Poltical Economy of European Integration M.A.
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- Germany (2)
- Poland (2)
- Accommodation Services (1)
- Accountability, Data Protection Authority, European Union, Fines, General Data Protection Regulation, Multi-level governance. (1)
- Asylum Seekers and Refugees (1)
- BEV (1)
- Brazil, coronavirus, Coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic, integration, healthcare, Global South, social assurance, social protection, social welfare, Rwanda, universal health insurance. (1)
- Central and Eastern Europe (1)
- China Belt and Road Initiative (1)
- Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) (1)
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This paper reviews the link between national labour market participation oriented policy changes and EU Country Specific Recommendations of such Central European countries as Germany and Poland in 2019.
The aim of this master thesis is to examine the reason of implementation avoidance of Country Specific Recommendations in the labour market participation policies of selected Central European countries - Germany and Poland. There is a need in triggers to increase the participation of women, minority groups, and older employees in the workforce. Increased representation of women, underrepresented populations, and older workers in the workforce is necessary for triggering.
The Commission is responsible for this coordination, and in this paper, recommendations related to the labor market participation policy will be analyzed along with Country Reports to achieve the goal of identifying variations in the implementation and additional precedence of recommendations related to the labor market participation strategy in Poland and Germany in 2019. Thesis studies the participation of women, older employees, and tax disincentives within low wage earners.
The following master thesis introduces relatively new, yet still important and interesting field of research – the use of social media in terms of social movements, and, more specifically, progressive and regressive ones. The thesis argues the impactful role of the Internet in the development of social progress and elaborates on its contradictory aspects, considering different political and social actors. The basis for my research consists of the theoretical foundations of social movements and media and, namely, media effects theory. Empirical analysis will help to distinguish between characteristics of media use in left- and right-oriented activism and its flexibility. Practical contribution to this analysis is made by exemplifying usage of social media in progressive (Fridays for Future) and regressive (Pegida) movements and highlighting different approaches to choosing the network platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Thesis concludes that the role of social media in modern world is undeniable for social progress, however, there is a remarkable difference in progressive and regressive approach. Meaning that, while the first ones are fighting for the renovation of democracy in a given country or society in general, those on the other extreme are putting an effort in undermining trust in established political institutions and violating public order.
COVID-19 pandemic influence on the social protection systems of selected Global South countries.
(2022)
Social protection which is a set of policies and programmes designated to improve people’s life quality and protect them from poverty and social vulnerabilities is something that has been severely impacted by the sudden Coronavirus pandemic that began in late 2019. The following paper will analyse how the social protection systems of Brazil and Rwanda performed in the times of the crisis and its main assumption is that the social protection system in Brazil has failed in the face of COVID-19 pandemic due to deficient and callous governing while the inclusive and efficient policymaking in Rwanda enabled the country’s social protection system to conduct an effective crisis response.
The study will examine what are the country-specific social protection factors that contributed to different crisis responses in the instances of Brazil and Rwanda. The key results are that while the COVID-19 pandemic has disclosed the weaknesses of social protection systems in both Brazil and Rwanda, the first had a failed response because of the dismissive attitude of political leaders which resulted in unsatisfactory consequences in the social protection functionality while the latter performed admirably in the times of a crisis because of a fast institutional healthcare response and communication between the government and the citizens. The research method of this study is literature analysis and review as well as a cross-country comparison.
Food waste or loss is generated within the entire food supply chain from agricultural production to the household level. The level of food waste in the overall food supply chain has negative economic, environmental, and social impacts. The EU has designed and initiated multiple policies targeting and including many different policy areas to tackle food waste. Therefore, this study examines challenges and obstacles facing existing EU food waste policies and initiatives, highlighting the reasons behind the inefficiencies in food waste governance from legislative and food regime theory perspectives. After carefully analyzing current EU legislation related to food waste, the findings indicate that the existing legislation and actions to tackle food waste are disconnected and irregular, such that no agreed comprehensive and established approaches are at the EU level. Existing interventions have hardly addressed the food waste problem directly. While prioritizing the donation of food surplus and food waste hierarchy, the role of market power and corporations and structural explanations in the global food industry have been missing. Therefore, there is a need for a holistic approach to address the issue and an integrated policy framework to tackle food waste.
