<p>In order to have some say and to scrutinise the government all member states of the EU today has established an institution within their national parliaments, the Committee of European Affairs. This institution, however, has very different rights and regulations depending on the country it is established in. This study uses two rather similar countries, Sweden and Denmark, and investigates what differences and similarities the two committees show.</p><p>By constructing a comparative case study of four units of analysis, the governments and committees of European Affairs in Sweden and Denmark, the formal and informal power relationship between government and committee in each country were studied in order to determine similarities and differences and whether the committee had an impact on the governments’ EU policies. Further they were compared, assessing whether the Danish Committee of European Affairs was more powerful than its Swedish counterpart because of its legal basis in an EU document.</p><p>The theoretical framework was built on empirical institutionalism and Lukes’ first and second dimension of power. The similarities and differences were accounted for and compared. In conclusion, the Danish Committee of European Affairs has more formal power than its Swedish counterpart but regarding informal power the Swedish Committee of European Affairs has a slight advantage. Both committees have an impact on the way their government handle negotiations with the EU.</p><p>Keywords: formal power, informal power, the Committee of European Affairs, Sweden, Denmark</p>

The long-spun Brexit process has been named a symbol of an alleged disconnection between the European Union’s high-level decision-makers and its citizens. This thesis aims to contribute to the existing literature on the role of national parliaments in brining EU affairs closer to the citizens. More specifically, it turns attention to the Riksdag, and to how informative parliamentary debates on EU affairs are communicated to Swedish citizens. Earlier studies have provided valuable insights into how political opinions on EU affairs are presented in electoral manifestoes and behind closed doors in the Riksdag’s committees. By conducting a quantitative content analysis on Swedish news medias’ coverage of the Riksdag’s debate on EU-affairs over the last ten years, this study offers a first insight into how EU debates are conveyed to the wider Swedish audience. Drawing on previous research on national parliaments, the concept of opposition and theories from the field of political communication, three hypotheses are formulated. While the first hypothesis aims to test whether Swedish news media provide citizens a diverse set of positions from the Riksdag’s debate on EU affairs, the second hypothesis seeks to illuminate which parliamentary actors that are most prominent in medias’ reporting from the Riksdag. Finally, the third hypothesis turns attention to the mode in which EU affairs are presented in news media. None of the hypotheses are unambiguously supported by evidence. The implications are that the media to some extent filter the parliamentary debate. A filter that at occasions may exclude diverging positions on EU affairs. Further, though governments are presented as the main actor in the majority of all analysed articles, the Riksdag is close behind. The result implies that the Riksdag is indeed competing with the government in being the main agenda setter in Swedish news media. Nevertheless, it also suggests that oftentimes, the Riksdag is referred to as one unit, without news media distinguishing the diverging positions within the institution. Finally, the finding from the third hypothesis suggests that the Riksdag is somewhat restricted when it comes to shaping the discourse surrounding EU affairs. In spite of the Riksdag’s increased focus on policy-aspects of EU affairs, the mediated image of the very same debate may still be presented as a concern of polity or procedure. Ultimately, despite not providing any clear support for the hypotheses, the somewhat filtered mediated image of the Riksdag’s debate on EU affairs may carry implications for national parliaments’ ability to bring EU affairs closer to the citizens of the Union.

The debate regarding a national parliaments’ opposition in EU politics is ambiguous andremarkably underdeveloped. Historically researchers argued that opposition in the context of national parliaments and European integration is decreasing at the national level. However, this idea has been challenged during the last few years by a few researchers when studying opposition in EU Member States and specifically Sweden. Even though the idea of a decreasing opposition at the national level has been challenged, researchers have primarily focused their studies on measuring opposition through quantitative approaches. Consequently, there is a shortage of research examining opposition through a qualitative lens which could grant there search field a more nuanced perspective of the opposition occurring in national parliaments.The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if and how opposition takes place in the Swedish European Affairs Committee [EAC], through a theoretical lens of opposition and parliamentary transformations. The thesis offers a comprehensive qualitative analysis of opposition by usinga reflexive thematic analysis. The results show that opposition exist in the Swedish EAC. However, political parties repeatedly fail to present alternatives to EU proposals and fail to debate suggestions stemming from the EU. This thesis shed light of how domestic opposition in EU politics can be studied through a qualitative lens and provides a more nuanced depictionof opposition.

This thesis deals with the topic of individual parliamentary scrutiny of European affairs in Slovakia. The aim of this thesis is to determine which factors influenced the formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny in the Slovak National Assembly. 6 factors will be analyzed - Late accession to the EU, parliamentary strength, bargaining strength in the Council of EU, public euroscepticism, euroscepticism of political parties and the frequency of coalition and minority governments. The strength of parliamentary scrutiny can also be influenced by informal aspects. The informal aspects in this thesis will be mainly concerned with the efforts of the members of the European Affairs Committee to acquire additional information about legislative proposals of the EU in an informal way and also their efforts for a better cooperation in parliamentary scrutiny among various political parties. The empirical analysis found, that the factor of late accession to the EU and euroscepticism of political parties had the biggest effect on the formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny in Slovakia. A partial effect can be also attributed to the factors of public euroscepticism and the frequency of coalition and minority governments. Even though a formally strong system of parliamentary scrutiny does exist in...

This work deals with communication of the Treaty of Lisbon to the Czech public before its ratification. Its aim is on the basis of the theoretical background of marketing communications and promotion to analyse the communication strategy used to inform the Czech public about the Treaty of Lisbon and to provide a proposal for its improvement. Findings made on the basis of this particular case may serve as a guide for improving communication of other European affairs and for finding ways to achieve increased awareness of the Czech public on European issues.

