‘Usages of Europe’ and Europeanisation: Evidence from the Regionalisation of Sweden

Abstract:

This article explores the recent regionalisation of Swedish governance – both policy and structure – in order to explore some of the aspects of research on Europeanisation that scholars in the field have recently signalled as especially problematic. We pay particular attention to the role of political cleavages, conflict and contestation, and to the construction and use of policy discourses surrounding European integration as a means of affecting domestic political change.

Using the concept of ‘usages of Europe’ from French political sociology, we trace the development of a network of actors which eventually succeeded in constructing EU membership as a tipping point in what had long been intractable domestic debates around regionalisation in Sweden, and argue that an understanding of the discursive uses of EU membership is vital if scholars are to appreciate how the EU can ‘hit home’ even in the absence of strong formal powers.