Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'European Union – Politics and government'

Le dépassement du seul critère juridique et la prise en compte du temps long remettent clairement en question l’idée que le Conseil européen ne soit devenu une institution qu’avec le traité de Lisbonne et interrogent, entre autres, sur ce que signifie « être une institution » dans l’UE. Plusieurs questions de pouvoir fondamentales sont soulevées :Comment les institutions sont-elles crées et développées dans l’UE ?Le Conseil européen est-il une institution « supranationale intergouvernementale » ?L’ordre politique européen est-il un ordre politique autonome ?

Le développement de la recherche a procédé en 3 phases, pour lesquels les répertoires de codification juridique, politique et symbolique ont servi de grille d’analyse. En premier lieu, le temps de l’instituant, temps court posant les bases du temps long dans lequel se développe l’institutionnalisation, a été étudié. Il correspond au moment de l’incursion directe et explicite des Etats dans la sphère européenne. Puis, les évolutions et trajectoires respectives des différents processus de codification du Conseil européen ont été examinées, tout au long de son existence dans l’ordre politique européen. Enfin, l’omniprésence de l’interaction national-européen a conduit à observer les processus suivis par les « sous-institutions » du Conseil européen, dans la mesure où ils permettent d’expliquer son institutionnalisation dans l’ordre politique européen. Le couple franco-allemand et la présidence du Conseil européen ont ainsi fait l’objet de processus d’institutionnalisation propres, mais intrinsèquement liés à ceux suivis par le Conseil européen, et ont servis à déterminer les interactions entre les ordres politiques nationaux et l’ordre politique européen.

Cette recherche a notamment mis en évidence le fait que l’institutionnalisation du Conseil européen a principalement été réalisée sur le plan politique (au travers des actions des acteurs, des rôles qu’ils ont façonné et investi, de la stabilité qu’ils ont instauré par la répétition de pratiques, de convergences de vues facilitées par la pression du groupe, ou encore du respect de l’échelon national par la dimension supranationale), en étant partiellement soutenue sur le plan symbolique, tandis que le droit n’a très longtemps fait que suivre ces processus et n’est vraiment intervenu que pour reconnaître l’existant ou dresser un état des lieux du consensus en vigueur au moment où les circonstances appelaient des reconfigurations substantielles.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
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L’objectif est de comprendre et d’expliquer les pratiques des différents groupes d’acteurs impliqués dans ces politiques, au sein de la Commission (DG Relex/SEAE, DG Devco, délégations) et du Parlement (sous-commission DROI).

La position défendue est la suivante :les pratiques européennes de promotion de la démocratie au Maroc et en Tunisie sont fonction de l’identité des groupes institutionnels qui les mettent en œuvre. Pour chaque groupe institutionnel, peuvent être mis en évidence des normes, intérêts et ressources qui contribuent à défendre et renforcer l’identité institutionnelle. Dès lors, des pratiques qui peuvent paraître incohérentes au premier abord (pourquoi agir au Maroc et pas en Tunisie ?pourquoi créer l’IEDDH et, parallèlement, évincer l’objectif de promotion de la démocratie de la coopération bilatérale avec la Tunisie ?) prennent tout leur sens lorsqu’on parvient à restituer la fonction sociale qu’elles assurent.

Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
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The Convention on the future of Europe, set up by the Laeken Declaration, represented an important stage in the pan-European debate on the objectives, values, means and decision-making tools of CFSP. The US-led intervention in Iraq in March 2003 marked a new ‘critical juncture’ in the development of the conceptual and institutional bases of CFSP. As it was the case in the past, following major policy failures in the course of the Balkan wars, Member States sought to mend the rift that divided them in the run up to the Iraq war. In so doing, Member States agreed on a significant degree of institutional reform in the context of the Convention and of the subsequent Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC). The creation of the new position of a double-hatted Foreign Minister, as well as the envisaged rationalisation and consolidation of the instruments at his/her disposal, including a new European External Action Service (EAS), is a primary achievement in this perspective. On the defence side, a new formula of ‘permanent structured cooperation’ among willing and able Member States has been included in the Treaty Establishing the European Constitution (Constitutional Treaty), with a view to them undertaking more binding commitments in the field of defence, and fulfilling more demanding missions. Right at the time when the Iraq crisis was sending shockwaves across the political and institutional structures of the Union, and of CFSP in particular, the first ESDP civilian mission were launched, soon followed by small military operations. The unprecedented deployment of civilian and military personnel under EU flag in as many as 13 missions between 2002 and 2005 could be achieved thanks to the development of a new layer of policy-makign and crisis-management bodies in Brussels. The launch of successive ESDP operations turned out to be a powerful catalyst for the further expansion and consolidation of this bureaucratic framework and of the conceptual dimension of CFSP/ESDP. Most importantly, these and other dimensions of institutional and operational progress should be set in a new, overarching normative and political framework provided by the European Security Strategy (ESS).

