Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Elite (Social sciences) – Europe, Eastern'

The purpose of this study was to examine the adjustment of older children and adolescents adopted from Eastern Europe and the impact of their preadoption history and family’s functioning on their adjustment. This is a follow-up study of families first surveyed in 2005 with an addition of new families. One hundred and forty-five families reporting on 194 adopted children (9 to 19 years; 104 girls) participated in this study at Time 2. The project was conducted as an internet-based survey. Parents and adopted children reported on children’s emotional, behavioral and social problems (CBCL and YSR), as well as family environment (FACES-III and PEQ). Children also reported on their attachment to parents (IPPA) and their preoccupation with adoption (ADQ). Results revealed that children adopted as infants or toddlers (18 months and younger) evidenced lower problem behaviors and higher competence scores than children adopted at later ages. History of preadoption abuse and/or neglect also played a role. Children without such history scored better on all problem and competency scales than their peers with reported history of either abuse or neglect. Relationships with the adoptive parents and family environment also contributed to better adjustment in this sample of adopted children. Children from more cohesive families displayed lower levels of internalizing and externalizing problems. Additionally, less conflict between adolescents and their parents was associated with lower levels of these problems. Adolescents with higher attachment levels to their parents self-reported lower internalizing and externalizing problems. Adolescents’ interest in their adoptions is a healthy thing; however, excessive preoccupation was associated with higher levels of internalizing behaviors, such as anxiety and depression. Preoccupation with adoption was not related to externalizing behaviors, as reported by children. This study replicates findings of previous studies of intercountry adoption of children from Eastern Europe. Implications of these findings are discussed.

This thesis analyses the Eastern enlargement of the EU in comparison with the past four enlargement rounds, as a result of which it proves that Central and Eastern enlargement (CEE) is a unique experience for the EU. After the fourth enlargement, the EU turned its face to the CEECs, which witnessed unexpected events of a historic nature, with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This date symbolises a great change for the CEECs, such as the end of communism, transition to open market economy, democratisation and stability. A special focus is given to the inclusion of the CEECs into the EU necessitating to make adjustments both in the EU and in the CEECs. The specifity of the fifth enlargement derives from all the changes and challenges that it poses to the applicant countries and the Union but also to its neighbours. It concludes that the factors of uniqueness of the Eastern enlargement will strengthen the probability of the inclusion of the future applicants in the Eastern part of the continent. This enlargement is a positive development for the old and the new member states, it is one of the most important &lsquo
political necessities&rsquo
and &lsquo
historical opportunities&rsquo
that the EU is facing since its establishment, because it will not only ensure the unification, stabilisation, security, economic growth and general well-being of the continent but also because it has opened the way of membership to the future possible applicants in the Eastern part of the continent.

Since the beginning of the 1990s important changes took place, such as the collapse of Communism and the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Consequently, the European Union (EU) has faced a new agenda in SouthEastern Europe. The EU policies towards this region were not very well coordinated in the first half of the 1990s. From the second half of the 1990s onwards, the EU has become more focused in its policies towards South Eastern Europe. Since 1999, the Stabilisation and Association Process is the new institutional framework of the EU towards this region. The main purpose of the Stabilisation and Association Process is to promote peace, prosperity and stability in this region.

This study aims to explore the EU relations with South Eastern Europe with a single case study of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Process. The main research questions are: What are the main aims and dynamics of the EU’s relations with South Eastern Europe? What are the main problems concerning the implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Process in the case of Bosnia? How do the norms, values and culture of Bosnia affect the implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Process?

The focus of this study is on democratization as an open- ended process. Thus, it is relevant to apply democratization theories, with a focus on the Transition Approach as a theoretical framework. Democratization theories aim to explain how authoritarian regimes change into liberal democratic ones. The transition approach makes a clear distinction between democratic transition and democratic consolidation phases, and identifies the necessary conditions for the success of each phase. New Institutionalism is another theoretical orientation that will be applied to this study. New Institutionalism is used in this study to discuss the concepts of institutional change and democratic governance, and to further study both the formal and informal institutions in Bosnia and how they limit the implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

This study comes up with the conclusion that South Eastern Europe remains one of the priority regions for the EU. The dynamics of EU-South Eastern Europe relations is based on a number of different factors, such as political and economic considerations, concerns about peace, prosperity, and stability at the doorstep of the EU. The implementation of EU policies in this region is related to the debate on the future of the EU as well. The conclusions about Bosnia and Herzegovina point out that the country has moved forward a considerable amount after the 1992-95 Bosnian War. Democracy is beginning to emerge in the country. However, the implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Process is constrained by the complex formal institutional structure as laid out in the Dayton Peace Agreement. Moreover, the informal institutions in Bosnia limit the implementation. For instance, the path-dependent authoritarian legacy of former Yugoslavia, exclusive ethnic nationalism, and distrust among the major ethnic groups in Bosnia are obstacles in front of the effective implementation of the Stabilisation and Association Process. The level of international community involvement in the country is still very intensive. Bosnia has not become a self-sustainable democratic state yet. Strengthening the civil society in Bosnia and Herzegovina and promoting an inclusive civic identity that will lead to the enhancement of democratic values in the country can be recommended as solutions for the current problems of the country.

