Iran has been a critical player in the Syrian war since 2011, crafting a complex foreign policy and military strategy to preserve its Syrian ally. What have been the drivers of Iranian decision-making in this con fl ict? And how has Iranian strategy evolved over the course of the war? This chapter argues …

Purpose: In the era of value-based healthcare, one strives for the most optimal outcomes and experiences from the perspective of the patient. So, patient experiences have become a key quality indicator for healthcare. While these are supposed to drive quality improvement (QI), their use and effectiveness …

This book provides a series of contemporary and international policy case studies analysed through discursive methodological approaches in the traditions of critical discourse analysis, social semiotics and discourse theory. This is the first volume that connects this discursive methodology systematically …

Social enterprises received growing attention since the financial crisis started in 2008, due to severe public sector cut backs and the inability of current structures and policies to meet social problems. This development has also been accelerated by the dissatisfaction of consumers and society in private …

The European Union (EU) and the United States of America (US) are currently negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). TTIP was launched in 2013. TTIP aims at developing trade rules under investment protection that encompasses arbitration as the method to resolve disputes …

Post-structuralist theory has frequently been discarded because of its theoretical character, extremely pluralist approach and lack of problem-solving attitude (Edkins, 1999 ; Campbell, 2013 ; Harcourt, 2007). Indeed, the main claim of post-structuralism is that reality is a socially-constructed artefact which …

Objective In order to deliver good healthcare quality, it should explicitly be taken into account what patients value in healthcare. This study reviews qualitative studies in which patients express what they value. Based on this body of literature a preliminary taxonomy is designed. Methods A systematic …

De onderhandelingen tussen de EU en de VS (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - TTIP) begonnen in 2013. Ze hebben als doel het slechten van handelsbarrières en het harmoniseren en standaardiseren van voorschriften. In de thesis wordt onderzocht, in hoeverre de regelgeving in de EU op het …

Purpose – This study seeks to explore how non-executive directors address governance problems on Dutch two-tier boards. Within this board model, challenges might be particularly difficult to address due to the formal separation of management boards' decision-management from supervisory boards' decision-control …

This thesis focuses on the promotion of democracy by the European Union in Egypt with special regard to the differences before and after the so called 'Arab Spring'. More specific, the guiding question of this thesis is in what extent the EU's promotion of democracy in Egypt has changed after the Arab …