The thesis deals with the political discourse surrounding the 2016 EU-Turkey Agreement on Migration in the European Parliament (EP). By analysing parliamentary debates, it examines how different...Show moreThe thesis deals with the political discourse surrounding the 2016 EU-Turkey Agreement on Migration in the European Parliament (EP). By analysing parliamentary debates, it examines how different political groups in the EP discuss this topic. Through directed content analysis, the analysis looks into five different factors encompassing security, normative, economic, cultural and diplomatic aspects. The thesis highlights that parties’ discourses on the EU-Turkey deal are shaped along different cleavages, including left-and right, GAL and TAN, pro and against European integration, as well as the geographical dimension.Show less
The European Parliament’s vote on the European Climate Law was a controversial and pivotal battle ground for the climate politics, with the Greens and The Left joining the far-right Identity &...Show moreThe European Parliament’s vote on the European Climate Law was a controversial and pivotal battle ground for the climate politics, with the Greens and The Left joining the far-right Identity & Democracy Group in a vote against the law, while the Socialists and European People’s Party voted in favor. Expert analyses judge the Climate Law as insufficiently ambitious in light of the European Union’s targets set out in the Paris Agreement. This thesis, using Habermas’ theory on deliberative democracy as a framework, focuses on the European Parliament’s plenary debates on the European Climate Law to investigate whether democratic deliberation has a connection with climate policymaking. By conducting a discourse analysis of plenary debates using the Discourse Quality Index, this thesis explores the connection between deliberation and climate policy. The debates on the European Climate Law are analyzed, including a total of 141 speeches. As political groups have a high level of internal cohesion, the results are broken down according to political groups and their respective votes on the EU’s Climate Law. The results show that the political groups which voted against the climate law - due to its lack of ambition – had the highest quality of deliberation in the debates. The group which voted against the law - due to it being too ambitious – had the lowest quality of deliberation. These results suggest that a higher quality of deliberation is associated with more ambitious climate policy. The findings of this thesis thereby support the idea that strengthening deliberative democracy has the potential of making climate policymaking more aligned with the ambition of the Paris Agreement.Show less
