Institutionaliserad symbolpolitik? En studie av skriftliga förklaringar i Europaparlamentet

Written declarations in the European Parliament have not been given much attention in the field of political science. The scope of this Master's thesis is to examine whether symbolic politics are present in written declarations and how this may show. In this study, the aspects of symbolic politics of written declarations of the sixth parliamentary term are examined using a taxonomy for identifying symbolic politics developed by Peter Santesson-Wilson. The taxonomy is applied on 15 written declarations, all adopted by the European Parliament, dealing with a variety of EU-related issues, ranging from July 2004 to July 2008. The main findings of the study show that symbolic politics is a present phenomenon in nearly all written declarations (13 out of 15 cases) subject to this study. In the final chapter of this study inter alia symbolic politics as a deliberate action is discussed in the view of written declarations. Irrespective of this, one could say that symbolic politics are institutionalised in the European Parliament, at least when it comes to written declarations