Needless to say, institutional innovations are stalled following the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in the French and Dutch referenda of May/June 2005. With a view to the evolution of the CFSP regime, however, I argue in this thesis that the institutional reforms envisaged in the Constitutional Treaty are largely consistent with the unfolding normative and bureaucratic features of the regime. As illustrated in the course of my research, the institutional, bureaucratic and normative dimensions of the regime appear to strengthen one another, thereby fostering regime deepening. From this standpoint, therefore, the stalemate of institutional reform does slow down the reform of the international regime of CFSP but does not seem to alter the direction of its evolution and entail its stagnation, or even dismantling. On the contrary, I maintain that the dynamics of regime change that I detect will lead to stronger, endogenous and exogenous demands for institutional reform, whose shapes and priorities are to a large extent already included in the Constitutional treaty. This vantage point paves the way to identifying the trends underlying the evolution of the regime, but does not lead to endorsing a teleological reading of regime reform. As made clear in what follows, CFSP largely remains a matter of international cooperation with a strong (although not exclusive) inter-governmental component. As such, this international regime could still suffer serious, and potentially irreversible, blows, were some EU Member States to openly depart from its normative coordinates and dismiss its institutional or bureaucratic instances. While this scenario cannot be ruled out, I argue in this thesis that this does not seem the way forward. The institutional and normative indicators that I detect and review point consistently towards a ‘deepening’ of the regime, and closer cooperation among Member States. In other words, it is not a matter of excluding the possibility of disruptions in the evolution of the CFSP regime, but to improve the understanding of regime dynamics so as to draw a distinction between long-term trends and conjunctural crises that, so far, have not undermined the incremental consolidation of CFSP/ESDP.

Central to this research is the analysis of the institutional and normative features of the CFSP regime at EU level. The focus lies on the (increasing) difference that institutions and norms make to inter-governmental policy-making under CFSP, in the inter-play with national actors. The purpose of my research is therefore threefold. First, I investigate the functioning and development of the bureaucratic structures underpinning the CFSP regime, since their establishment in 2000/2001 up to 2005. This theoretically informed review will allow me to highlight the distinctive procedural and normative features of CFSP policy-making and, subsequently, to assess their influence on the successive stages of reform. Second, I track and interpret the unprecedented processes by which innovations have been introduced (or envisaged) at the institutional and normative level of the regime, with a focus on the Convention on the future of Europe and on the drafting of the European Security Strategy. Third, I assess the institutional and normative output of this dense stage of reform, with respect both to the ‘internal’ coherence and the deepening of the regime, and to the ‘external’ projection of the EU as an international actor in the making.

On the whole, I assume that a significant, multidimensional transition of the CFSP regime is underway. The bureaucratic framework enabling inter-governmental cooperation encourages patterned behaviour, which progressively generates shared norms and standards of appropriateness, affecting the definition of national interests. In terms of decision-making, debate and deliberation increasingly complement negotiation within Brussels-based CFSP bodies. Looking at the direction of institutional and policy evolution, the logic of ‘sharing’ tasks, decisions and resources across different (European and national) levels of governance prevails, thereby strengthening the relevance of ‘path-dependency’ and of the ‘ratchet effect’ in enhancing inter-governmental cooperation as well as regime reform.

Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
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While an abundant literature focuses on Euroscepticism in the national political arenas, oppositions to Europe at the supranational level remain largely under-studied. In order to contribute to fill this gap, this research examines how Eurosceptic Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) conceive and carry out their representative mandate in the European Parliament (EP). Inspired by the motivational approach of role theory, the study aims first at understanding the roles played by Eurosceptics within the assembly and second at explaining the heterogeneity of the roles played by these actors. Using a plurality of data, this research is based on mix-methods, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies as well as inductive and deductive approaches. The analysis proceeds in two steps. The first proposes a typology of ideal-types of roles that allows understanding the ways Eurosceptics conceive and carry out their parliamentary mandate. The second explains the variation between the roles and tests the hypothesis that the role played by an actor depend on the combination of institutional and individual factors. The study demonstrates that Eurosceptics may assume four roles, corresponding to an exit or voice strategy, and that the role they play depends both on the EP’s rules and MEP’s preferences concerning European integration and the EU’s institutional design. The research contributes to on-going debates on two very different issues. First, while we witness in many European countries, the emergence of anti-system actors, this thesis can contribute to the study of the anti-systemic opposition within parliamentary institutions, the EP being here a special laboratory for the study of the strategies of anti-system actors. Second, like recent studies focusing on the sociology of European integration, this research is based on the premise that analysing a small group of actors allows to question in a different way, the democratic and legitimacy deficit of the EU, moving the focal from the institutional to the individual level. The aim is then to understand the challenges of legitimacy of the EU by focusing on actors hostile to the European project. An analysis of their actual practices in the EP allows us to reflect on their ability to legitimize the political system.

Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
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The progress of Turkey’s relations with the EU enhanced the visibility of the Turkish Peak Business Organizations (PBOs) in representing Turkish business interests in Brussels. Moreover, the evolution of the activities of the PBOs, provides a broader understanding of the developments of the general characteristics of the relations between the government and business interest groups in Turkey. Hence the investigation focuses on the major Turkish PBOs.

We examine the relations of Turkish PBOs with the EU, essentially, on the basis of the observation of their transnational actions within the EU as well as their participation in financial and technical assistance programmes of the EU and in the joint institutional structures of the association regime between Turkey and the EU. By analysing these two dimensions we assess the repercussions of the socialization of the Turkish PBOs on their strategies of action in dealing with European Affairs, on discourses they adopted regarding domestic policy-making and on their organizational structure and policy agenda.

We elaborate our topic with reference to the Europeanization concept, which covers the examination of the consequences of the European governance on national systems. Through the Europeanization concept we observe the correlation between the progress of the Turkey-EU relations and the ongoing process of change in the patterns of interventions of the Turkish business interest groups in domestic policy-making.

Doctorat en sciences politiques
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A Linkage Power at Work?

(Summary)

The central aim of this thesis is to improve our understanding of the EU’s power, in particular in its external trade relations/negotiations. Our hypothesis is that the EU is a distinctive kind of linkage power, defined as an actor relying on linkage as a crucial modus operandi in its external relations. We explored how, to what extent and in which distinctive ways the EU is such a linkage power.

Our analysis was based on three logically interrelated concepts – power resources, linkage and linkage power. Linkage refers to a leveraging strategy, with an aim of packaging relevant power resources, so as to increase leverage in bargaining, or more generally attain a policy objective. I identified seven types of linkages that the EU used: political-economic issue linkage, economic-economic issue linkage, conditionality, contextual linkage, linkage with a third party, cognitive linkage and synergistic linkage. Linkage can hardly work without proper power resources. The latter, as Dahl (1970) defined, refers to all the resources-opportunities, acts, objects etc – that an actor can exploit in order to affect the behaviour of another. So, linkage is a bridge between power resources and impacts – meaning affecting or changing the behaviour of another party. By putting linkage and power together, we created a new term – “linkage power”, referring to a power based on linkages. The EU, the US, China or any other power can all be such labelled, though these actors may diverge in power resources, linkage strategies and the variables affecting linkage effectiveness. When applying such an analytical framework to the EU, we gave particular attention to the implications of the EU’s sui generis nature on its linkage power.