In the end of the 1980s and in the beginning of the 1990s Europe and the world witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the mid-1990s the member states of the European Union decided to enlarge the Union towards the Eastern Europe. Thus European integration entered into an unprecedented phase. Integration of the Eastern Europeans with the Western Europe contributed to the debates on the notions of European identity and the idea of Europe. Adherence of the East Europeans to the ideals of the Western European civilization brought up some questions about the changing identities and shifting boundaries of Europe. Various theories deal with the problems of identity in general and European identity in particular. However to a great extent they are limited within a rigid description of self-other relationship. They do not intend to investigate the real motives or purposes behind these transformations of the prevailing identities and shifting of the boundaries of Europe. So, it will be argued that, in order to understand construction/reconstruction process of the new European identity, one should also take into consideration the more dynamic effects on changing European identity and shifting borders of Europe.

Departing from the idea of a slippery ideological surface over which the term &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
is conceptualized, which is continuously susceptible to shifts and redefinitions, this thesis is devoted to the attempt to outline the differences between the two ways of the conceptualization of &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
in Central Eastern Europe in two specific periods and political contexts. The first period mentioned is the early 1980s, or pre-1989 period, punctuated with the Central European intellectuals&rsquo
(the so-called dissidents&rsquo
) discourse on the &ldquo
European&rdquo
affiliation of the region-especially in cultural terms. The transformation literature is also mentioned in order to pose the counter-factual arguments of this intellectual strand. The second period mentioned is the late 1990s and early 2000s, where the idea of &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
is identified with the EU and the EU accession. In this respect, Poland and Hungary are chosen as the sample countries for the scrutiny of the second period. Euro-discourses of the political parties and the concept of &ldquo
party-based Euroscepticism&rdquo
are scrutinised. The Polish and Hungarian media and the public opinion are also investigated to understand how and with what references &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
is conceptualised in late 1990s and early 2000s in the political space of Central Eastern Europe. Thus, in this study, the basic claim is that the intense debates and the literature on the &ldquo
Europeanness&rdquo
of Central Europe and on the transition that these countries have to realize in order to be &ldquo
European&rdquo
do not have a substantial basis in the conceptualization of &ldquo
Europe&rdquo
in the current political spaces of Poland and Hungary.

The main aim of this thesis is to analyze EU-Western Balkans relations with regard to the prospective EU membership of the Western Balkans, and to make an analysis of the EU&rsquo
s Western Balkans enlargement strategy and the scope of membership conditionality imposed on the Western Balkans from post Dayton period (1995) to present (2006). This thesis examines how the EU membership conditionality worked in the Western Balkans&rsquo
preparatory stages for pre-accession, and to what extent it is different from the CEE enlargement process. Lastly, considering the discussions on rediscovered absorption capacity and the commitment of EU for further eastward enlargements after the CEE enlargement of 2004, it is looked into whether there has been a shift in EU&rsquo
s Western Balkans strategy. This thesis argues that the dominant factor determining the dynamics of the EU-Western Balkans relations are preferences, priorities and internal dynamics of the EU. The comparison between the CEE&rsquo
s and Western Balkans&rsquo
EU integration process reveals that EU tailored a long term and flexible enlargement strategy with increasing conditionality within SAP framework for the Western Balkans. Hence as long as the EU does not feel a sense of urgency straining the stability and EU integration of the region, a motivation for presenting an immediate enlargement platform will not emerge. In this sense, after the CEE enlargement, EU rediscovered its absorption capacity as a main membership condition and further differentiated the regional countries in terms of their own merits in fulfilling EU&rsquo
s conditionality and standards.

