In May 2004 the European Union enlarged from 15 to 25 member states and it was the biggest enlargement since the foundation. Two years earlier Poland, as one of the new member states, finished four years of accession negotiations with the EU.This study focus on the case of Poland and how the accession negotiations with EU were conducted. According to the theoretical framework of Asymmetric negotiations Poland was said to be a weak party and the EU was considered a strong party in the enlargement negotiations.The aim of the thesis is to examine Poland's negotiation performance and determine what Polish failure and success in the accession negotiations depends on. The research contains a illustration of the motives for enlargement, the negotiation process and structure, attitudes and behaviour and finally results of negotiations in specific areas.The study concludes that Poland's negotiation performance was influenced by the Polish negotiation team's unpleasant attitude, confused organizational structure, lack of coalition partners and the strong will to become a member state, in both positive and negative ways. Finally, Poland was most successful in negotiations that concerned specific issues which were of great importance for Poland but less prioritized by the EU..

Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has gained competence in the decision-making process and the Parliament is today one of two decision-making institution, next to the Ministers of Council. In this study the main focus has been to shed light over the negotiation culture within the European Parliament, which up till now has been a neglected research area. This is of great significance because the internal negotiations in the European Parliament decide the external negotiation position with the other institutions.After face-to-face interviews with MEP:s and assistants I have been able to identify certain characteristics to create an understanding of the negotiation culture in Europe's elected Parliament. The negotiations are oriented towards a problems-solving approach and the prevailing apprehension is consensus-based negotiations instead of the existence of political blocks. The committees are stronger than the European party groups, which further encourage negotiation.

This paper is an attempt to distinguish the specifics of the conflict resolution process and the negotiations during trade conflicts. First of all, this kind of conflict almost always contains some kind of protectionism which doesn?t make sense economically. Imposing trade-barriers decrease the overall welfare of your own nation and the only winner is the protected sector. These policies can be introduced since the political pressure from threatened industries is usually much stronger than the pressure from the consumers who will bear the burden of protectionism.

The purpose of this study is to find out how IOGT-NTO conducted the debate about the Swedish negotiations with EU concerning the accession. The essay investigates how the debate was conducted between the years 1993, 1994 and 1995. A further distinction lies in five requirements IOGT-NTO delivered before the negotiations.The material for this study lies primarily in the editorial pages of IOGT-NTO's magazine Accent. The background content comes primarily from secondary sources and deals with the temperance movement and IOGT-NTO, and dealing with the EU and the Swedish alcohol policy.In July 1991, Sweden submitted its membership application to EU and subsequently in the 1993 the negotiations began. During the same time IOGT-NTO began its debate on a possible EU membership in the Accent magazine.

This essay is about the European union freetrade treaty negations with Mercosur. I have in this essay used a qualitative content analysis, to study from the EU perspective the reasons to why, the EU and Mercosur suspended the free trade treaty negations 2004, and after several years resumed the negotiations again in 2010. The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding from the EU perspective of why free trade negotiations were suspended and then resumed. In order to achieve a deeper understanding of this event, I have applied neorealism and neoliberalism on the explicit statements and the implied actions, as these theories may provide different explanatory power of implied causes of negotiations.I have come to the conclusion that the theoretical perspectives can indeed explain explicit statements and implicit actions for suspended and resumed negotiations with Mercosur. The implicit reasons for suspended negotiations are among others that the EU has an egoist thinking concerning a free trade treaty.

This paper develops a theory for understanding negotiation situations involving states and indigenous peoples. Using relevant constructivist theory as a starting point, the paper develops a theory about understanding the relationship between power and culture implicit in the concept of the state. This relationship is examined in negotiations situations involving states and indigenous peoples. States are constituted by social structure and are representatives of the national culture. At the same time states are actors within the international system and a part of the culture of Westphalia.

A great source of risk during peace processes of today comes from spoilers, individuals and groups who deliberately try to undermine every attempt to achieve a negotiated peace agreement. The aim of the thesis is to examine problems related to the management of spoilers during peace negotiations and the effects thereof. A central aspect in this respect is the dilemma of whether to include or exclude controversial actors like spoilers at negotiations.The choice of limits of the subject is to examine the peace negotiations that resulted in ?The Agreement? in 1998, concerning the conflict in Northern Ireland, and in ?DOP? in 1993, concerning the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I find a significant difference between these two conflicts regarding the way of managing spoilers.

This study aims to disclose how an asymmetric planogram structure of the brand with the highest actual variety may come to affect the brand itself and its category as a whole. The authors of the study feel that there is a gap still unfilled amongst previous extensive research examining how differences in either space or price vary between categories, products or brands. An in-store experiment was conducted by collecting quantitative data from daily sales, observations of customers and questionnaires. The results show that an asymmetric structure leads to customers being more attentive towards the brand, and perceives it to be more dominant over its surrounding competitors. Furthermore, results indicate that the customer perceived variety increases and we see tendencies to changes in sales..

