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The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the causal relationship between the intensive farmers-government interaction in agricultural policy and the perverse and suboptimal outcomes in the view of taxpayers and consumers. This analysis focused on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU. Created with the signature of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 by the six founding countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany), the CAP represented for many years the only common policy fully administered at the European level and the largest item in the EU budget. It is strongly rooted in the European integration project and it represents the cornerstone of EU agriculture. Although a model of policy integration at the supranational level, it has also been the source of much criticism about its cost and its perverse effects. Nevertheless, the latest reform of the CAP, approved in 2013, demonstrates that agricultural policy remains of utmost importance at the EU level. This research is based on two major assumptions: First, it was possible to maintain political support for the Common Agricultural Policy because it fulfilled social and economic purposes that justified its existence. Second, interest group activity is often perceived negatively and there is not much information on its positive role in the policy process. This thesis draws from the literature on European governance in order to analyze the role of interest groups in the policy process and their impact on policy outcomes. / Graduate / 0615 / 0503 / 0335 / elodie_texier@hotmail.com

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the causal relationship between the intensive farmers-government interaction in agricultural policy and the perverse and suboptimal outcomes in the view of taxpayers and consumers. This analysis focused on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU. Created with the signature of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 by the six founding countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany), the CAP represented for many years the only common policy fully administered at the European level and the largest item in the EU budget. It is strongly rooted in the European integration project and it represents the cornerstone of EU agriculture. Although a model of policy integration at the supranational level, it has also been the source of much criticism about its cost and its perverse effects. Nevertheless, the latest reform of the CAP, approved in 2013, demonstrates that agricultural policy remains of utmost importance at the EU level. This research is based on two major assumptions: First, it was possible to maintain political support for the Common Agricultural Policy because it fulfilled social and economic purposes that justified its existence. Second, interest group activity is often perceived negatively and there is not much information on its positive role in the policy process. This thesis draws from the literature on European governance in order to analyze the role of interest groups in the policy process and their impact on policy outcomes. / Graduate / 0615 / 0503 / 0335 / elodie_texier@hotmail.com

No / The study of interest representation is well established in the context of the European Union1 (EU). For more than five decades, scholars have debated the role played by interest groups (particularly business interests) in comparison to other policy actors in the 'bottom-up' process of European integration. Recently, scholarship about the EU as a political system has shifted to focus on the 'top-down' impact of the EU on national and sub-national actors, a process referred to as Europeanization. This article addresses lacunae in that literature and brings fresh evidence to light by exploring the EU effect on UK and French business interest representation. Drawing on a combination of political and management studies concepts and tools, this article compares and contrasts UK and French firms located in two industrial sectors directly affected by the EU's single market programme, namely the telecommunications and energy sectors. The research, an extensive qualitative study based on more than 50 elite semi-structured interviews, elicits the firms' and other actors' perceptions, understandings and impressions of each other and the political processes at work. Some important similarities and differences between the UK and French firms emerge from the data. Most significantly, some narrowing in the dissimilarities is apparent, which may, in part, be attributed to the process of Europeanization itself.

The European Union (EU) is the most far-reaching attempt yet undertaken to institutionalize democratic policy-making beyond the nation-state. To what extent, and in what ways, do various channels of representation contribute towards the realization of this aim? This dissertation takes stock of current research on the EU’s system of representation, and seeks to expand its agenda so that this central question can be properly addressed. In contrast to prior empirical work in the field, the dissertation employs research designs that incorporate several forms of representation into a unified evaluative framework. This multi-channel approach to political representation paves the way for a systematic comparison of how different forms of representation (electoral, territorial and corporate) perform in the EU context. It also makes possible an empirical assessment of a key proposition in current representation theory: that elections, in large and heterogeneous political systems, are outperformed by other forms of representation. The three articles in the dissertation draw on existing cross-country data, interviews with policy-makers and a new dataset collected by the author. They scrutinize representation in three principal channels: electoral representation in the European Parliament, government representation in the preparatory bodies of the Council of Ministers, and representation through organized interests that seek to influence EU policy. The first article examines the balance of power that has emerged between these three channels of representation in the EU’s legislative process, and how the current balance is likely to affect the Union’s legitimacy. The second article investigates how different channels of representation perform in terms of providing linkage between Brussels-based representatives and their domestic principals. The third article examines the extent to which different channels of representation contribute to the coordination of EU policy-making domestically, at the European level, and across the two levels of government. Finally, this dissertation makes a methodological contribution by applying social network analysis (SNA) to classic problems of representation within and across different channels of representation. This approach is novel to the field. Researchers should be able to exploit SNA and relational data fruitfully in the future, in the study of representational relationships in the EU and numerous other contexts.

