This dissertation seeks to test the proposition that public opinion is a driving force in integration, and thus examines the effect of euroscepticism on EU integration. Utilizing an understanding of integration as the process of European states achieving similar legal, social, cultural, political and economic policy outcomes while ceding greater policy power to European institutions, the relationship between aggregate level euroscepticism in EU member states (the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, and Sweden) and speed of compliance with EU policies is examined. More specifically, this dissertation examines the relationship between aggregate level euroscepticism in an EU member state, and the speed at which that state transposes EU directives. In testing this relationship a number of contextual conditions are examined, including the role of issue salience, domestic party systems, and electoral conditions. The findings of this dissertation suggest that the widely held belief that public opinion is driving European integration may be false.

This thesis seeks to explain Euroskeptic attitudes by examining the relationship between information and Euroskepticism and the role of Euroskepticism in the post-enlargement integration debate. Drawing upon data from the Eurobarometer survey series and the European Election Studies, this thesis tests the relationship between information and attitudes towards membership, the direction of integration, and voting. This analysis concludes the roles of knowledge and awareness have divergent influences on hard and soft Euroskepticism. While increased knowledge increases support for membership in the EU, increased awareness decreases support for the direction of integration. This conclusion suggests that knowledge initially informs individuals of the benefits of being a member in the EU but greater awareness increases the likelihood they will be a harsher critic of the way in which it is developing, necessitating further examination of the role of the Euroskeptic movement in public opinion.

This paper examines if European integration has had an impact on national political parties by looking at the stances of the Swedish Green Party and the Left Party on the issue of the European Community and the European Union over time. With the development of the European Community and the European Union, national political parties face the challenge of an emerging political arena. European integration research has recently become more involved with what is called europeanization and political integration within the member states them self, this paper aims to provide further leverage to the thesis that national political actors undergo some degree of europeanization and are politically integrated in the EU, by examining manifestos of two historically eurosceptic Swedish political parties. The theoretical framework provided by neo-functional integration theory as well as europeanization is used to examine the empirical material in order to see if the political parties at the focal point of this study can be said to have undergone a change in political policy regarding the EC and EU, both in quantity and content. The analysis show that indeed both parties has undergone a change and what might be considered a europeanization, considering that the presence of the EU as a political issue seem to have risen in prominence and importance in the examined manifestos. The parties also show tendencies towards viewing the EU as an arena in which political goals can be achieved for specific issues.

This dissertation will fully research the opportunities and restrictions of European states from the geography of Europe, analyze the key mechanism of transformations of the European geopolitics and the power interactions among European states based on the theories of geopolitics in history. To investigate the European history from the dimension of the changes of geopolitics, we can find that the key element within the whole geopolitical order of Europe is the rise and the fall of Germany. In 1648, the Deutschland was partitioned due to the failed distribution of German interests among the European powers. Furthermore, the dissociation of Germany made the European powers, such as France, Britain, and Russia grow stably in the balance of power. In 1871, Germany unified under Bismarch¡¦s strategy. The unification of Germany destroyed the stable order of Europe, especially the balance of power. Then, two world wars broke out. From 1945 to 1989, Germany was partitioned again. This brought the European order back to a stable situation, also it was the first time for Europe to be integrated peacefully. In 1990, Germany was unified again. From the development of European history, an unified Germany owned the abilities and chances to dominate Europe in politics and economics. Now Germany plays an important role in the geopolitics of Europe once more. No matter what the revival plan of Russian energy geostrategy is, how America extends its sphere of influence in Europe, and how the European states under the Lisbon Treaty oppose the American global hegemony, it is hard to exclude Germany from Europe. Moreover we can say if Germany is absent from Europe, the European strategy will lose its pivot. From the complicated war history of Europe to the power interactions of European geopolitics in the 21 century, Germany is still the key point of the European power politics.

This thesis addresses the German position in the negotiations on the British proposal for a Europe-wide free trade area, on the acceleration of the tariff schedule of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1960, the formation of EFTA, and the first British application for membership of the EEC. To do this it analyses the attitudes, interests and lobbying efforts of German industry, West Germany's European policy from 1957 to 1963 after the establishment of the EEC and industrial influence on the respective decisions by the Federal Government. The main focus is on the trade relations with Western European countries outside the EEC. Previous historiography has stressed the overriding German economic interest in and corresponding industrial pressures for avoiding trade discrimination by the EEC vis-a-vis the other European members of the OEEC/OECD. It has however failed to address the problem that, despite an alleged political consensus in line with these economic interests. Chancellor Adenauer was able to deliver a policy precluding the Europe-wide solution demanded by parliament, German business, and Ludwig Erhard, the Minister of Economics. It seems to suggest that this policy outcome was mainly a function of Adenauer's personal authority and his constitutional prerogatives as Chancellor. In order to address this central problem, the thesis examines industrial interests at the sectoral level. These are analysed on the basis of a quantitative study of sectoral foreign trade in manufactured products with the countries of EEC and EFTA respectively in the 1950s and 1960s. From other sources it examines the influence which German industry exerted on government policy towards European economic integration. This reveals that industrial interest at the sectoral level in fact gave rise to lobbying pressures for the policy outcome sought by Adenauer, to prevent the large Europe-wide free trade area and to prevent British accession to the EEC. The quantitative analysis shows that for those sectors in favour of the proposed free trade area and British accession the opportunity costs of the failure of these two projects were practically invisible. For sectors in decline and in structural difficulties, on the other hand, both these projects constituted a major threat. The EEC of the Six, however, offered them not only protection against competition from outside, but at the same time considerable export opportunities, particularly in the French and Italian markets. The intra-governmental power struggle over these issues is analysed first with regard to industrial pressure and second to the international framework and the respective constraints and opportunities it provided for domestic policy makers in West Germany. The eventual policy outcome is explained in three dimensions: first in terms of the particular structure of industrial interest and respective pressures; second an alliance between protectionist interests and the specific political agenda of the head of the executive; third in terms of opportunities for the Federal Chancellor arising from the interplay of policy and power at the international level. It is argued that this is a more convincing interpretation and more securely based on the historical evidence.