I. Abstract
It has been three years now since the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became enforceable, which highlighted the end of an era with lack of enforcement in the field of data protection provisions (Albrecht, 2016, p. 287). The EU General Data Protection Regulation, which was effective from 25 of May 2018, has replaced the outdated European Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC). This new regime has brought new legal rights to data subjects, while extending the scope of the responsibilities for controllers and processors. As personal data progressively embodies an important new class of economic asset for organisations, GDPR has significantly expanded the enforcement powers of the Data Protection Authorities. Consequently, it has also enhanced the regulators enforcement rights to impose fines, which may go up to €20 million or, if higher, 4% of an organisation’s annual global turnover (DLA Piper, 2018, p. 5). GDPR has actually replaced a regime under which fines for a data breach were limited and enforcement actions were uncommon. Through this new regime the regulatory environment across European Member States has undoubtedly shifted and regulators have greater powers of enforcement (DLA Piper, 2018, p.3). The fact that the important role of the strict application of the accountability principle was assigned to the national Data Protection Authorities (Albrecht, 2016, p. 288) and the function to exercise corrective powers in case of violation of the Regulation’s provisions has made the topic of fines and other sanctions an issue that has had the attention of all the companies, not only in Europe but worldwide.
Having this context and the importance of the topic in mind, the main focus of the thesis is related to how DPAs’ work on the EU multilevel governance system contribute on the accurate and consistent application of the GDPR. Also, analysing fines as one of the enforcement instruments in the system ruled from the EU principle of accountability is the other central point of the research. Additionally, it is known that we live in times when technology has been frequently developing and where digitalization is progressing in a high scale. This is translated into the flow of personal data (but not only) inside, across borders and IT systems of the EU. Such data flows so easily through IT systems and can as easily be misused from the subject that is processing those data. In order to guarantee, empower the individuals and give them control over their personal data the EU legislator has also detailed the penalties that occur when data that is processed is not in accordance with GDPR. In order to avoid such situation and to correct the cases where violations toward EU data protection law are present, special attention is given to the fines (Article 83-84 GDPR), as a key sanction tool. Therefore, the thesis is concentrated on administrative fines for data protection violations and their issues as well as on the limitations of such a sanction in the system of accountability in Europe. It’s aim is analysing the fines problematic and situations that Member States have faced so far in practice.
Keywords:
Accountability, Data Protection Authority, European Union, Fines, General Data Protection Regulation, Multi-level governance.
This paper investigates the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the catching-up level and global value chain (GVC) integration of new European member states (NMS), considering the manufacturing sector using data of different time spans within the 1990 – 2019 period. After analyzing the differences in FDI inflows in NMS, eight of them are chosen and focused in the study including Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania. Poland and Slovenia are discussed as case studies and evidences of GVC integration. The findings revealed that the inflows of FDI have limited impact and contribution to the improvement of the host economy’s manufacturing industry, economic development and GVC integration. Indeed, FDI mostly relates to product and process upgrading but not functional upgrading. Therefore, the development gap between the NMS and core European economies is not decreased over time. With regards to utilize FDI for economic upgrading, GVC integration, and catching-up, this research stresses the importance of host economies’ absorptive capability and government intervention through industrial policy.
This master thesis aims to identify the defining variables for a market ramp-up of electric road systems (ERS) and to develop scenarios for the potential market launch of the technology in Germany and Europe. For this purpose, a comprehensive analysis of the political, regulatory and economic variables is conducted, which finally leads to the generation of different market ramp-up scenarios.
This master thesis contains an overview of several fields of LGBTQIA+ rights, their
state and situation of the LGBTQIA+ people in the EU. It describes the discourses and
attitudes towards LGBTQIA+ rights in Hungary and Poland, using them as an
illustrative examples of conservative Member States of the EU. A theoretical and
historical context analysis explains and interprets the situation of the CEE region of the
EU, it relates its historical specifcs with the current reality of being part of EU and
draws conclusions on the emerging trends of conservative pushback against liberal
values. Finally it contains EU’s stances and competences related to LGBTQIA+ rights.
The conservative pushback against EU’s equality and anti-discrimination policies
appears to be a response to the top-down approach in imposing norms, stemming from
historical specifics.
Anti – discrimination rules and affirmative action in support of women on the FIFA management board
(2020)
This master thesis contributes to numerous studies on the unanticipated outcome of the
2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum and particularly focuses on
what role social media played in the Leave campaign. Informed by theories and studies on mass
media communication, propaganda and political communication, this topic has been examined
and resulted in the case study: how social media contributed to the success of the Leave side
during the referendum campaign. Based on pre-existed research, reports, and surveys, this work
discusses certain characteristics of statements by Nigel Farage (then a leader of United
Kingdom Independence Party) and its potential influence on voters’ decisions. For a better
overview of the Leave campaign, it also describes the pre-referendum environment created in
traditional and social media. The final part introduces the notorious case of Cambridge
Analytica and its use of personal data in order to change voters’ behaviour and make them optout of the membership in Europe. This study reveals a significant contribution of digital media
to the campaign strategy and making suggestions of what measures need to be taken towards
misused data and spreading disinformation on social platforms.