Including civil society organizations in the policy process is a distinctive trait of democratic governance. But, while being highly valuable from a democratic point of view, not all civil society organizations are represented in the policy process. This dissertation draws attention to the role of the government in shaping the representation of civil society organizations in the Swedish government consultation referred to as the ‘remiss procedure’. The overall aim is to increase empirical and theoretical understanding of civil society organizations’ access to the national Swedish policy process. Drawing on various empirical data sources, it analyzes how access has changed during the second half of the 20th century, the factors influencing access, and the significance of the access provided by the government. The results are based on four empirical studies, and show that the government has encouraged an increasing number and more diverse types of civil society organizations to be represented in the remiss procedure. In addition, organizations with plenty of resources, such as labor and business organizations, are not overrepresented. However, access is slightly skewed in favor of civil society organizations with an insider position within other access points at national government level, which is consistent with a privileged pluralistic pattern of interest representation. In addition, civil society organizations seem to be invited into an arena for political influence of less relevance. Theoretically, the dissertation moves beyond the neo-corporatist perspective that dominated Swedish research during the second half of the 20th century by drawing attention to five different theoretical lenses: pluralism, neo-corporatism, political opportunity structures, policy network theory, and resource exchange theory. It concludes that a variety of theories are needed for access to be understood.

Including civil society organizations in the policy process is a distinctive trait of democratic governance. But, while being highly valuable from a democratic point of view, not all civil society organizations are represented in the policy process. This dissertation draws attention to the role of the government in shaping the representation of civil society organizations in the Swedish government consultation referred to as the ‘remiss procedure’. The overall aim is to increase empirical and theoretical understanding of civil society organizations’ access to the national Swedish policy process. Drawing on various empirical data sources, it analyzes how access has changed during the second half of the 20th century, the factors influencing access, and the significance of the access provided by the government. The results are based on four empirical studies, and show that the government has encouraged an increasing number and more diverse types of civil society organizations to be represented in the remiss procedure. In addition, organizations with plenty of resources, such as labor and business organizations, are not overrepresented. However, access is slightly skewed in favor of civil society organizations with an insider position within other access points at national government level, which is consistent with a privileged pluralistic pattern of interest representation. In addition, civil society organizations seem to be invited into an arena for political influence of less relevance. Theoretically, the dissertation moves beyond the neo-corporatist perspective that dominated Swedish research during the second half of the 20th century by drawing attention to five different theoretical lenses: pluralism, neo-corporatism, political opportunity structures, policy network theory, and resource exchange theory. It concludes that a variety of theories are needed for access to be understood.

