Reforming the European Union budget: A social constructivist policy approach

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2010

Öğrenci: MUSTAFA DENİZ

Danışman: SEVİLAY KAHRAMAN

Özet:

The budget of the European Union has accomplished a significant role for European integration in the history of the Union. However, it has not resulted into anticipated developments compatible with the Union’s institutional policy reform process in the last decades. The budget has emerged as a consequence of path dependent developments in its historical progress, which has dragged the European Union to a critical stage. It is rather challenging for the Union now to sustain the current structure of the budget, since it exposes some disadvantages to continue with this structure in an enlarging and deepening Union. In spite of various reform proposals, there is no appropriate theoretical ground for the budgetary politics of the European Union to be channelled through strengthening the link between the Union and European citizens. This thesis attempts to approach the existing problems associated with expenditures and revenues of the current budget from the social constructive policy perspective, in line with the major question of “how the budget can be made more socially constructive by utilizing expenditures and revenues?” The study has three major objectives. Firstly, it presents a historical evolution of the European Union budget in order to explore path dependent developments inherent to its historical progress. Secondly, it offers a critical analysis on the expenditure and revenue sides of the budget. Thirdly, it introduces a social constructivist policy approach on this subject as an alternative to the most prevalent approach of fiscal federalism.