Privatisation has become one of the hot topics in Germany since the 1980s. Particularly together
with the refugee boost after 2012, the state has transferred its responsibility to provide
accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees to private entities. This paper analyses the impact
of privatisation of accommodation services for asylum seekers and refugees on the physical
conditions of the centres and the living conditions of people living in these centres. It firstly gives
a theoretical framework of privatisation and conveys privatisation of public services as a welfare
state strategy to cut the expenses. Then it explains the status of asylum seekers and refugees in
different welfare state regimes, namely Germany, and lastly, it focuses on a case study where the
state-run accommodation centres and the outsourced accommodation centres are analyzed. By
examining the impacts of privatisation of respective services, this paper mainly addresses the lowcost and high-profit mentality of these private firms and security problems arising from
outsourcing accommodation services for asylum seekers and refugees.
Migration, fleeing and even populism are not new concepts in
today's political discourse - yet the dynamics and perceptions of
these have changed considerably. Especially since the refugee
crisis, the issue of migration has led to strong polarizations in
many European societies.
The objective of this research study is to determine whether
migration automatically leads to an increase in right-wing
populism in the European Union. To do so, the following
research question is being asked: In which context is there an
empirical link between right-wing populism and migration
policy? To answer this research question, country case studies
were consulted in the practical part of this paper. The chosen
reference countries and their right-wing populist parties are
Germany and Italy. Both countries and the success of their rightwing populist parties were analyzed with the same approach and
subsequently compared. The country case studies have shown
that there are different causes per reference country. In Germany,
the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD advertises its right-wing
populist propaganda with the refugee crisis; in Italy, right-wing
populist party success is more likely to be due to the economic
damage of the financial crisis. Migration is not the cause of the
rise of populism in Europe. The causes lie much deeper. But the
fact is that migration has exposed or exacerbated existing lines
of conflict in and between European societies. It is a catalyst, not
a cause.
Right-wing populists benefit from the fact that migration in
Europe is still perceived as the most important or one of the most
significant challenges. What is needed are new political offers
that address the problems that underlie the social lines of conflict.
Prescriptions against right-wing populism cannot be found solely
on the field of integration and migration policy.
In recent years, social media platforms are revolutionizing in a way that users are able to communicate by increasing the exposure to highly stigmatized issues in society. Sexual abuse, as for example, is one such topic that recently took all over social media by simply using the hashtag #MeToo. The aim of it was to empower and motivate women to share posts and stories related to previous sexual abuses that they had experienced. Individuals with different backgrounds and ethnicities began sharing their unfortunate personal experiences with the wide public. Hence, this thesis analyzes how the #MeToo movement escalated from an online trending hashtag to a social movement with the assistance of social media and media coverage.
Considering the purpose of the #MeToo movement, I will mostly focus on the sexual harassment and cyber-violence towards women. Both factors, can profoundly impact women’s psychological, social, and spiritual health. Hence this has a further impact on women’s participation in society. To testify this, I will further analyze the EU drafts and policies that have been undertaken in order to minimize, thus eliminate any sexual violence towards women. Of course, sexual and cyber violence can refer to a range of sexual violations as for instance, the child sexual abuse, but in this paper, the focus will mainly be on the #MeToo movement which does not claim to be a movement for all forms of sexual or gender violence. Hence, the children are not the main audience of the movement and I will therefore not focus on them in this dissertation.
The data collected in this research will further demonstrate through my dissertation the impact that social media has on the 4th wave of feminism, by getting into the roots of the #MeToo movement. Furthermore, with this dissertation, I would like to examine the connection between social media and feminism on its own, and lastly going beyond the #MeToo movement.
Currently, our market economy as embedded in a capitalist system does not account for the sustainability of the environment on which scarce resources it relies beyond their market value. The environmental throughput in the form of CO2 emissions as a consequence of the energy consumed by the market for its economic growth is considered an externality for which the market does not account. This has led to a situation of overshooting the Earth’s environmental capacity to the extent that our human society risks collapse within this century. This paper researches the question of how our mainstream economic theory must change to ensure a sustainable way of life for the current and future generations under the environmental boundaries.
According to mainstream economic theory, a price on externalities like CO2 emissions lowers their consumption, and substitutes are found. Although this might reduce CO2 emissions, it does not prevent other environmental damages, like biodiversity loss. The price of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is currently calculated by governing bodies via Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) which in this paper is represented by the work of William Nordhaus and his Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy (DICE) model.
Contrary to the neoclassical economic theory we research the transdisciplinary field of ecological economics, represented by Kate Raworth and her Doughnut model. This paper explores the shortcomings of mainstream economic theory to develop economic thinking beyond the management of scarce resources in a limited market economy towards the sustainable management of our planetary household and its species well-being. The research method in this paper is the analysis of secondary sources, more specifically academic literature, reports, journalistic articles, and results of climate models.
It is concluded that ecological economics sufficiently extends mainstream economic theory around environmental accountability to constrain economic growth and mitigate harm to the Earth’s system. IAM modelling is highly arbitrary and must be seen as one of many tools of political-environmental decision making. A high carbon emissions price is nonetheless required to reduce carbon emissions. The question, if the political mainstream adopts the principles of ecological economics fast enough to avert the worst climate consequences, remains unanswered. The current level of green policy implementation is not analysed.
Cyprus is a big east Mediterranean island with more than half a century long problem. Unfortunately, this problem was caused by conflicts between two neighbouring nations on the island and with Turkey’s illegal invention this problem became the problem for the century. In this thesis historical development of the problem takes an important place since conflict has very important historical roots. This thesis explains peace projects of the UN on the island and the last well-known peace project called Annan plan which was also supported by the EU. Lastly the EU enlarged the island without solving this historical problem. The EU often uses its strong conditionality power over candidates, yet the EU fails to conduct a peace on the island before it welcomes Cyprus to the Union. The main reason for this fast enlargement decision of the EU was Greece’s open policy for Cyprus. Since Eastern enlargement was important for the EU as a new market and an important security policy, the EU did not want to spend time on Cyprus because this would postpone the eastern enlargement. As a result, Republic of Cyprus became a member of the EU as a whole island, while the problem is still there.
This master's thesis aims at generating a deeper understanding of the Commission's handling of the European fiscal rules and in doing so takes an original approach in conducting quantitative and qualitative research in line with the Mixed Method design. Emphasizing the latter, a Qualitative Content Analysis is employed to examine the Commission's official documents and ergo their justifications in a targeted manner. The main conclusion that can be drawn from this thesis is that while the Commission seemingly applies a sort of post-Keynesian macroeconomic rationality in their enforcement of the European fiscal rules, this idea has to be refuted when closely examined. It is much rather the political considerations that affect the Commission in their exegesis of the European fiscal rules.
Images of Global Governance: China and the European Union, A Case Study of the One Belt One Road
(2020)
The EU Work-Life Balance Directive and its contribution to active paternity in the European Union
(2020)
European Neighboorhood Policy as a power instrument of the Euopean Union: the case Azerbaijan
(2019)
The Economic Partnership Agreements between ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries and the EU has been ongoing since 2002 until current times. Outcome of the negotiations has been varied with some Regional Economic Communities (RECs) quickly concluding a comprehensive agreement whereas other RECs have not and negotiations have prolonged beyond expected deadline date.
This paper looks at the relevant research question of what causes the variations witnessed about outcome of the negotiations of the EPAs. The explanatory power of the Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement – BATNA - as an independent variable derived from the Negotiation Analysis framework is chosen to explain this situation as the traditional Eurocentric theories of the EU as power have proven limited in explaining the varied conclusions of the respective EPAs.
Findings derived was that, outcomes of the negotiated EPAs were principally function by the availability or otherwise of a BATNA as perceived by the parties involved.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF WORK: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLITICAL APPROACHES IN FINLAND AND GERMANY
(2019)
Intersections of care work and ecological sustainability IN HOW FAR CAN TIME BE A COMMON CURRENCY?
(2018)
The following paper is a comparative study of labour market policies and strategies of two welfare states, Germany and the United Kingdom (the UK), aiming to smooth the transition of the labour force to the industry 4.0. The fourth industrial revolution arises number of challenges for the labour market, therefore one should be seeing certain changes in production and employment regimes of the given countries. This study tries to find an evidence of changes in employment and production regimes, described by Duncan Gallie (2007) in “Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work”. The study answers the guiding research questions:
-Can any changes in production and employment regimes be seen?