Réinscrivant le processus d'intégration européenne dans une Histoire de la Guerre froide et post-Guerre froide et plus généralement dans une histoire européenne plus longue que le seul XXe siècle, cette thèse explore l'histoire des relations de la Commission européenne avec la périphérie sud-orientale du continent. La longue période chronologique étudiée permets de mettre en exergue les " forces profondes " qui se tiennent derrières les actions de l'exécutif de la CEE/UE dans une région critique pour l'Europe. Pour se faire, nous nous sommes basés sur les archives de la Commission européenne, du Conseil, du Département d'État américain, des Ministères des affaires étrangères français et britannique, de la bibliothèque de Cluj-Napoca en Roumanie et d'entretiens.Divisée en quatre parties, chacune se centrant sur une période chronologique, ce travail analyse l'action de la Commission face aux changements qui ont bouleversé l'Europe du Sud-est entre 1960 et 2010. L'adaptation constante de la politique de la Commission, de la " doctrine de l'Association " à la Synergie de la Mer Noire, nous ont amené à développer l'idée d'une Süd-ost politik qui se met en place dès le début des années 1960. Cependant, contrairement à l'Ostpolitik de Bonn, il ne s'agit pas pour Bruxelles d'aller vers les États communistes du Sud-est européen ou l'Union soviétique, mais plutôt de lutter contre leur influence. La Süd-Ost politik communautaire est clairement anticommuniste et antirusse.La Communauté fait barrage à Moscou en étendant le modèle de la démocratie libérale capitaliste dans la zone autour des Détroits. La situation stratégique d'Athènes, d'Ankara et plus tard de Tbilissi ou Kiev n'est pas oubliée par Bruxelles. Ainsi, la Commission s'inscrit dans une plus longue histoire, son action fait écho à la lutte entre Paris, Londres et Saint-Pétersbourg pour le contrôle des Détroits, aux tentatives des États de la région de copier les modèles nationaux d'Europe de l'Ouest et à la politique orientale des Puissances occidentales après 1918.Cependant, la Commission doit ménager des État membres qui lui rappellent sans cesse que ces actions doivent rester limitées aux traités. L'Avis sur la Grèce en 1976 marque le point culminant de ce débat entre Conseil et Commission. Parallèlement, au cours des années 1970, Bruxelles veille à ne pas laisser émerger dans sa périphérie des organisations qui pourraient la concurrencer. Il en sera ainsi de la Conférence pour la coopération et la sécurité en Europe et de son volet méditerranéen mais aussi de la Coopération Balkanique.Si la chute de l'Union soviétique fait naitre des hésitations sur la conduite à suivre vis-à-vis de l'Europe du Sud-est et sa nouvelle extension vers le Caucase et dans les anciennes républiques soviétiques. Bien vite la Commission revient à sa politique d'extension du modèle européen. Cependant, le centre des préoccupations communautaire n'est plus la Grèce ou la Turquie. Avec l'effondrement de l'Empire soviétique, le champ d'action de la Communauté -devenue Union- s'est élargi à l'ensemble de la Région Mer Noire.Pourtant, la non résolution du problème de Chypre, l'instabilité financière de la Grèce, les crises politiques turques, le maintien hors de Schengen de la Roumanie et de la Bulgarie sont des exemples des difficultés rencontrées par la Communauté dans la région.La guerre en Géorgie et l'annexion de la Crimée par la Russie à la suite de la révolution à Kiev illustrent que le processus " doux " d'inoculation des valeurs du Traité de Rome ne va pas de soi du moment que celui-ci rencontre une opposition " dure ". Nous achevons notre réflexion en nous posant la question de la capacité de l'Union et de la Commission à absorber à terme l'ensemble de la Mer Noire ce qui mettrait la Mésopotamie et l'Asie centrale en contact direct avec le processus d'intégration européenne.Il s'agit maintenant de savoir si la Mer Noire deviendra un " lac Européen".

Through close textual analysis of 20^th century Czech anthropological texts from the Revivalist and Socialist periods and contemporary social research conducted after the Velvet Revolution, I demonstrate certain prominent discourses of identity developed in early Bohemian anthropology and their continuities in present day popular discourses. In each period, identity is deeply intertwined with teleological theories of history with Czech populations at the apex of cultural evolutionary development. In the Revivalist period this apex was believed to be the democratic nation state, transitioning to a Marxist nation state in the Socialist period, and in the contemporary period is conceived of as a neoliberal nation state. A major function of anthropology in the Revivalist and Socialist periods was to legitimate either period’s respective teleological theory and Czech possession of relevant values as 'objective' and 'natural' fact, a general mode of discourse which continued in the contemporary period in numerous editorials in the 1990s on the advantages of capitalism. The contemporary manifestation has particularly noteworthy consequences for the Roma minority, which I argue has provided Czech discourses with an ethnic category 'anti-thetical' to their own identity, providing a 'repository' for negative Czech self-stereotypes emerging from collaboration in the Socialist period.

