A relatively well established literature already proffers explanations for the persistence of Euroskeptic Radical Right Parties (ERRPs) in Western Europe and for their emergence in the new democracies of the East. The purpose of this study is not to replicate those existing studies; instead, the argument advanced here is that there may be an important intervening factor as yet unexplored in the extant literature. Drawing upon aggregate survey data from select Western European EU member states and a focused case study of Slovakia, this paper seeks to assess the impact of information, in this case information about the European Union, on voting for ERRPs. The argument presented here is that EU information mitigates the support for ERRPs, more so in the East than in the West.

The growing demand for biofuels in the European Union is expected to have a significant impact on rural environments in sub-Saharan Africa. In the wake of Directive 2009/28/EC, Ghana experienced a rapid rise in foreign land acquisitions and direct investments to its agricultural sector. The potential implications of this development are multi-fold: While proponents of the EU biofuels policy stress the potential for agricultural development and improved energy security in the region, its opponents criticise the lack of binding rules and regulations concerning social sustainability and indirect land use changes. As a means of assessing the validity of these opposing views, this research paper provides an analysis of the directive's impact on Ghanaian energy security and agricultural development in the country. The analysis is based on key informant interviews and a comprehensive literature reviews. It is concluded that the potential of host countries to generate benefits from the cultivation of energy crops largely rests on their institutional framework. In Ghana, foreign biofuel investments appear to have at least partially resulted in negative socio-economic impacts on local rural communities. Formal and informal land rights, as well as land acquisition procedures present significant obstacles. Civil action and the proposal for a new national biofuels policy indicate, however, that the country could eventually emerge as a beneficiary of the global trend towards biofuels.

After experiencing World War ¢¹and ¢º, the European countries recognized that to prevent war on Europe was of necessary. They would like to inspire economic development by economic integration, and furthermore, to push Europe back to the key actor of world politics through political integration. From ¡§European Common Market¡¨, ¡§European Community¡¨ to ¡§European Union¡¨, the European countries has gone through many complex negotiations. Among the regimes in European Union, ¡§Common Foreign and Security Policy¡¨ works through ¡§Intergovernmental Cooperation¡¨, which is of much higher political meaning. It symbolizes the operation of integration theory has strode from economic to political matters. The operations of CFSP have two important contributions to Europe. First of all, it contributed to the reconciliation of European nations. Second, it demonstrates peace can be achieved through legal and institutional negations without threatening the existing political authorities. Both China and Taiwan can take lessons in the CFSP¡¦s negotiation process, especially in the aspects of how to leave aside disputes and put aside minor differences so as to seek common ground. President Chen Shui-Bian gave a talk on 31 December 2000 which indicated that the Cross-strait relation could learn from EU¡¦s integration experience and jointly seek for new framework of political integration. It could start from economic and cultural integration, build confidence step by step, and look for new framework for political integration. This kind of opinion conforms to international development experience. What norms of EU¡¦s experience should the Cross-strait refer to is the main topic of this research. How do EU¡¦s institutions make compromise between ¡§national interest¡¨ and ¡§EU¡¦s development¡¨ is another concerning point of the research.

On its own, Kosovo has neither come to where it is today nor could it move any forward in the near future. The role of the international community and especially that of the EU is crucial in helping Kosovo overpass some of the current barriers and become a truly European state, instead of just another state in Europe. Therefore, from a state-building perspective, this paper strives to shed some light on the process of state-building in Kosovo and the role of the international involvement during this past decade.

This study examines the making of the European identity concept under the impact of the European Union (EU) project. In order to define the structure of the European identity, theoretical and historical aspects have been scrutinised. Besides, the Eurobarometers (EBs) have been used to analyse the condition of European identity perception among the people of the member countries. The results of the EBs data show that the popularisation of the European identity is limited and the elite character of this identity seems dominant. The EU still lacks its common political identity, which forms a political agenda, and a supranational political identity. This thesis has concluded that the popularisation of the European identity can ensure more political unity for the EU, and this unity can be realised only with a multiple identity perception including current strong identities of the Europe.

This thesis analyzes the European Union as an international actor in the context of World Trade Organisation. This thesis discusses the interaction between the EU and the WTO from several important dimensions. This thesis also examines different theoretical perspectives about concepts of actors and actorness, the evolution of trade policy of the EU, and the history of world multilateral trade system as well.

Constructivist accounts of the EU’s emergence as a security actor typically focus on changing conceptions of the Union’s role within a European context, at both national and EU levels. But few studies have analysed how significant Others in the international system understand the EU’s evolving role, which is assumed to play an important role in EU identity construction. This thesis analyses the nature of the US elite’s discourse on the EU, assessing the relative influence of factors - internal and external to the elite - in shaping its evaluations of EU security action. The study adopts a discursive institutionalist approach exploring how differing ideas about the EU are expressed and modifying this framework to examine how agents purposefully shape discourse in line with their preferences. By adapting the framework to focus on competing elite sub-groups, the project seeks to analyse discursive attempts at institutional change in greater detail. The study employed a qualitative content analysis of more than 100 texts produced by an ideologically and institutionally representative group of American foreign policy analysts and officials, in two cases: common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and counter terrorism cooperation. Public and classified official texts in the public domain were analysed to compare coordinative and communicative discourse. The findings indicate that ideological cleavages are mirrored in distinct narrative accounts of EU, which cross cut the Union’s differing security policy competence levels. While perceptions of European disunity and weakness dominated both conservative and liberal accounts, conservative analysts continued to portray EU security integration as threatening to US interests, a theme which has declined in importance in mainstream official discourse since the early 2000s. Empirically, the thesis provides a rich analysis of discourse on the EU in a context with significance both for scholars and policymakers concerned with external perceptions of the EU as a security actor. It provides a novel assessment of how American officials’ assessments of the EU differ in public and in private. By analysing the discursive tactics of influential elite sub-groups, it reveals an arena for competing accounts of the EU in which the Union’s differing policy competences are overshadowed by the elite’s ideological cleavages.

In the field of European studies, the notion of ‘differentiated integration’ (Stubb 1996) was developed in the late 1990s as an alternative to the crude membership/non-membership dichotomy. While the theoretical benefits of this approach are broadly discussed in the existing literature, further empirical studies have been deemed necessary (Holzinger and Schimmelfennig 2012). The Nordic states constitute a particularly interesting laboratory in order to study this phenomenon. Indeed, while these states share several socio-economic and political characteristics, they also differ in terms of their relationship with the European Union. Several studies on these relationships emphasise the relevance of certain contextual variables as key explanatory factors for the variation in attitudes between the Nordic states. However, there is also lack of analysis that looks into the domestic political features that these countries share. Furthermore, most studies in the field tend to ignore the respective government’s positions on European integration, and mostly adopt a top-down approach when focusing on the nation-state as a whole. Adopting a most similar systems design, this thesis aims to answer the following question: have Nordic government preferences on European integration been influenced by domestic political factors? In order to answer this question, four domestic variables are introduced and analysed: relative strength of parties in parliament; composition of government; type of government; and government ideology. Within this comparative framework, three Nordic countries have been selected: the first one belonging to the ‘inner core’ of the European Union (Finland);; while the second is located at its ‘outer core’ (Sweden);; and the third one serves as a control case as an ‘EU-outsider’ which is still located in the Union’s ‘inner periphery’ (Norway). For each state, the analysis starts in the early 1990s, when ‘Europe’ developed into a politically salient issue in domestic politics. The focus is furthermore set on their respective government’s positions regarding five distinct policy areas: participation in the European Economic Area; application for European Union membership; participation in the Schengen Area; participation in the Economic and Monetary Union; and participation in European Battle Groups. The main findings of the thesis suggest that when analysing governments’ positions on (differentiated) European integration, the domestic political features should not be downplayed. For instance, the Swedish government’s opposition to participation in the EMU in 1997 is mostly explained by a lack of party consensus over this issue, unlike in Finland where a broad inter-party agreement was secured for this policy area. The analysis further suggests that studies on party and government preferences on Europe should focus on policy areas rather than on the issue of integration as a whole. Such a focus provides for better understanding of the nature of ‘Euroscepticism’ in the Nordic region and, to a broader extent, in Europe.

Although cultural policy and cultural diplomacy are just some of various forms soft power, there is a lack of research between the EU and Morocco despite an increased interest from the EU in various Southern Mediterranean countries. There is a general research gap in the academic world regarding the evaluation the EU’s external cultural policy in Morocco, which this research paper seeks to contribute to fill in the soft power and global context. This paper seeks to examine the role that cultural diplomacy has in the soft power process, specifically with the case of the EU and Morocco.From this research paper it was found that although culture has generally played an increasing role in EU and Morocco relations, when examining EU-Morocco cultural relations pertaining to their soft power potential, it was unveiled that the EU and Morocco are not fully utilizing their soft power abilities in relation to their cultural policy practices. For instance, in relation to EU-Morocco cultural policy there is a distinctive lack in clarity in government objectives which negatively impacts soft power potential. In EU cultural documents, there is also a clear and different role in internal and external relations also affecting cultural relations with Morocco. However, despite these shortcomings, the EU and Morocco continue to build on their relations with future plans to deepen their agreements. It is in the interest of the EU and Morocco to invest and refine their cultural policy in order to fully utilize the cultural opportunities and benefits for both states in these future agreements. The specific benefits and motivations for the EU and Morocco are also discussed. The theoretical outline for this paper involved power, especially Nye’s conception of soft power, along with public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, as well as cultural relations. The focus of analysis of this thesis included EU documents such as, treaties, joint agreements, declarations, conclusions, and so on will be the main source of document analysis for this paper in order to trace the evolution of EU-Morocco cultural policy and relations. Additionally Chodubski’s framework derived from the political science field was used alongside critical political discourse analysis.

Globalisation and the transfer of powers from state constitutional systems to international organisations (IOs) have led to several deficiencies, especially with regard to checks and balances in global governance. The need to inculcate the rule of law and constitutionalism in global governance has therefore gained currency in the 21st century. This has been exemplified by calls for the reform of the United Nations (UN) and the extensive reforms in regional IOs, such as the European Union (EU), with emphasis on institutional balance and the tempering of political power with institutional controls. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2010. / A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Jacqui Gallinetti Faculty of Law, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. 2010. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM