sekundärkällor är sådana källor som har definierat politisk kultur, och förklarat hur EU fungerar. Resultatet jag har kommit fram till är att den politiska kulturen inte har förändrats i stor grad men det har skett förändringar i några värderingar som leder till postmodernismen. Medlemskapet i EU kan vara en faktor till att förändringarna har skett, men det är inte enbart det som har påverkat.</p>

<p>Det råder delade meningar om hur den Europeiska unionen kommer att utvecklas i framtiden. Skeptiker menar att den kommer utvecklas i riktning mot en federation och undergräva medlemsstaternas suveränitet, medan andra menar att det europeiska samarbetet främst är en frihandelsförening. Syftet med min uppsats är att undersöka hur det inom EU:s institutioner resoneras kring frågor rörande EU:s framtida integration, samt kring frågor rörande demokrati. Det material jag analyserar är ett urval av EU-dokument, där jag med kvalitativ textanalys, utifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av tre stycken integrationsteorier, försöker förstå hur EU:s institutioner ser på unionens framtida integration samt frågor rörande demokrati. Resultatet av undersökningen gav en mångfacetterad bild av hur det resoneras kring dessa frågor på högsta EU-nivå. Speciellt belysande var hur kommissionen resonerar kring demokrati jämfört med andra EU-institutioner.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>This thesis show how the European Community, through legislation and case law, is addressing the problem of multiple discrimination and what the possible solutions to it are.</p><p>Multiple discrimination describes a situation where an individual experiences discrimination on more than one ground. This can occur in two different ways; additive or intersectional. Additive discrimination describes a situation where an individual is discriminated against on more than one ground and these grounds are added on top of each other. Intersectional discrimination explains how an individual’s multiple identities may be the cause of discrimination in such a way that the grounds for discrimination cannot be considered separately.</p><p>Expanding the list of grounds in Article 13 EC could help multiple discrimination claims but cannot be seen as the exclusive solution to such a complex problem. Many more problems surround multiple discrimination claims. One is to find an adequate comparator in order to prove discrimination. Another is that the case law shows a higher rate of success for plaintiffs claiming only one ground of discrimination even if they have experienced multiple discrimination, causing a disparity between the facts of the case and the reality experienced by the plaintiffs.</p><p>In conclusion, such a complex matter cannot be solved by one simple solution but the Community would benefit from an explicit prohibition as well as a common definition of multiple discrimination.</p>

<p>EU har beslutat sig för att gradvis plocka bort de vanliga glödlamporna från marknaden. Istället ska vi använda energismartare ljuskällor som lågenergi-, halogen- eller LED-lampor.</p><p>Vilken ljuskälla som ersätter den traditionella glödlampan är ännu oklar. Den värdiga ersättaren ska gärna vara fri från kvicksilver, energismart och inte alltför dyr.</p>

<p>The Swedish Prime Minister, Tage Erlander, made a speech on the 22 of August 1961 in which he dismissed speculation that Sweden was seeking to abandon its neutral stance and non-alignment in foreign policy with a view to requesting membership of the European Economic Community. The reason was that the EEC was supposed to have a political part where a connection with NATO should have existed. This speech led to a domestic discussion which has been called the most intense debate of foreign affairs in recent history. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reactions of the other parliamentary parties to Erlander’s speech. The theoretical points draw from social constructivism, which is being operationalised into states’ identity and interests. These interests are states’ physical survival, autonomy and economic well-being. All of these three interests were present in Erlander’s speech.</p><p>The study shows that the Centre Party (Centerpartiet) was in agreement with Erlander’s stance and coincided that it was impossible to reconcile membership of the EEC with the state’s neutral stance. Both the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna) and the Centre Party gave priority to the interest of autonomy over economic well-being. However, there were aspects of the interest of physical survival in the opinions of the Social Democrats, which might be connected with their role as the government party and therefore having the ultimate responsibility. The biggest critics were the non-socialist parties: the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) and the Conservative Party (Högerpartiet). The latter two believed that the country should seek the oppurtunity to make an exception to the neutral stance when applying for membership and then evaluate whether it would be possible to reconcile it with non-allignment. They both had economic well-being as their major interest. Further criticism came from the Communist Party (Kommunistpartiet), who were opponents of any aspect of European cooperation. They even drew parallels between the EEC and Hitler’s vision for Europe. The Communist Party included interests of physical survival and autonomy in their argumentation. All parties were consistent in keeping to their interests throughout the period of this research.</p>