Our case study is the EU’s trade relations with China (1975-2008), which were punctuated by two critical historical junctures – the Tian’anmen Square Incident in 1989 and the EU-China Textile Crisis in 2005. In 1975, The EEC’s successful strategy by linking political issues (Europe-China balancing the Soviet Union and recognising China’s sovereignty over Taiwan) with economic issues (signing the EEC-China Trade Agreement) played a crucial role in securing the establishment of diplomatic relations between the EEC and China. Different types of linkages were then applied to the EEC’s negotiations with Beijing on the 1978 Trade Agreement and the 1979 textile agreement, which effectively prompted the Chinese side to agree to the EU’s terms.

Immediately after the 1989 Tian’anmen Square Incident, the EC imposed economic sanctions with an aim of coercing China to accept Western world’s human rights conditions. This linkage did not last long or pay off due to divergent political and economic interests among the Member States and the EC’s institutional handicaps (foreign policy competence was largely in the hands of Member States, collective foreign policy action was non-binding), and soon de-linked.

Having realised that confrontational approach did not work well, the EC/EU and its Member States started to change their China policies in 1993-95. The period of 1993-2004 witnessed the EC/EU’s power through partnership. The strategic partnership was seen as a complex of different pairs of issue linkages, ranging from political-strategic issues to economic and human rights issues. The partnership, once established, had fostered new linkages and consolidated old ones. China’s WTO accession was seen as a once-in-a-century opportunity for the EU to exercise linkage through conditionality, so as to extract market access concessions from the Chinese side. Moreover, by linking with China could the European Commission garnered international support for advancing the Galileo project within the Union and ward off some of the US pressure in 2003.

The Year 2005 was singled out since an unprecedented trade row on textiles broke out, confronting the EU against China’s export prowess resulting from globalisation and China’s WTO accession. Linkages were used as a predominant strategy to help the EU to persuade and press the Chinese side firstly accept voluntary export restrictions and then share the burden of allowing the blocked textiles in European ports to be released. In 2006-08, the trade deficit problem emerged, coupled with a series political spats between Europe (France and Germany) and Beijing on the Tibet issue. As the EU-China honeymoon was over, the Commission toughened its approach towards China. Although linkage was again used to redress the trade deficit, its effects were not satisfactory, as the EU power resources were eroded.

Our conclusions are (1) linkage is a crucial modus operandi in the EU’s internal bargain and its external relations with China; (2) Linkage was generally effective vis-à-vis China, but with variations, either over time or across different linkage types; (3) The EU is a sui generis linkage power, resulting from its institutional characteristics and heterogeneity of interests among the Commission and Member States. We find that the EU’s increased institutionalisation (both regional and bilateral) and competences generally facilitated its use of linkage strategies. The EU’s sui generis structure and its internal interest divergences have mixed implications on its linkage effectiveness. On one hand, the EU’s linkage power was weakened accordingly. But on the other, the Commission could tactically make use of some Member State government’s row with Beijing and advance its own economic agenda (such as the EU-China High-level Economic and Trade Dialogue, HED). Moreover, our research also confirmed Andrew Moravcsik’s argument that issue linkage is more easily made within an issue-area than across issue-areas. But we differ from him on the reason behind that. We find that this was largely attributable to the EU’s pillar structure and competence divisions.

The theoretical contributions include: (1) Linkage power provides a distinctive prism to look into the EU’s concrete strategies in internal bargains, and external commercial negotiations. Linkage serves as a crucial strategy for the EU to handle its relations with a far-abroad country like China, including establishing diplomatic relations, negotiating trade deals, forging strategic partnerships and holding high-level dialogue. (2) Giving some insights to the EU’s actorness. We find that the EU, though institutionally not a unitary actor, was somehow able to present its power to the extent like a sovereign state on some occasions using linkage strategies. (3) Contributing to the understanding of the EU’s means to spread its governance model. We find that the EU’s norm-setting goals have often been achieved through non-normative ways – such as interest exchange and trade-off, and other deliberate ways of persuasion and even coercion, mainly based on linkage. (4) Shedding light on the interactions between the Commission and the Member State governments and on the Commission’s autonomy in external trade relations.

Two future directions of research have been identified: (1) comparative studies: the EU’s linkage practices vis-à-vis the US, Russia and middle powers, or other actors’ linkage strategies vis-à-vis China; (2) post-Lisbon linkage strategies used by the EU.

Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished