We propose that the European Union (EU) should be used in citizenship education as a possible vehicle for citizens’ influence on issues outside the reach of the nation state. Citizenship education thus ought to include the EU as an arena for political action and relevant ‘EU knowledge’ ought to be part of the curriculum. Concepts from the German politische Bildung tradition are used to discuss what should be the content of an education aiming at educating young people to (become) democratic citizens and the level of competence required in order to function as a democratic citizen. The ‘reflecting spectator’ is given special attention. Environmental issues are chosen, for three reasons, to show how EU education can be part of citizenship education: the trans-border character of environmental problems, the multi-level responsibilities connected to them and the fact that virtually all European environmental policy is made in, or in close association with, the EU.
The ‘Europe of the Regions’ debate in the late 1980s and early 1990s influenced the current regionalization process in Sweden; regional actors used it as an argument for further decentralisation of power with a degree of success (Warleigh-Lack & Stegmann McCallion 2012). Thus one important element in any discussion around a ‘Europe of the Regions’ and its possible obsolescence is its impact not just at the EU level but also in the regionalization processes within member states. If the EU is a multi-level polity, then for a Europe of the Regions truly to be ‘obsolete’, it must be absent at each level of the polity, in each member state. This article argues that a Europe of the Regions is far from obsolete, although it may well be patchy and expressed differently, and to different degrees, in each EU state. Focusing on the case of Swedish regional actors, the paper argues that officials and politicians from this level, who participate in politics at the EU level or in the EU arena, see this participation as a win-win situation that they wish to preserve.
This chapter explores how Europeanisation processes can be understood in a time when the pendulum is moving towards more intergovernmental features of the collaboration? Member states have transformed as a result of EU membership; thus, the member states have been Europeanised but if the pendulum is moving towards more intergovernmental features does that mean that the European integration process has reached its end? To answer these questions the chapter explores the Europeanisation processes through top-down and bottom-up perspectives, the strategies member states may use when it comes to influencing the European integration process (pace-setting, fence-sitting, and foot-dragging), and explores if differentiated integration may be a solution for those member states that would like to further deepen European integration.
This chapter explores Sweden’s engagement in the Europeanintegration process, both before and after joining the EU in 1995. Itexplores Sweden’s relationship with the integration process throughthree dimensions: economic, identity and political/security. The chapterfinds that depending on the dimension explored, the awkwardness labelsits somewhat uncomfortably however it also becomes clear that Swedencan indeed be an awkward partner in the European integration process,although the label fits better with some policy
Our study draws on an investigation of Sweden’s participation in the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) to ask what it can reveal regarding how ‘awkward’ states in regional integration – those regularly considered by their partners to be beyond the regional mainstream – can secure their preferences nonetheless. We test the independent variables of ‘awkwardness’, by focusing on the ongoing work of officials charged with making the EUSBSR work in practice. We thereby seek to add to existing macro-level analyses of Sweden’s place and position in the European Union that tend to focus on ‘big picture’ matters. Our findings suggest that Swedish actors working within the various agencies and institutions associated with the EUSBSR have been able to offset their country’s perceived awkwardness by developing a reputation for everyday effectiveness and reliability. This leads us to the tentative conclusion that under certain conditions awkward states can offset this status, and, in the words of the everyday metaphor, have their cake and eat it too.
In this chapter, we introduce the concept of awkwardness inregional integration, showing how it can apply both to states and to therelationship between states and their respective regional organisationsand processes. We apply the terminology and variables developed byPhilomena Murray, Baogong He, and Alex Warleigh-Lack in their 2014article to the cases of our five Nordic states and sketch the relationshipbetween the five states studied in this volume and European integration.We close the chapter by presenting the structure of the volume andintroducing its following chapters.
This book provides the first lengthy study of awkward states/partners in regional integration. Is awkwardness a characteristic of states in many global regions, or is it reducible to the particular case of the United Kingdom in European integration? The authors assess how far the concept of ‘awkwardness’ can travel, and apply it to the cases of the Nordic States’ involvement in and with the European Union - Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway. The renewed interest in the Nordic region is in part thanks to recent events in the on-going crisis of European integration, and particular its member states’ response to the refugee question, which appears to be undermining years of intra-regional solidarity even between the Nordic countries. The security dimension of the region further broadens the book’s readership beyond Nordic Politics specialists to IR scholars, as the Nordic countries share borders with Russia and are key players in the Baltic Sea Strategy seeking to involve Russia in looser forms of regional cooperation.