Suchergebnisse

Journalists not only represent political leaders in terms of their policies and political competence. The personalities and private lives of leaders have also become an important component in mediated stories and narratives crucial for voter identifi-cation and interest. This chapter explores how the Swedish press reports on prime ministers' social backgrounds, personal appearance and leadership characteristics in relation to party affiliation. The empirical material consists of news reporting on four former Swedish prime ministers: two from the Swedish Social Democratic Party; and two from the Moderate Party. The findings show that it is not only party affiliation that is of interest to journalists in reporting on prime ministers. Broader societal trends of what it means to be a politician in a certain time and era also influence reporting.

Despite the growing debate over the European Commission's (hereafter, Commission) role in crises, there are few systematic explanations for the variety of actions undertaken by the Commission in times of crisis. This article outlines a heuristic device to explain the Commission's actions during crises, based on the variables 'Commission mandate' and 'member state engagement'. To this end, it examines two crisis events that affected two strategically important policy areas for European Union integration: the early stages of the financial crisis that began in 2008 and the migration following the 2011 Arab Spring. Based on analysis of these cases, this study identifies four strategies applied by the Commission: doer, follower, cooperator and recycler. Our study concludes that member state engagement and Commission mandate are important variables in explaining under which circumstances these strategies are used by the Commission

This report covers the key findings about mapping exercises and the analysis of: - the effectiveness and legitimacy of Commission, European Council, and Council of the European Union's transboundary crisis management capacity -the role of the European Commission, in which much crisis management capacity, expertise and leadership potential can be found; and the relatively recent role of European Council in providing political direction to EU crisis management efforts