-What kind of solutions do welfare states, belonging to different types types of employment and production regimes offer for addressing the various challenges that has emerged in the current revolution? (The challenges will be identified in the chapter 3.)
The following hypothesis is tested: under conditions of such rapid technological advancement, the production and employment regimes in Germany and the United kingdom are becoming more and more similar.
The study analyzed Gallie’s Employment and Production regimes (2007), identified main characteristics of each regime and recreated some of the statistical tables of the theoretical framework by using renewed statistical data. The study concludes that changes in production
regimes are indeed happening, and based on new statistical data both countries have strong initial and weak continual educational schemes, whilst there is no significant change in terms of employment regimes.
Common European Asylum System European Union’s response to the refugee inflows from 2013 onwards
(2018)
The aim of this thesis is to analyze the EU’s response to the refugee inflows from 2013 onwards. It will be argued that during the management of the challenge, the member states was far cry from adopting a collective response to the challenge. This commitment-compliance will be attributed to EU’s historically failure to make a clear distinction between market regulation and core state powers in which domestic conflicts and politicization has become considerably relevant. The content of the paper is divided into six chapters. In the first chapter, the scope of the thesis will be explained by touching upon the rationale of the paper and basic terminologies in migration studies. Second chapter will concentrate on theoretical framework explaining the concept of ‘core state powers’ in CEAS, together with its features, problems and consequences in the face of refugee inflows from 2013 onwards. The third chapter will give practical inputs in line with 2015 European Agenda on Migration to show how regulatory integration on core state powers led to a growing commitment compliance gap (Relocation Plan) and externalization practices by the EU. (Hotspot mechanism and Re-admission Agreement).
The present master thesis analyzes the impact of the influx of asylum seekers during 2015/2016 on the asylum framework of the EU and the domestic asylum policy of the member states. The thesis argues that the refugee crisis has contributed significantly to the exposure of the numerous shortcomings of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) one of which is the ignorance of the persistent heterogeneity of the member states that hinders the harmonization of the asylum policies and reception conditions. The first part of the research deals with the baseline of the CEAS and the role of the supranational shaping of the asylum policy field during the current crisis. Following aspects will be here under scrutiny: persistent focus on the external border security arising from the Schengen Agreement, the problem of the burden-sharing under the Dublin Regulation as well as the achieving the goal of tempering the refugee influx by externalization of the issue through the Deal with Turkey. The empirical part focuses on the various EU member states, namely Germany, Greece, and Hungary. The research touches upon historical roots of the asylum policy of the respective member states, legislative developments happening during 2015/2016 and reception conditions. The thesis concludes that the lack of the legitimacy of the regulations coming from the supranational level along with the absence of the profound ideational basis for the elaboration of the common asylum policy facilitated by the deep-rooted diverse historical and institutional context hinders the EU member states to act sufficiently under the critical circumstances and provide an adequate and human-rights oriented response to the massive migratory inflows.
Recently migration has become a subject of concern all around the world. The EU has a long history of receiving migrants, however, with the emergence of the Arab Spring and a chain of revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, Europe had to elaborate a response to the increasing inflow of the illegal migrants. As the EU was mostly concerned about the border securitisation, the humanitarian crisis was unfolding. This paper explores the main migration and border regime policies of the EU to see their impact on the unauthorised border crossings at the illegal migration routes towards the EU. It argues that the migration crisis showed the incapacity of the EU institutions to respond efficiently and in proper time on the emerged challenges at the borders. This thesis explains how the major points of the border crossings were evolving depending on the national and supranational regulations. It was found out that the border regime of the EU wasn’t including mechanisms to deal with a large-scale migration and was based mostly on short-sighted policies. The paper calls for a comprehensive approach to the issue that would be based on solidarity between the Member States and binding regulations.
The financial crisis of 2008 and the austerity period that ensured entailed a redefinition of democracy and the role of political parties in Europe. In this context, a wave of emerging parties place participation at the heart of their political program to reform the system from within. Thus, they aim not only to revive representative democracy but also internal democracy. The present study tests whether their implementation of anti-oligarchization mechanisms is successful in rejecting Robert Michels ‘iron law of oligarchy’. By conducting a micro-ethnography on the Berlin circle of Podemos, it revealed that the party is successful at preventing oligarchy. While oligarchization trends are present, they are countered by an overall strategy for participation and three specific mechanisms: the circle, digital tools and gender equality.