The EU’s Trade Relations with China (1975-2008): A Linkage Power at Work? (Summary) The central aim of this thesis is to improve our understanding of the EU’s power, in particular in its external trade relations/negotiations. Our hypothesis is that the EU is a distinctive kind of linkage power, defined as an actor relying on linkage as a crucial modus operandi in its external relations. We explored how, to what extent and in which distinctive ways the EU is such a linkage power. Our analysis was based on three logically interrelated concepts – power resources, linkage and linkage power. Linkage refers to a leveraging strategy, with an aim of packaging relevant power resources, so as to increase leverage in bargaining, or more generally attain a policy objective. I identified seven types of linkages that the EU used: political-economic issue linkage, economic-economic issue linkage, conditionality, contextual linkage, linkage with a third party, cognitive linkage and synergistic linkage. Linkage can hardly work without proper power resources. The latter, as Dahl (1970) defined, refers to all the resources-opportunities, acts, objects etc – that an actor can exploit in order to affect the behaviour of another. So, linkage is a bridge between power resources and impacts – meaning affecting or changing the behaviour of another party. By putting linkage and power together, we created a new term – “linkage power”, referring to a power based on linkages. The EU, the US, China or any other power can all be such labelled, though these actors may diverge in power resources, linkage strategies and the variables affecting linkage effectiveness. When applying such an analytical framework to the EU, we gave particular attention to the implications of the EU’s sui generis nature on its linkage power. Our case study is the EU’s trade relations with China (1975-2008), which were punctuated by two critical historical junctures – the Tian’anmen Square Incident in 1989 and the EU-China Textile Crisis in 2005. In 1975, The EEC’s successful strategy by linking political issues (Europe-China balancing the Soviet Union and recognising China’s sovereignty over Taiwan) with economic issues (signing the EEC-China Trade Agreement) played a crucial role in securing the establishment of diplomatic relations between the EEC and China. Different types of linkages were then applied to the EEC’s negotiations with Beijing on the 1978 Trade Agreement and the 1979 textile agreement, which effectively prompted the Chinese side to agree to the EU’s terms. Immediately after the 1989 Tian’anmen Square Incident, the EC imposed economic sanctions with an aim of coercing China to accept Western world’s human rights conditions. This linkage did not last long or pay off due to divergent political and economic interests among the Member States and the EC’s institutional handicaps (foreign policy competence was largely in the hands of Member States, collective foreign policy action was non-binding), and soon de-linked. Having realised that confrontational approach did not work well, the EC/EU and its Member States started to change their China policies in 1993-95. The period of 1993-2004 witnessed the EC/EU’s power through partnership. The strategic partnership was seen as a complex of different pairs of issue linkages, ranging from political-strategic issues to economic and human rights issues. The partnership, once established, had fostered new linkages and consolidated old ones. China’s WTO accession was seen as a once-in-a-century opportunity for the EU to exercise linkage through conditionality, so as to extract market access concessions from the Chinese side. Moreover, by linking with China could the European Commission garnered international support for advancing the Galileo project within the Union and ward off some of the US pressure in 2003. The Year 2005 was singled out since an unprecedented trade row on textiles broke out, confronting the EU against China’s export prowess resulting from globalisation and China’s WTO accession. Linkages were used as a predominant strategy to help the EU to persuade and press the Chinese side firstly accept voluntary export restrictions and then share the burden of allowing the blocked textiles in European ports to be released. In 2006-08, the trade deficit problem emerged, coupled with a series political spats between Europe (France and Germany) and Beijing on the Tibet issue. As the EU-China honeymoon was over, the Commission toughened its approach towards China. Although linkage was again used to redress the trade deficit, its effects were not satisfactory, as the EU power resources were eroded. Our conclusions are (1) linkage is a crucial modus operandi in the EU’s internal bargain and its external relations with China; (2) Linkage was generally effective vis-à-vis China, but with variations, either over time or across different linkage types; (3) The EU is a sui generis linkage power, resulting from its institutional characteristics and heterogeneity of interests among the Commission and Member States. We find that the EU’s increased institutionalisation (both regional and bilateral) and competences generally facilitated its use of linkage strategies. The EU’s sui generis structure and its internal interest divergences have mixed implications on its linkage effectiveness. On one hand, the EU’s linkage power was weakened accordingly. But on the other, the Commission could tactically make use of some Member State government’s row with Beijing and advance its own economic agenda (such as the EU-China High-level Economic and Trade Dialogue, HED). Moreover, our research also confirmed Andrew Moravcsik’s argument that issue linkage is more easily made within an issue-area than across issue-areas. But we differ from him on the reason behind that. We find that this was largely attributable to the EU’s pillar structure and competence divisions. The theoretical contributions include: (1) Linkage power provides a distinctive prism to look into the EU’s concrete strategies in internal bargains, and external commercial negotiations. Linkage serves as a crucial strategy for the EU to handle its relations with a far-abroad country like China, including establishing diplomatic relations, negotiating trade deals, forging strategic partnerships and holding high-level dialogue. (2) Giving some insights to the EU’s actorness. We find that the EU, though institutionally not a unitary actor, was somehow able to present its power to the extent like a sovereign state on some occasions using linkage strategies. (3) Contributing to the understanding of the EU’s means to spread its governance model. We find that the EU’s norm-setting goals have often been achieved through non-normative ways – such as interest exchange and trade-off, and other deliberate ways of persuasion and even coercion, mainly based on linkage. (4) Shedding light on the interactions between the Commission and the Member State governments and on the Commission’s autonomy in external trade relations. Two future directions of research have been identified: (1) comparative studies: the EU’s linkage practices vis-à-vis the US, Russia and middle powers, or other actors’ linkage strategies vis-à-vis China; (2) post-Lisbon linkage strategies used by the EU.