Diss. Stockholm : Stockholms universitet, 2004.

Yes

This study examines the explanatory power of the traditional explanations as to what determines public support for EU membership and European integration – the economic explanation and the political values‐based explanation – in the context of the post-communist member states of the EU. Further, an alternative explanation – the communist legacy explanation – is presented and tested. It is hypothesized that a high degree of Soviet influence and suppression during the communist period leads to a low degree of support for EU membership and European integration, because of a willingness to protect oneself from violation of national sovereignty once again. The explanatory power of the traditional explanations does not obtain convincing empirical support, even if many individual predictors are statistically significant as determinants. Communist legacy seems to be important as a determinant of public support for EU membership and European integration. However, the hypothesis can neither be accepted nor rejected, because of the methodological problems associated with the dummy variable approach used in order to test it. Further, the direction of the relationship between communist legacy and public support for EU membership and European integration seems to be two‐fold, rather than one-sided as hypothesized.

Much of the scholarship on Europeanization has explained eastern enlargement according to the logics of materialism or constructivism. Materialists argue that candidates' compliance with conditionality demands is rooted in strong external material incentives and a credible shot at membership, while constructivists point to shared identities, norms and values. These are valuable insights, yet they do not address a critical missing element - how the dispersion of ideas influences institutional outcomes in candidate states. This research demonstrates that in order for the EU to have a transformative impact on the political institutions of the states of former Yugoslavia, national political leaders must be able to communicate a satisfying narrative of EU legitimacy that resonates with national narratives of legitimacy when justifying policy choices. The project goes beyond an analysis of compliant/non-compliant behavior to unearth a greater understanding of how, at the hour of accession, elite discourse operates as an agent to reshape histories, form new identities, and mold preferences. Together these processes have profound policy implications for the new regimes, as they lead to decisions that are consequential for institutional development at both the EU and state level. In particular, using a combination of content analysis and an original elite survey, this research finds that elites' ability to express power through ideas and over ideas can transform power in ideas for the cases of Croatia and Serbia/Kosovo. For Croatia, this entails elites creating conditions whereby the public believes in the idea that EU membership represents an 'escape' from the Balkans as opposed to a 'return' to Europe. For Serbia/Kosovo, elites strive to convince citizens that EU membership signifies a 're-branding' of the Balkan image rather than an escape. The Serbia-Kosovo territorial dispute figures prominently in the picture as it pits new ideas - a re-branded 'European' Serbia - against old ideas wherein the Kosovo narrative is essential to Serbian national identity. Serbian elites work to persuade EU and national publics that these ideas are not in tension and promise to deliver on both - attain EU membership and keep Kosovo.

La thèse part du postulat central selon lequel le processus d'intégration européenne est étroitement lié à la généralisation de la production à grande échelle et de sa forme organisationnelle, le « big business ». Cela implique que son déploiement est calqué sur les stratégies de développement des grandes firmes. La période 1945-1985 est analyséecomme la première période du processus, celle de la transition vers l'Europe du « big business » à travers le déploiement dans chacun des États-membres de politiques visant à construire des champions nationaux. La thèse se concentre sur la deuxième période de l'intégration, la période post-champions nationaux durant laquelle les grandes firmes s'européanisent. Au moyen d'une approche interdisciplinaire, la thèse examine la façon dont les stratégies et les préférences, souvent hétérogènes, des grandes firmes françaises ont façonné le processus d'intégration dans ses diverses manifestations : constitution d'une « corporate élite » européenne, centralisation des politiques microéconomiques et macroéconomiques et construction d'un système financier paneuropéen. / The basic premiss of the thesis is that the process of European integration is closely linked with the generalisation of large-scale production and of its organisational form, i.e. big business. This implies that the process unfolds in a pattern that can be traced to the development strategies of large firms. The 1945-1985 period is analysed as the first of twostages in the integration process, that of the transition towards the Europe of big business through the policy of building in each of the member states national champion firms. The thesis concentrates on the second stage, the “post-national champions period” during which large firms europeanise their operations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis examines the ways in which the often heterogeneous strategies and preferences of large French firms have shaped the integration process in its various manifestations: the emergence of a European corporate elite, the centralisation of microeconomic and macroeconomic policies and the building of a pan-European financial system.