Defence date: 23 March 2007
Examining board: Prof. John Hemery (Centre for Political and Diplomatic Studies, Oxford) ; Prof. Jacek Wasilewski (Warsaw School of Social Psychology) ; Prof. Jaap Dronkers (European University Institute)(Supervisor)
The aim of this study is to explore the process of diplomatic elite transformation in the post-communist countries within the context of political elite transformation and to analyse whether the process of circulation or reproduction prevailed among the diplomatic elites during the first decade and a half after the change of the political regime (1989-2004). I focus upon the entry-level diplomats to a greater degree than in the older works on political elite and diplomacy. The key to capturing the process of circulation/ reproduction among diplomatic elites is through analysis of the general characteristics of diplomats as well as the system of personnel selection. I argue that a better understanding of the transformation processes could be achieved by looking at people at the entry level into political elite, i.e., by looking at newcomers. The thesis is further set out to show how the historical, political and cultural legacy of the past and geographical realities shaped the emerging diplomatic elites. The analysis presented in the thesis is based on a survey that I conducted. Several conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of diplomats in 27 countries. The composition of the emerging diplomatic elite across countries shows some striking similarities and some striking differences. The areas of important similarities are education, social origins and channels of recruitment. The differences mainly occur in age, gender, recruitment channels, previous professional experience, type of residence and additional jobs performed. Particularly illuminating in this respect is the division of respondents by geographical criterion into the CEE/FSU countries. A more meticulous analysis shows that the revolutionary political transformations were not followed by a revolutionary transformation of elites, or of diplomatic elites in particular. There was a modest degree of circulation from the lower classes into the elite role (in particular, into the diplomatic elite), but it did not transcend the socially desirable and socially stabilising moderate level. It was certainly not a revolutionary degree of circulation into the diplomatic elite. Nor was there a full-scale reproduction of elites.

Defence date: 25 June 2007
Examining board: Prof. Philippe C. Schmitter, EUI (Supervisor) ; Prof. Adrienne Héritier, EUI (Co-supervisor) ; Prof. Nikiforos Diamandouros, University of Athens ; Prof. Christopher Lord, University of Reading
This project focuses on the interrelations between the micro-level of popular attitudes to European integration and the macro-level of elite justifications for pursuing membership. Drawing on extant research on Eastern Enlargement this study develops an approach of ‘theoretical differentiation’ and distinguishes between rationally oriented ‘Utility Maximizing’ entrants (UM) and constructively driven ‘Value Maximizing’ countries (VM). ‘Theoretical differentiation’ in elite attitudes then, becomes the default drive in empirically investigating public support for the EU. First, explaining the dynamics of utilitarian public attitudes, this study ‘differentiates’ the short- term, economic factors from the long-term, elite-driven stimuli that render the UM group of countries more eurosceptic than the VM group. The regression analysis shows that while in both groups short-term support fluctuates with the business cycle, the intensity of long-run support is determined by the set of structural characteristics that identify them as either UM or VM. Similarly, ‘differentiation’ in affective support shows that the latter is a mixture of the longterm disposition towards EU, determined by historical elite attitudes, and the current socialization factors that govern short-run variations. Yet, the affective attitudes of the two groups not only differ in their mean levels of support (i.e. intensity) but also in their responses to direct and indirect socialization stimuli (i.e. fluctuations). In other words, EU enlargement politics and the distinct elite frames they produce increase the stickiness of affective attitudes to European integration and partially regulate the utilitarian public sentiment. Both utilitarian and affective models of EU public opinion were tested at the aggregate level of survey respondents, using Eurobarometer polls from the fifteen ‘old’ member states. OECD data were compliled to control for the economic factors, while original data on the national distribution of EU officials in the Commission and the European Parliament were gathered by the author to control for the EU socialization stimuli.

This study explores the conditions in which women teaching and conducting research in the fields of computer science, computer engineering and information technology in six Romanian universities live and work. The research begins from women’s concerns and practices of everyday life, rather than those of institutions and disciplines. This exploratory work asked two fundamental questions of the women interviewed: what does it mean to be a woman academic in these high-tech disciplines, and what does it mean to be a second world academic. Employing a critical feminist ethnographic framework, the study explored the professional lives of seven women academics whose ranks varied from Lecturer to Professor through in-depth, face-to-face interviews. A number of documents were also reviewed in order to create a context for the major social and political changes in Eastern Europe – including its new connections to Europe – that had an impact on the professional journeys of women academics in Romania. Findings convey a multiplicity of conscious and unconscious inclusion and exclusionary practices, and ways in which gender, technology, higher education, neo-liberalism and globalisation are bound together. The findings reveal nuanced systemic gender exclusionary practices suggesting that the theoretical underpinnings and practice of gender equality employed in Romania and by Romanian higher education institutions needs much further study. Women academics in computing face a complex interplay of discouraging factors such as severe financial austerity and the masculine domination of the disciplines being most salient. The implication for educational change is the need to establish structures and mechanisms to foster honest debate around the dilemma: equality of opportunity, equality of outcome versus gender mainstreaming which has been the normative action in Eastern Europe for decades.