Die Zukunft Osteuropas entscheidet sich im Spannungsfeld zwischen Russland und der EU. Die dortigen Staaten lösen sich aus der einseitigen Abhängigkeit eines erstarkten und seine Interessen im postsowjetischen Raum verteidigenden Russland. Ob die EU diese Chance in Osteuropa nutzen kann, hängt davon ab, ob sich die Mitgliedstaaten bereitfinden, ihre wirtschaftlichen und geopolitischen Interessen in der Region gemeinsam zu verfolgen.

Europa in der Krise – ganz Europa? Deutschland hat von der Krise scheinbar profitiert, buchstäblich: sowohl wirtschaftlich als auch politisch. Die deutsche Führungsrolle für das angeb- lich schwankende Konstrukt der Europäischen Union gilt vielen Kommentatoren als normal. Die wirtschaftliche Kraft des Landes wird als Grundlage seiner hegemonialen Stellung in Europa anerkannt. Die „deutsche Frage“ stellt sich, im Jahr 2012, neu – und ist kritisch zu diskutieren.

Det råder delade meningar om hur den Europeiska unionen kommer att utvecklas i framtiden. Skeptiker menar att den kommer utvecklas i riktning mot en federation och undergräva medlemsstaternas suveränitet, medan andra menar att det europeiska samarbetet främst är en frihandelsförening. Syftet med min uppsats är att undersöka hur det inom EU:s institutioner resoneras kring frågor rörande EU:s framtida integration, samt kring frågor rörande demokrati. Det material jag analyserar är ett urval av EU-dokument, där jag med kvalitativ textanalys, utifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av tre stycken integrationsteorier, försöker förstå hur EU:s institutioner ser på unionens framtida integration samt frågor rörande demokrati. Resultatet av undersökningen gav en mångfacetterad bild av hur det resoneras kring dessa frågor på högsta EU-nivå. Speciellt belysande var hur kommissionen resonerar kring demokrati jämfört med andra EU-institutioner.

Uppsatsen är en jämförande kvantitativ pilotstudie om och hur Ungerns politiska kultur och postmaterialistiska värderingar har förändrats sedan staten blev medlem i EU. Syftet är att se om det har skett några förändringar i den politiska kulturen och om EU har varit en bidragande faktor för förändringen. Primärkällor jag har använt mig av är World Values Survey och European Social Survey, och sekundärkällor är sådana källor som har definierat politisk kultur, och förklarat hur EU fungerar. Resultatet jag har kommit fram till är att den politiska kulturen inte har förändrats i stor grad men det har skett förändringar i några värderingar som leder till postmodernismen. Medlemskapet i EU kan vara en faktor till att förändringarna har skett, men det är inte enbart det som har påverkat.