Interest groups play a big role in the functioning of the democracy of the EU. These players that lobby for different interests can make a positive, but also a negative contribution to EU politics. The influence of the interest groups on the EU institutions can vary, and some will always be more influential …

Silvio Berlusconi was Italy's longest serving Prime Minister since the Second World War. As Prime Minister, he exercised control over the three public television channels in Italy. The combination of a strong political figure that controls large parts of public media and has considerable business interests …

The dissertation at hand is embedded in the context of the 2014 European elections that have brought to light a strong Eurosceptic sentiment throughout Europe. It picks up on the intention to create a new Eurosceptic group in the European Parliament as brought forward by right-wing populists Geert Wilders …

Het belang van innovatie voor economische groei en het scheppen van werkgelegenheid in het MKB wordt erkend door zowel academici als politici. Er worden daarom programma’s ontwikkeld om innovatie te stimuleren. Met deze maatregelen ontstaat de vraag te bepalen of deze initiatieven succesvol zijn en zo …

As an essential basic principle of the European Union, the free movement of workers has been on everyone’s lips with the European Enlargement of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007. With the complete abolishment of the restrictions on the free movement of workers for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens in Germany …

Luchtvaartfeiten.nl is een initiatief van de Aviation Academy van de Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA). Studenten en docenten delen kennis met politiek en publiek om te zorgen voor een discussie op basis van feiten. De feiten worden gepresenteerd in fact sheets: korte, bondige overzichten van actuele luchtvaartthema’s. …

The ambition to host mega sports events is (or can be) perfectly justifiable with various arguments. The most persistently used argument is the supposed financial or direct economic gain for the host economy, of which the compelling body of evidence is discouraging. This implies that the justification …

On 26 January 1998, during a press conference in the White House, President Bill Clinton famously told the nation, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" (Clinton, 1998). Now, 15 years later, almost everyone can still recall those famous words. In this dissertation, the interaction …

At the end of the nineties, many unaccompanied minor asylum seekers (UMAs) came to the Netherlands due to wars and continuing violence in the world. Many UMAs try to find a new home and ask for asylum in order to get protection. Therefore, the asylum issue has become an urgent item on the political agendas …