This thesis aims to describe and characterise the foreign policy change the United States has experienced towards Europe. This thesis claims that the United States is presenting a more supportive attitude today towards the development of the European Union. This more positive attitude has developed during successive U.S. administrations and has become visible since the end of the Cold War.Washington is today less ambiguous and less ambivalent towards the integration of Europe. The United States appreciate that a common foreign- and security policy in Europe is in accordance with American interests.

The intention of this study is to perform a content analysis based on a theoretical framework founded on multi-level governance, MLG. The thesis examines the formal changes within employment politics between 1999 and 2004 (Sweden´s action plan for employment) and 1998 and 2007 (the spring budget proposition). I will investigate how multi-level governance has effected the Swedish employment politics. Furthermore, the purpose of the thesis and the questions under consideration are: How have the formal structures within Swedish employment politics changed since Sweden?s admission to the European union, particularly during the periods 1997-2008 and 1999-2004? And: How do the changes in Sweden, together with the European union directive concerning employment, coincide in the so-called employment strategy?While performing the analysis I have focused on multi-level governance.

The aim of this essay was to study the European Union?s (EU) role as a democracy promoter and its impact on Croatia?s democratization process. Croatia is a candidate country for membership in the EU which creates a possibility for impact and democracy promotion. The aim is met by studying the following questions:  In what way has the EU promoted democracy in Croatia? How did Croatia respond? To what extent has the EU contributed to Croatia?s democratization process?  Croatia is treated as a case study of the EU?s democracy promotion and the method used was qualitative text-analysis.

After Sweden became a member of the European Union, EU, the debate regarding the Swedish participation in the EU?s currency co-operation, the European Monetary Union, EMU, has been intense. One of the biggest issues has been how our national economic politics will work within such a monetary union. What instrument will remain for the national economic politics within the EMU are highly uncertain. The question whether we will be able to affect our own economy or not has long been the essence in the Swedish debate.

In the post Cold-War era, world politics was transforming itself through its emerging complex issues such as terrorism and influential and interdependent actors such as the European Union. In this new era, the European Union was developing its Common Foreign and Security Policy pillar both to present a coherent and unified EU policy and to prove its political potent in order to become an influential actor on world politics. On the other side, security environment was also transforming its content through emerging actors and issues. As one of the most prominent actors of the world politics, the EU was influenced by the transformation of security environment, whose economic ?soft power? proved necessary but insufficient for being a global power in this emerging security environment.

There's no doubt today that mankind has contributed to the changing climate byher use of fossil fuels. This must change in the nearby future. The Europeanleaders are expressing concern that renewable energy sources are not beingused to their full potential. The 2001/77/EC Directive on Electricity Productionfrom Renewable Energy Sources was accepted in 2001 to encourage thedevelopment of energy production from renewable sources, which isconsidered a step towards the fulfillment of the goal of the Union, that 12% ofthe gross energy consumption should come from renewable energy sources bythe year 2010.The objective of this thesis is to illuminate the common legislation of the EUregarding renewable energy with regard to goal fulfillment, judicial quality,conflicts with other goals of the EU and other faults. The objective is reachedby a hermeneutic study in which interpretation of written text is the mainmethod.

This thesis aims to explain the emergence of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, and its institutional shaping, by using elements of Neofunctionalism and Liberal Intergovernmentalism.Using Neofunctionalism, the Common Foreign and Security Policy can be explained both as a side-effect of Europe's economic integration, and as a way to maintain the former and the European Union's position as an economic superpower. The institutional shaping is a result of lack of convergence between important national interests. Therefore it rests on a firm intergovernmental base, with rigorously limited use of supranational decision-making.For Liberal Intergovernmentalism, geopolitics and ideology, and to a certain level log-rolling, have played important roles. The reunification of Germany convinced France to form an alliance between the two countries. France, determined to achieve an economic and monetary union, thus offered Germany a political union, including a Common Foreign and Security Policy on intergovernmental terms.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to analyse the construction of European identity in three ofcontemporary EU initiated projects for the digitisation of collections from museums, archives, andlibraries. The source material consists of the web pages of the projects Minerva, MICHAEL, andEuropeana, as well as some other policy documents on digitisation and access from EU authorities.Theories on nationalism and construction of heritage are used as an overall context to the problem.After a brief description of the mentioned projects, the author undertakes an analysis of theways that the concept of ?European heritage? is depicted in the source material. The result is thefollowing: normally, the true European heritage is considered being united even though it isdiveded culturally, historically and linguistically.

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.

Research and innovation are areas that have been evolving quickly during recent years. However, it has been difficult for individual countries to make progress on their own. To solve this problem the European union have launched the most expensive research and innovation program to this day. By combining national governments throughout Europe, the EU wants to create cutting edge technology that will strenghten the region and make the union able to compete on a worldwide stage. However, trying to combine national governments has not been easy, the programs struggle with byrocracy and member states of the European union are tentative about supranational institutions. By engaging in the program national governments have been afraid of how this will affect their sovereignty.

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.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to study how Catalans´ identifications, with respect to their city (Barcelona), their region (Catalonia), their country (Spain) and Europe, are related to each other. Furthermore it deals with whether they use cultural or civic notations when they speak of their identification with the different territorial levels.The thesis is based on a qualitative method with interviews with ten Catalans living in Barcelona, aged from 18 to 58. The result showed that Catalans´ identifications with different territorial levels vary in how they relate to each other. This variation can be classified using three models, namely; ?The Russian doll model? which implies that the identities are ranked hierarchically, ?cross-cutting? that is people can identify themselves with the different levels depending on various situations, and also ?The marble cake model? which means that the different identities are so intertwined that they cannot be separated.

Economy and environment has for a long time been studied separately and seen as incompatible. With a growing society and increasing pressure on environmental issues the need of a new economy with the environment included is necessary. This study examine if European Union´s picture of the waste hierarchy match the reality. Since the purpose with the waste hierarchy is to benefit environmental and economy. A survey was made over Käppalaförbundets waste from 2013, to see where the waste falls in the waste hierarchy.

Since the 1st of May 2004 Cyprus is part of the European Union. The Republic of Cyprus as a whole is part of the Union, but all of the advantages of the Union membership cannot be enjoyed in all parts of the country. Since December 1963 the Cypriot administration has been separated into two, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, and since 1974 the country is also territorially divided. The Greek Cypriot political administration is considered to be the legitimate representative of the Republic of Cyprus, the Turkish Cypriot administration is only recognised by Turkey. Since the disruption of the country in 1963 the UN has been trying to get the Cypriot parties to agree upon a peace solution in order to reunite the country.

The main purpose of this study is to examine if variations in voter turnout for the European Parliament elections in each member state is affected by the rate of national party polarization on the EU-dimension of party politics. The theoretical background assumes that a high level of polarization generates higher voter turnout since more alternatives are presented to the electorate. This makes it easier for the electorate to find a party that represents their preferences. This will, in turn, increase the likelihood that they will participate in the election.This study uses a research design based on a quantitative analysis with data from each member state, except those with compulsory voting, in the European Parliament elections of 2004 and 2009. The results of the analysis indicate a relationship between high levels of party polarization and lower turnout in the European Parliament election.