In recent years the concern about the future of the European Union and itssupposed lack of democracy, efficiency and legitimacy has increased. Thisconcern has resulted in extensive debates and the establishment of a conventionwith the task to create a draft treaty for a European Constitution.The aim of this essay is to study how the three theoretical concepts,democracy, efficiency and legitimacy, have been described and used in the debateabout the future of the European Union. My main interest is to see how theseconcepts are described in a debate regarding a political system that goes beyondthe borders of the nation-state. I have made a comparative textual analysis of thedebates taken place in Sweden and Spain during a period of over two years. Ihave, for instance, found out that openness and clearness have a prominentposition as democratic values together with equality and justice (in Spain) and theinstitution of accountability (in Sweden).

Undersökningens syfte är att undersöka huruvida det finns ett samband mellan traditionella könsnormer samt inställningen till det egna landets familjepolitik, och landets totala fertilitetsnivå. Uppsatsen har en kvantitativ ansats med analyser baserade på data från European Social Survey samt Eurostat och undersöker 26 europeiska länder. Den teoretiska bakgrunden belyser hur mönstret i de totala fertilitetsnivåerna har förändrats till de nivåer som uppvisas i Europa idag. Vidare beskrivs hur könsrollsattityder och familjepolicys kan kopplas till födelsetal. Av den teoretiska bakgrunden framkommer vikten av att kunna kombinera barn med förvärvsarbete som en nyckelaspekt.

Denna studie ämnar undersöka skillnaden i osäkra anställningar mellan unga kvinnor och män i 14 Europeiska länder dels på landspecifik nivå samt indelat i välfärdsregimer. Underlaget för studien kommer ifrån European Social Survey från åren 2010 och 2012. För analysen har logistisk regressionsanalys tillämpats i statistikprogrammet SPSS. Genom ett uppslag i tidigare forskning och teori om faktorer på både individ- och institutionsnivå formulerades två hypoteser: Att kvinnor i större utsträckning än män innehar osäkra anställningar samt att den största skillnaden skulle gå att urskönja i den konservativa välfärdsregimen. I ett inledande skede vid kontroll för enbart kön tenderade kvinnor i den socialdemokratiska välfärdsregimen att ha en större sannolikhet till en osäker anställning.

Problem: Should the european competition law be used as a integrationfriendly tool? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to analyse wheather europena competition law should be govenrned by the aim of integrating the european market. Method: A traditional swedish law method har been used. Result: My conclusion is that marketintegration in itself should not be the only aim when applying european competition law..

This thesis treats the development of the European Union asylum- and migration politics and the EU member states transfer of authority to the European Union. The main purpose has been to look closer with the use of the application of theory of neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism on the European Union case. The focus will be to answer the following questions: How has the political development within EU asylum and migration policy developed through the period of The Single European Act to the ratification of the Stockholm program? And how can the chosen theory explain European countries transfer of national decision regarding asylum policy in favor of a supranational European asylum policy? Based on the available material of European Union programs and harmonization measures for this area I have attempted to understand to what extent the European Union?s development in the area of the asylum and migration politics can be explained through the theories of neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism. The result of my analysis is confirmation of the European Union development of the area of the asylum and migration policy and also a series of explanations according to the theories regarding the member states transfer of authority to the EU.

This study aims at describing if discrepancies can be found between the rhetoric in Swedish political parties? electoral campaigns to the European Parliament elections in 2004 and their representatives? actual behavior in the European Parliament and to develop plausible explanations to these possible discrepancies. The research method that is being used is content analysis, aiming to answer four research questions regarding the electoral campaigns to the European Parliament elections in 2004 and the behavior by the parties? representatives during the following term of office. The main findings are that some discrepancies can be found regarding which questions are raised most frequently in the electoral campaigns and in the European Parliament, but that no discrepancies can be found regarding the positions taken in questions in the electoral campaigns and in the European Parliament.

Uppsatsen är en jämförande kvantitativ pilotstudie om och hur Ungerns politiska kultur och postmaterialistiska värderingar har förändrats sedan staten blev medlem i EU.Syftet är att se om det har skett några förändringar i den politiska kulturen och om EU har varit en bidragande faktor för förändringen. Primärkällor jag har använt mig av är World Values Survey och European Social Survey, och sekundärkällor är sådana källor som har definierat politisk kultur, och förklarat hur EU fungerar. Resultatet jag har kommit fram till är att den politiska kulturen inte har förändrats i stor grad men det har skett förändringar i några värderingar som leder till postmodernismen. Medlemskapet i EU kan vara en faktor till att förändringarna har skett, men det är inte enbart det som har påverkat..