Background: The starting point of the thesis is the growing importance of negotiations that serve to establish a relationship between the parties involved as companies? business activities are getting more complex. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to find and to analyze which elements are of importance for parties, when creating a successful negotiation with regard to building long-term relationships, and if those elements differ for sales and procurement negotiations in companies with business activities of various kinds. Research method: The study was realized with the help of twelve qualitative interviews. Result: The elements of importance when creating a successful negotiation with regard to building long-term relationships were mainly elements of co-operation and to some extent elements of competition.

The aim of this essay is to examine which of the two approaches within the field of conflicts that best explains the conflict between Georgia and Russia using negotiations, dialogue and conciliation. According to the first approach negotiations are used to handle a conflict, according to the second approach negotiations are used to solve a problem.  The focus will be on how the two states acted and how the dialogue from the European Union as a conciliator was brought before the war escalated in 2008. The EU is today an important actor within the international politics and has established close relations to the two states. The conflict goes back in history and is still not solved. In the fields of international studies, there is a realistic view that claims the international politics to be shaped by suspicions between states as main actors. War is never far away, what is claimed to be solved through diplomacy.

Since 1983 the people of Sri Lanka has endured an ongoing Civil war, however the intencity has varied over the years. The aim of this theses is to examine what influence the asymmetric relationship between the Sri Lankan goverment and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has on the process of negotiating a solution to the civil war. I am also examining whether the asymmetical relationship has changed over time and if these changes have had any effect on the process.To analyze the asymmetries I divide them into material and non-material. I measure the material asymmetries in economic and military resourses, and to measure the non-material I use indicators such as commitment, alternative, controll and legitimacy.The results show that the asymmetrical relations between the parties in Sri Lanka have changed since the 1990s. Factors like 9/11 and the recurrent suicide bombings by the LTTE has had a great influence on the singalese-tamil relationsship.

AbstractPolitical Science, level III thesisSpring semester 2010Author: Emelie AlfredssonSupervisor: Tomas Mitander"A Changed Leadership? - A study of the EU leadership from a institutional standpoint, related to multilateral environmental negotiations"The EU has for a relatively long time considered itself a leader in the environmental policy area as a whole as well as in multilateral environmental negotiations. This study attempts to classify and identify the European leadership with the purpose of relating it to the institutional framework of the Union. The treaties of the European Union decide its ability to act and its institutions the right to engage in different policy areas, the environmental area being the focus of this study. With the recent ratification of the Lisbon treaty this study aims to make out if the type of leadership the Union showed during the Kyoto negotiations has changed with the new treaty, into a new type during the COP-15 meeting in Copenhagen.

Through the collection and analysis of negotiations surrounding the gay magazine Destroyer, the intention of this paper is to identify norms of sexuality within a contemporary sex-radical discourse. These negotiations are collected from interviews with individuals whom, at the time of the inter-view, consider themselves or their politics sex-radical. In order to allow for a more general under-standing of the context in which these negotiations have come about, material about Swedish law is also included in this text, together with the interview material, and serves as a base for analysis through the application of Gayle Rubin?s theory on the hierarchical value system of sexuality.Following, are the main themes throughout the paper: The meaning of the context; Sexualized children; The possibility to (not) participate: differences of power; The decision whether or not to sell the publication and The position of the pedophile and crossgenerational love/sexuality within the LGBTQ community.Key words: sex radicalism, pornography, boy-love, kiddy porn, pedophilia, Destroyer, Gayle Rubin..

This thesis analyses the 2005 UK presidency of the Council, and more particularly the negotiations on the future financing of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to discuss whether the holding of the presidency implies political influence for the member state. To analyse the power of the country holding the chair the thesis focuses on the presidency functions of brokering and leadership. The theory suggests that the influence of the presidency is derived from informational and procedural power resources, as well as some leadership resources, such as coercion and reward. A case study was used to analyse whether these power resources were used by the British presidency.

This paper aims at describing and explaining the bi-and multilateral negotiations that are, and have been, taking place between Sweden's chief negotiator Allan Larsson and European countries, and within the EU institutions in Brussels, in order to seek support for the Swedish offer to host the European Spallation Source, ESS. It applies a case study method using political science theories ? governance and government ? and to a large extent information from the involved actors in the policy process. The paper also presents a constructive position, in showing how the negotiations on ESS can turn into a process leading to a decision on the construction of this research facility. ESS is negotiated in networks on bi- and multilateral levels consisting of European research representatives and financiers.