No início deste milênio, houve forte estímulo à expansão do complexo sucroalcooleiro no Brasil, que levou ao ressurgimento de debates e análises acerca da construção de novas políticas de incentivo e de articulação dos agentes do complexo. O objetivo geral desta tese é identificar e caracterizar as principais estruturas de governança (modelos tradicional e novo) no complexo agroindustrial sucroalcooleiro goiano. Para isso, foi realizada uma revisão histórica do processo de criação de políticas desde o Instituto do Álcool e do Açúcar, que mostra a expansão, a reestruturação, até a desregulamentação nesse complexo com a consequente extinção desse órgão na década de 1990 e a emergência de novas institucionalidades de representação de interesses. O novo boom de crescimento do complexo nos anos 2000 revela uma reconfiguração da expansão da agroindústria canavieira nos estados de Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso e Paraná. A migração de agroindústrias sucroalcooleiras paulistas e nordestinas é explicada pela busca de maiores ganhos de escala com terra abundante, menores custos de produção e de transação e, sobretudo, a maior competitividade, o que irá alterar o padrão da produção agrícola nesses estados. Consequentemente, esse processo tornou o estado de Goiás o segundo maior produtor de cana-de-açúcar e de etanol nacional, impulsionado por políticas de incentivos fiscais e creditícios oriundos das agências de fomento estaduais e federais. Ademais, nessa perspectiva, são considerados também os aspectos institucionais, tecnológicos e, principalmente, as estruturas de governança que abrangem a forma de organização e de articulação dos agentes no setor. Desse modo, a metodologia de trabalho baseou-se na pesquisa qualiquantitativa. A primeira trata de dados secundários a partir da revisão histórica e de dados primários com a aplicação de questões semiestruturadas (entrevistas). A segunda utiliza dados secundários para a identificação de clusters espaciais na estatística espacial e também mostrar a relação de causalidade entre variáveis, considerando o modelo de painel dinâmico espacial na econometria espacial. Nossa análise permitiu concluir que, em Goiás, existem clusters espaciais que podem ser considerados territórios canavieiros, com padrões de associação espacial nos municípios produtores de cana-de-açúcar. Os clusters espaciais estão localizados nas áreas de alta produtividade, o que eleva a concorrência por terra com as culturas da soja e do milho existentes. Observa-se que os municípios canavieiros também são aqueles que têm apresentado bons indicadores socioeconômicos. As estruturas de governança são oriundas do processo de organização da produção. Elas podem ser resumidas em: integração vertical para trás (área própria e/ou arrendamento de terras) e integração das usinas e destilarias com os fornecedores de cana-de-açúcar. O estudo revela que tem prevalecido em Goiás o primeiro tipo de estrutura de governança. São os municípios de menor organização social e cooperativa. Já a integração com fornecedores de cana-de-açúcar tem sido observada nos municípios onde existem as associações de fornecedores (de caráter econômico), o que reduz as ações oportunistas, as assimetrias de informações e de poder das usinas e destilarias e torna o aporte neocorportivismo interessante para análise dessa realidade. Uma realidade que viu nascer o Consecana, um importante mecanismo de autogovernança no complexo sucroalcooleiro, à medida que dirime os conflitos existentes entre os agentes. Portanto, as instituições de representação de interesses no complexo sucroalcooleiro goiano têm influenciado a conformação de estruturas de governança no estado. / At the beginning of this millennium, there was a strong stimulus to the expansion of Brazilian sugar and ethanol sectors, which led to the resurgence of debate and analysis on the construction of new incentive policies and articulation of the agents of this complex. This thesis aims to identify and characterize the main governance structures (traditional and new models) in sugarcane agroindustry complex in Goiás. So, we carried out a historical revision on the process of establishing policies, since the Alcohol and Sugar Institute. We show the expansion and restructuring, even to deregulation in this complex with the consequent extinction of this organ in the nineties as well the emergence of new organs to represent interests. The new complex's growth boom in the 2000s reveals an expansion configuration in sugarcane agribusiness in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso and Paraná. The migration of sugarcane agribusiness from São Paulo and the northeastern regions can be explained by the search of greater scale profits with abundant land, low costs of production and transaction and, above all, greater competitiveness which will modify the pattern of agricultural production in these state. Consequently, this process made the state of Goiás the second largest producer of Brazilian sugarcane and ethanol, improved by tax and credit incentive policies coming from the state and from federal funding agencies. Furthermore, we considered also the institutional, technological and main governance structures which covers the form to organize and articulate the agents in the complex. Therefore, the study methodology was based on qualitative and quantitative research. The quantitative search treats data obtained from the historical revision as well those got from the semistructured interviews. The qualitative search used secondary data to identify space clusters in space statistics as well to show the cause relation among variables, considering the dynamic panel model in space econometry. Our analysis allowed us to conclude that in Goiás there are space clusters that can be considered as sugarcane territories, with space association patterns in the sugarcane producing municipalities located in areas of high productivity which improves competition for land with existing soybean and corn crops. We observed that the sugarcane municipalities are also those who have shown good socioeconomic indicators. The governance structures come from the production organization process. One can summarize them as follows: vertical backward integration (own area and/or land lease) and integration between mills/distilleries and sugarcane suppliers. The study shows that the first governance structure has prevailed in Goias State. The municipalities are those who have the minor social and cooperative organization. In contrast, the integration with sugarcane suppliers has been observed in the cities where there are supplier association (with economical character) which reduces opportunistic actions, asymmetries of information and power in the mills and distilleries and makes corporatism an interesting contribution to analysis of this reality. This is a reality that saw the birth of Consecana, an important mechanism of self-governance in sugar and alcohol complex as to settle the conflicts between agents. Therefore, the institutions which represent the interests of the Goias’ sugar and alcohol complex have influenced the conformation of structures of the state governance. / Tese (Doutorado)

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the role of the transnational actor at the national level in particular case of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic. The study is divided into two main parts. The first, theoretical part focuses on three theoretical strands. The first chapter focuses on the development of theoretical perceptions of non-state actors in international relations since the 1970s. The goal of the first chapter is to examine concept of interdependence, global governance, the new transnationalism and transnational private governance. The second chapter focuses on multinational corporations. The analysis emphasizes the dynamics of research and development of transnational corporations and their relationship with the nation state. The goal of the third theoretical chapter is to explore the process of interest representation within the nation state. Attention is drawn to obstacles and conditions that transnational actor needs to overcome in order to successfully penetrate the process of interest representation and pursue its goals within the state. The second part of the thesis investigates activities of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic that were carried out in an effort to amend the Public Procurement Act from 2010 to 2012. The hypotheses...

Up until today, nearly all Swedish regions have decided to set up an EU office in Brussels. However, earlier research on the subject shows that there are big differences concerning what the regions are trying to achieve with their EU office. The aim for this study was therefore to analyse Swedish subnational actors’ EU work within three different arenas and dimensions: at the Brussel arena (upload), at home ground (download) and lastly, the coordination between these two arenas (crossload). To achieve this, an extensively material on the subject was gathered by interviewing key persons from both Brussels and the subnational actors’ home organizations. In order to analyse the material, the theoretical framework multi-level governance was put into practice. The theoretical framework offered a definition on how the regions interact within the EU, and it also provided the framework for the analyses.  The study was able to unpack three Swedish subnational actors’ EU approaches and their different forms of organization regarding their work with EU. In addition, the study could for each explored arena set up a collection of criteria’s that Swedish subnational actors must achieve in order to succeed with their strategic work with EU. Those criteria’s, with numerous important subheadings, were categorised as effectiveness, legitimacy, and strategical selection.