In order to have some say and to scrutinise the government all member states of the EU today has established an institution within their national parliaments, the Committee of European Affairs. This institution, however, has very different rights and regulations depending on the country it is established in. This study uses two rather similar countries, Sweden and Denmark, and investigates what differences and similarities the two committees show. By constructing a comparative case study of four units of analysis, the governments and committees of European Affairs in Sweden and Denmark, the formal and informal power relationship between government and committee in each country were studied in order to determine similarities and differences and whether the committee had an impact on the governments’ EU policies. Further they were compared, assessing whether the Danish Committee of European Affairs was more powerful than its Swedish counterpart because of its legal basis in an EU document. The theoretical framework was built on empirical institutionalism and Lukes’ first and second dimension of power. The similarities and differences were accounted for and compared. In conclusion, the Danish Committee of European Affairs has more formal power than its Swedish counterpart but regarding informal power the Swedish Committee of European Affairs has a slight advantage. Both committees have an impact on the way their government handle negotiations with the EU. Keywords: formal power, informal power, the Committee of European Affairs, Sweden, Denmark

The thesis deals with activities of Czech parliamentary parties during EU-affairs discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, Parliament of the Czech Republic. The main focus is on three characteristic features of political parties during their activities on the parliamentary level: stability (rhetorical, voting, and programmatic), use of parliamentary oversight tools, and fulfilling their systemic function. The parties are seen through the prism of behavioural approach. EU-affairs are a rather new topic with a variable salience for national parties. EU-affairs influence party competition in extra-parliamentary arena. Conflict, however non-salient topics in parliamentary arena are ousted by governmental parties in order for them to keep governmental stability. The parties do not act according to their party manifestoes (low level of Europeanization); instead, their voting behaviour indicates that the parties follow logic of parliamentary competition between government and opposition. Parliamentarization of EU governance (engagement of national parliaments in broader institutional setting of the EU) leads to spreading of party competition on the national level to a new policy area. Political parties use tools of parliamentary scrutiny in a rather limited extent and according to their actual position within the system. The thesis also deals with party nomination and composition of the Committee on European affairs which holds oversight powers. The empirical analysis is based on the analysis of voting behaviour of parliamentary party groups (roll-call data), stenographic records, Committee and plenary session resolutions and quantitative analysis of composition of the Committee.

L’usage de la résolution européenne a débuté en 1992, quand un nouvel article, le 88-4, a été introduit dans la Constitution, donnant pour la première fois à l’Assemblée nationale et au Sénat le droit de voter des résolutions sur des projets et propositions d’actes communautaires soumis par le Gouvernement. Le but de cet avantage en faveur du Parlement était de mettre en vigueur un contrôle parlementaire sur la politique européenne du Gouvernement. Au cours des années, la pratique de la résolution européenne montre l’inefficacité du rôle du Parlement au niveau européen. La portée de la résolution européenne demeure en soi non contraignante vis-à-vis du Gouvernement et des institutions européennes. Les cinq révisions constitutionnelles concernant les affaires européennes depuis 1992 ne peuvent pas y contribuer, malgré la dernière révision du 23 juillet 2008 reconnaissant le droit d’adoption d’une résolution européenne sur non seulement les projets ou propositions d’actes européens soumis par le Gouvernement, mais aussi sur « tout document émanant d’une institution de l’Union ». Le temps est venu pour le Parlement de mettre en place un contrôle parlementaire efficace au niveau européen. / The use of the European resolution started in 1992, when a new article, 88-4, was introduced in the Constitution, giving for the first time in the National Assembly and the Senate the right to vote on resolutions on projects and proposals for Community acts submitted by the Government. The purpose of this advantage in favor of the Parliament was put in force a parliamentary control over the Government's European policy. Over the years, the practice of the European resolution demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the role of the Parliament at European level. The scope of the European resolution remains inherently non-binding towards the Government and the European institutions. Five constitutional revisions concerning European Affairs since 1992 cannot contribute, despite the latest revision of July 23, 2008, recognizing the right to adoption of a European resolution on not only the projects or proposals of European acts submitted by the Government, but on ' any document emanating from an institution of the Union ' also. The time has come for Parliament to put in place an effective parliamentary control at European level.

This dissertation deals with institutional aspects of the democratic deficit of the European Union, particularly the powers of national parliaments and their capabilities to influence decision-making at the European level. The national parliaments' role in European integration became an interesting research area thanks to their greater involvement in the EU affairs in the last twenty years. However, because of the many developments of the European integration in the last twenty years (including both deepening and broadening of integration), many questions remain open. These include involvement of national parliaments both on European level and on national level; for obvious reasons, the latter has been studied less regarding the parliaments of the Member States that joined the Union in 2004 and 2007. While this dissertation deals with some aspects of the work of national parliaments of all Member States, more detailed studies are devoted to the cases of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. This dissertation poses questions in the three main areas of research that are all devoted to some practical aspects of national parliaments' involvement in European affairs. First, it examines the involvement of national parliaments at the European level and whether national parliaments do have the...

This study traces the career of Robert Francis Kelley and his influence on American-Russian Relations during the nonrecognition period (1917-1933). The focus of this examination is Kelley's role in formulating, implementing, and sustaining America's anti-communist policy developed and solidified during the 1920s and 1930s. Particular attention is given to the senate recognition hearing of 1924, Kelley's training of future diplomats (George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, et al.), and his contributions to the preparations leading to the United States' recognition of Russia in 1933. Using Kelley's papers and personal correspondence, this study shows the growth of a man and the evolution of a policy.