The aim of this study is to describe and analyze how the European union relates to the different dimensions of abortion. What kind of problem is abortion and whose right is it? Does difference framings of the problem enable different solutions?By analyzing debates from the European parliament through Carol Lee Bacchis method ?What?s the problem approach? I have come to see that different representations of a problem changes the problem it self. This emphasis that a problem is a problem in one context, but not in an other.Depending on the work of, among others, Barbara Hobson and Ailbhe Smyth I have focused upon the European union as a economical project, leaving social issues to national competence. This makes the EU a patriarchal project that fails to guarantee women?s rights.

This thesis deals with the supranational organization of European trade unions. The European trade union movement is, via its umbrella organization the ETUC, an institutionalized social partner within the European Union. The ETUC is a very diverse organization with great potential of conflicting interest among its members. This thesis therefore seeks to explore the dynamics and interest heterogeneity of the ETUC. Drawing on previous research and literature it formulates a number of hypothesises to test what variables that influence the member organizations policy preferences (i.e.

Regional European Offices with the purpose to represent regions and municipalities in the EU-system have had a substantial expansion over the last years. One example is the North Sweden European Office for the counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten, consisting of seven different headmen who are representing both the private sector as well as the public system. This diverse leadership representation makes North Sweden a very good example on a so called Quango, organisations that stand under simultaneous influence from both public and private sectors. These Quangos opens up new possibilities to solve public problems, but they also bring together two different working models which is not always easy to handle for a Quango. According to earlier surveys some characteristic Quango problems within North Sweden exist, for example the ability to prioritize and thereby be as effective as possible.

This study deals with the phenomenon of European integration and its impact on national party programs in Poland, a current member state of the European Union. The author will argue that the question of European integration has left a mark on the political party programs of two mainstream domestic parties on opposite sides of the ideological dimension, in the form of a certain degree of convergence regarding the ?European issue?. Relating the result of the analysis to the theoretical structure of Europeanization and sociological institutional change, the essay will attempt to show a possible link between them. Although this trend does not seem to indicate any dramatic effects of the membership per se in the programs (the national arena seems, in most cases, be of more value for party activities) there is an indirect effect in the form of the presence of Europarties and a pronounced incentive for social and economic adaptation..

The European union started as an area of economic cooperation, but has developed into an area of cooperation in many legal fields. There are these days even cooperation when it comes to dealing with criminals. There is a new procedure called the European arrest warrant which goal is to make the extradition of criminals between the different member states in the European union more efficient. Sometimes when a state receives a European arrest warrant they have to extradite the person in question without doing any investigation of their own. The procedure is based on the principle of mutual recognition.

A common form of communication within Facebook is the communication between users via status updates. If you write a status update all your friends have the opportunity to read and to respond to the update. The overall issue of this survey is: how are Facebook users to commu- nicate with status updates?  The survey aims to gain insight and greater understanding of communication patterns and user awareness of social contexts when they write status  updates. The study will act as an attempt to understand a small part of a complex interaction taking place in a social situation.

A qualitative document analysis is used to answer the aim of this thesis that is to find out if the relation between the European Union and Belarus has changed from confrontational to reparational in between the two parliamentary elections that was held in the country in the years of 2004 and 2008. The study focuses on debates from the European parliament in association to the elections in Belarus to see if the rhetoric used in the debates have changed. It is found that the rhetoric used in the European parliament after the 2004 election in Belarus are extremely confrontational and the members of the debate expresses their thoughts of Belarus in a rather harsh way. It has also been found that the rhetoric used in the European parliament after the 2008 election in Belarus are more diplomatic and have the tendencies of a warmer relation to Belarus although there are still some confrontational views among the members..

Denna studie behandlar relationen mellan jämställdhet på samhällsnivå och individuell subjektiv hälsa genom att korrelera data från 23 europeiska länder. Materialet erhålles ur European Social Survey ed. 4.0 samt Förenta Nationerna. För att utröna i vilken utsträckning individuell hälsa i allmänhet och de olika könen i synnerhet påverkas av samhällets jämställdhetsgrad utförs linjär sannolikhetsregression i SPSS Statistics 18.0. En metod som gör det möjligt att ta hänsyn till andra tänkbara komponenter som kan tänkas påverka relationen där emellan.