<p>The aim of this essay is to analyze the political interests of the United States Government in Turkey, from 1997 to spring 2007, using a qualitative method. I will also analyze any strategic changes during this period, by using theories of realism, particularly Structure Realism and Rational Choice. Using the Rational Actor Model (RAM), I will analyze how nation states such as the United States act in the political arena in Turkey. How can the US Government legitimize the support to Turkey and at the same time criticize there democratic deficit and their view on human rights. Turkey has been an American Military Ally, via NATO since 1952 and its demographic situation has changed since the Cold War. Turkey is located at the crossroads of the Eastern Islamic and Western Christian worlds, which complicates the situation. In addition 99% of the Turkish population is Muslim and only 1% is Christian, which has affected the development of relationships during the past decade, especially dramatic after September 11, 2001 when the United States focused on threats from Islamic Fundamentalist Groups. The RAM treats governments as unitary rational actors in the broader strategic environment when they calculate and prefer one political alternative to another. The RAM can be used to determine whether and how political actors, in this case the US Government work towards a maximized goal. Hierarchical position in structural realism is also interesting - the bandwagon alternative - which means that states jumps on either the strongest bandwagon or the actor that can guarantee the security of other states. In conclusion from a RAM perspective the analyze shows that the political interests of the US government had changed from a economic-strategic interest before September 11, 2001 to a more security-strategic interest after September 11, 2001. The US Government by using Turkey as military allied had focused on there national goals in Euro Asia trying to guarantee both Turkeys and US economy strategic security during this period. Especially buy controlling the oil and gas from the Caspian Sea. Turkey has also got the leading role and the mission of guaranteeing the peace and democratic development to secure an area of different cultures and religions in there neighbourhood.</p><p>Keywords: Turkey, US, strategic, military, economy, energy, oil, gas, EU, Cyprus, human rights, Euro Asia, geopolitics, interests</p>

<p>Denna uppsats syfte är att ta reda på om euron är en internationell valuta och om</p><p>euron kan konkurrera med dollarn om titeln som världens ledande valuta. Teori om</p><p>valutamarknaden, en valutas uppgifter och vad som avgör vilken valuta som används</p><p>internationellt behandlas och för att kunna svara på uppsatsens frågeställningar (syfte)</p><p>redogörs siffror på eurons internationella användning. Sådana siffror visar att euron är</p><p>en internationell valuta då den används i valutans funktioner internationellt, men att</p><p>dollarn fortfarande är den världsledande valutan utan att vara särsklit hotad i sin</p><p>ställning av euron.</p>

The thesis investigates the role of structural rigidities in recent labour market performances in Europe through various and complementary angles in five essays. By structural rigidities, we mean a lasting feature caused by a set of institutions, which prevents a market from operating efficiently. The approach is essentially empirical and macro-economic, while the scope of the analysis is definitely European, which is technically reflected in the use of either euro area aggregates or panels and cross-sections of European countries.

Denna uppsats syfte är att ta reda på om euron är en internationell valuta och om euron kan konkurrera med dollarn om titeln som världens ledande valuta. Teori om valutamarknaden, en valutas uppgifter och vad som avgör vilken valuta som används internationellt behandlas och för att kunna svara på uppsatsens frågeställningar (syfte) redogörs siffror på eurons internationella användning. Sådana siffror visar att euron är en internationell valuta då den används i valutans funktioner internationellt, men att dollarn fortfarande är den världsledande valutan utan att vara särsklit hotad i sin ställning av euron.

This thesis aims to analyze the development of the collective policies of the European Union towards the Middle East by focusing on the reasons behind the formulation of these policies, and the degree of success, failure and prospects of these policies. The general success of the European Community in the 1970s created a desire for European states to form a coordinated European foreign policy. Since the 1970s, the Community started to show willingness to shape international events and to strengthen its international role. The Middle East was one of the leading regions to which the Community turned in the early 1970s, an area, which, for historical and geographical reasons, is of vital interest to it. EU has been becoming a coherent and strategic actor in the Middle East since the 1990s. It has secured an important presence in the Middle East Peace Process and it has further strengthened its role in the Middle East through the adoption of a common, comprehensive regional strategy called the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and developed it with the initiation of the European Neighborhood Policy. However, the European Union&rsquo / s presence is still limited due to its institutional weaknesses, the lack of political unity among its member states, lack of political instruments and military capabilities.

The aim of this thesis is to examine, analyse and discuss the ways in which the European Union is structuring its relations with its neighbours in the Mediterranean region, in regards of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, its Third Basket which is dealing with the socio-cultural cooperation and human affairs, and the initiative of the intercultural dialogue. In this thesis, it is shown that the human dimension of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership has experienced an increase in related debates, activities and initiatives within the post-9/11 world order. To organise the intercultural relations and the civil society input in the process, the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures was established in 2005. It is observed that within the framework of this renewed significance of the Third Basket and the notion of intercultural dialogue, there exist clear problems regarding the issues of the politicisation and securitisation of the process, the representation of cultural entities and the participation of civil society organisations. To conclude, it is suggested that the independence of the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation regarding the issues of funding and civil society participation need to be enhanced extensively as within the current situation the political actors and the governments of the partner countries have strict control over the functioning of the intercultural dialogue which is initiated as a solely non-governmental institution that would regulate the cultural relations in the region.

After two world wars, the West European Economy goes through serious recession. Through the cold war, the representatives of west European countries, German and France, feel that they must cooperate. Hence, by the bases of economic co-operations, the West Europe starts to integrate their resources and political alliances. From the ¡§Economic Community (EC)¡¨ to ¡§Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)¡¨, most West European countries go through several obstacles, like the Collapse of Bretton Woods System in 1971 and the European Crisis in 1992,¡K¡K, etc. Finally, in 1th, Jan., 1999, 11 countries of European Union establish EMU and expect to take Euro as their single currency formally in 2002. They also establish European Central Bank (ECB) to execute the Euro zone¡¦s single monetary policy. The status of Euro after 1th Jan., 1999 is the purpose of this study. This article tries to use the Exchange Rate decision theories, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and Interest Rate parity (IRP), to investigate the relationship between Euro and USD. From several statistical empirical tests, it reveals that the trends of Euro couldn¡¦t correspond with the theoretical wants, ie PPP and IRP can¡¦t catch the trends of Euro. By the outcome of ¡§Sign Test¡¨ and ¡§Wilcoxon Sign-Rank Test¡¨, it can be found obviously that the Euro indeed is undervalued from the establishment to Apr., 2000 if we don¡¦t take the transaction costs into account. As a result of the outcome of empirical finds, the article starts to investigate the reasons why the theoretical values from exchange rate decision theories are not equal with real ones. One is that if the empirical models ignore some important factors which lead to the biases of models¡Fthe other is if Euro is undervalued during this observation periods. From the economic macro-environmental analyses, the article can infer that because of the Kosov Wars, Russian economic reform problems, the increase of short interest rate gap between USD and Euro, the different economic reform paces among member countries of EMU,¡K¡K, etc. result in the main factors of the weak currency - Euro.

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.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-118).

In 1993 the internal market within the European Union was formed and ensured free movement of goods, services, capital and people. This led to the removal of trade barriers between members of the European Union. When opening up for competition, price differences between countries decreased and more jobs were created. A single currency was introduced by eleven countries in 1999 with the goal of reducing transaction costs, eliminating exchange rate risk and to further simplify trade. In 2001 Greece joined the collaboration and introduced the euro. With a single currency, price differences are expected to decrease. The aim of this study is to investigate whether a common currency has had a significant effect on reducing price dispersion or not. Two types of convergence are tested, beta and sigma convergence. 21 different product groups are included in this study and are sorted after the speed of convergence. All of the 27 EU member states are included and divided into two groups, one euro group and one non-euro group. We also examine if differences in productivity can explain price convergence. The results indicate that the introduction of a common currency did not decrease price dispersion within the majority of product groups. For the product groups in which price convergence are evident, only one product group within the euro countries and one product group within the non-euro countries have proven to be significantly positive in terms of differences in productivity.